Whether it is Jeremy Paxman, Tim Sebastian, Lise Doucette or Owen Bennett-Jones, the Beeb has evolved an interview-style unparalleled in the english-speaking world for its confrontational directness.
The Interview, while one of the BBC's least-aggressive forums still provides sufficient "punch" to make it a worthwhile weekly essential. This past Saturday saw NYU Economist and Bernanke academic sidekick Mark Gertler under the gun of award-winning Owen Benett-Jones, and the result is worth listening to for all interested in the evolution of the current de-leveraging, revulsion and soon-to-deepen recession. While perhaps a touch too sanguine in comparison to Nouriel Roubini's, he does provide valuable perspective to temper the hyperbole from the media whose use of increasingly-heated and inflated adjectives to depict even ordinary market phenomena should be troubling to those trying to maintain objectivity on affairs.
Check it out here: BBC: The Interview
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The arrogance of Gertler is breathtaking. He argues Bernanke is uniquely qualified to deal with the crisis. Gee, I would have thought a small group of lesser mortals would be better qualified: namely, those that actually had a clue about the risks of 1% policy rates!
Gertler repeatedly implies it was impossible to predict the crisis. He dismisses Roubini as a serial Cassandra. "Nobody saw it coming," is his mantra.
Gee, I did. You did. That's two. What he really means is no respectable academic economist saw it coming. Which just tells you a lot about respectable academic economists.
Finally, he argues that, unlike in Japan, this is a liquidity problem for the vast majority of "healthy" banks. He still doesn't get it.
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