How Ben Bernanke triggered off the Great Depression - Heleen Mees

Heleen Mees

Economist Heleen Mees is making her first inroads into the US media with her PhD, blaming Chinese savings as the basis for the current financial crisis. But they got help, explains Heleen Mees in CNBC, as Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, triggered of aggressive rate cuts from the early 2000s.

CNBC:

The study, which compared financial market responses to U.S., Chinese and German quarterly GDP from 2006 through 2009, shows that the Chinese have been saving more than half of their GDP during that time. Those savings were heavily skewed towards fixed income assets like government bonds and depressed interest rates worldwide from 2004 on. 

This allowed for interest rates around the world to fall, and sparked a boom in the U.S. housing market due to the availability of cheap money. 

The study also argues that Ben Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, set the world up for the Great Recession by providing the “intellectual backing for the aggressive rate cuts in the early 2000s.”

More in CNBC.

Heleen Mees is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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