Afternoon Must-Read: Binyamin Appelbaum: Why the Bernanke Fed Was Worse in 2008 than the Greenspan, Volcker, Martin, or Eccles Feds Would Have Been

Binyamin Applebaum: The Curse of Unanimity: “The transcripts that the Federal Reserve released… of… 2008… record in painful detail the ignorance of its officials….

What the transcripts do not explain is why the Fed failed at one of its most basic tasks…. The Fed discounted good data, failed to build better models… persisted in its mistaken assumptions… [even though] other people were able to see the cliff…. Fed officials strongly prefer to agree with each other. They are not satisfied with making decisions by a majority vote. They prefer to act unanimously. Sandra Pianalto, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said in a speech Thursday that this esprit de corps has been a great strength…