Zero Hedge: Nearly a decade after his now laughably idiotic prediction that the Fed could hike rates in “15 minutes if we have to” – which of course it could and it would then promptly crash markets as late 2018 showed which is also why the Fed will never be able to normalize monetary policy ever again
Ahead of his address to the American Economic Association’s annual meeting on Saturday, Bernanke wrote in a blog post that “the new policy tools are effective,” perhaps seeking to reassure himself and other central bankers rather than the population and commercial banks around the globe, which is reeling from an onslaught of populism in response to the historic wealth transfer programs initiated by central banks whose negative rate policies have brought the European financial sector to the edge of the abyss.