Its task for most of the past 100 years has been to regulate growth — not to manage decline. Much of the commentary you saw prior to 2008, such as Ben Bernanke’s sincere lack of concern about a US housing bubble (“I guess I don’t buy your premise. It’s a pretty unlikely possibility. We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis…”) is, of course, duplicated today as we confront a similar endgame in sovereign debt.

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