Mainstream economists exonerated Bernanke while scapegoating Greenspan for the crisis

Evidence

Bernanke’s Fed has not suffered from what can only be judged an intellectual imbroglio of epic proportions; this has been one of the most glaring instances of economists getting away with murder. Bernanke assiduously deployed the Fed’s prodigious public relations arm and lobbying bench to proclaim that he had taken the extreme but necessary steps in order to keep the Great Recession from turning into another Great Depression; and yet there was very little that was “principled” about this gusher of federal loans and subsidies directed to bail out insolvent organizations headed by people with the right political connections. How was this so very different from the so-called Greenspan put, which had operated the same way with the lesser financial crises during his reign? Yet the orthodox economics profession (including nominally leftist critics, such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz) fell right into line, praising the deft perspicuity of the Fed chairman in transforming the Fed into a beacon of financial rectitude and disaster deliverance. Greenspan had made for a convenient pariah once he famously conceded his “error” in congressional testimony of October 23, 2008, but mostly, it served only to divert attention from the even worse behavior of Bernanke. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 512

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s central ‘thought collective’ thesis — the orthodox profession’s self-protective scapegoating mirrors the other mechanisms of denial documented elsewhere in the volume. — connects to: Establishment economists defended Greenspan despite the 2008 crisis — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 2035; Mainstream economists defended theory by scapegoating Greenspan-style market fundamentalism — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 700; The Boston Fed exonerated economists by calling bubble warnings minority views with poor data — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 532 (+1 more)
• SEED: Angle: the scapegoat function in economics orthodoxy — how designating one apostate (Greenspan’s ‘error’) shields the whole apparatus, including nominal left critics, from reckoning.

Broader Connections

• Mainstream economists defended theory by scapegoating Greenspan-style market fundamentalism #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 700
• Mainstream economists defended their failure by calling crises tautologically unpredictable. #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 2190
• The Boston Fed exonerated economists by calling bubble warnings minority views with poor data #qualifies (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 532