Janet Yellen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When the Fed announced in September that it would postpone indefinitely the cessation of the economic vandalism that is Quantitative Easing (QE), investors and pundits expressed surprise. They shouldn’t have. Walter Bagehot brightly telegraphed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s QE audible well over 100 years ago.

In his 19th century classic, Lombard Street, Bagehot described the individuals who aspire to central banking positions as ‘vain’ and ‘grasping,’ and in doing so, he easily foretold what Bernanke would do. For Bernanke to have ‘tapered’ would have been for the man who so publicly lusted for and politicked for the Fed Chair to voluntarily remove himself from the limelight. Not on your life.

Central bankers live for the attention of people infinitely wiser and more accomplished than they are, and clearly relish the fact that true achievers hang on their every word.