"DETHRONE KING BERNANKE," SAYS AMITY SHLAES

(And get rid of the throne while you're at it!)

(Bloomberg) -- The Queen of England recently heard from her nation’s economic experts, who wrote to apologize for their profession’s inability to predict the financial crisis.

It’s different in the U.S. Here, economists don’t apologize to the throne. They sit on it.

The throne in the U.S. is the post of chairman at the Federal Reserve.

... In 2002, when Bernanke was still a mere count in the Fed court, he spoke at an event honoring his fellow economist, Milton Friedman. Bernanke recited the errors of the Depression- era monetary authorities, errors Friedman himself had first pointed out: they forced an epic deflation and banking credit crisis on Americans.

Bernanke then promised that he and his Fed colleagues “won’t do it again.”

Fast forward to Sunday in Kansas City, where Bernanke, now chairman, said the current crisis might already be worse than the Great Depression. In other words, the Fed policy of the current decade has worked insufficiently, or hasn’t worked, or has made matters worse. Hardly the festive results both Bernanke and the late Friedman hoped for. Yet the more trouble their arbitrary policy causes, the more ennobled our central bankers seem.