A plain speaking enemy of inflation

WASHINGTON -- Ben Bernanke, an economist known for intellectual curiosity, posed a question in The Wall Street Journal five years ago: ''What Happens When Greenspan is Gone?"

President Bush gave the answer yesterday: Bernanke will replace retiring Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.

Bernanke, 51, is an Ivy League-trained academic, a former member of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors, and the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers since June.

''Ben Bernanke is the right man to build on the record Alan Greenspan has established," Bush said from the Oval Office, summing up a resume of scholarly achievements, written accomplishments, and academic pursuits.

Bush mentioned Bernanke's speeches -- ''widely admired for their keen insight and clear, simple language."

In other words, he doesn't talk like Greenspan.

While ''irrational exuberance" and the housing market's ''signs of froth" were Greenspan's calling cards -- language that left economists and the public parsing his words -- Bernanke favors plain terminology.

A believer in keeping inflation at around 2 percent, Bernanke has reached into children's literature to embrace a ''Goldilocks" theory -- not too hot, not too cold.

Bernanke's approach extends from the world of monetary policy to the local school board. He served two terms as a member of the Montgomery Township Board of Education in New Jersey, not far from Princeton University where he was an economics professor and department chairman.

''He was very good at seeing the big picture and being able to translate a difficult concept into plain English," said Laurie Navin, who served on the board with Bernanke for six years.

Jamie Savedoff, who also served on the school board with Bernanke, described him as a ''very evenhanded, calm, collected, rational person."

Richard Yamarone, chief economist at Argus Research in New York, praised Bernanke's intelligence and abilities but questioned the wisdom of picking an academic with no Wall Street experience to run the central bank.

''I don't know if we're going to come up with another maestro," Yamarone said, referring to Greenspan. ''We're more in line to get a college music professor."