Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's 60 Minutes was unusual in that Bernanke weighed in on issues other than strict Fed policy and into larger economic issues swirling in the national debate:
On fiscal policy, a topic he has largely avoided, Mr. Bernanke repeated his point that the government should avoid an immediate contraction that could jeopardize the fragile recovery, while at the same time starting to address “the long-term structural budget deficit.”
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When asked about rising inequality in the United States, Mr. Bernanke offered a response that was likely to be embraced by liberals.
“It’s a very bad development,” he said. “It’s creating two societies. And it’s based very much, I think, on educational differences. The unemployment rate we’ve been talking about. If you’re a college graduate, unemployment is 5 percent. If you’re a high school graduate, it’s 10 percent or more. It’s a very big difference.”
Mr. Bernanke added: “It leads to an unequal society, and a society which doesn’t have the cohesion that we’d like to see.”
It has lead to an unequal society, there's no hypothetical about that: "The top-earning 20 percent of Americans - those making more than $100,000 each year - received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line...." The gap in incomes is the greatest it's been in more than 40 years.
But there's a connection on the two issues--austerity and income inequality. The kind of austerity programs--like Social Security cuts--would cause a lot more pain as you go down the economic ladder.
When you've got Ben Bernanke and Bernie Sanders on the same page, it's time to take the issue very seriously.