Three cheers...

FOR Ben Bernanke, America's Federal Reserve chairman (think chairman of the Bank of England) whose speech on the state of the US economy included these words clearly directed at quarrelling politicians: “The country would be well-served by a better process for making fiscal decisions.” Bernanke was pointing his finger at the recent stand-off over the debt-ceiling between Obama and the Republican Party in Congress from which neither emerged with great credit. He is right to ask them to do better.