Bernanke gives lectures on gold standard

This final note on the way out. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke went back to the classroom today. The one-time Princeton economist is giving four lectures at George Washington University this semester. Today’s topic was the gold standard.

Here’s a sample.

Ben Bernanke: There’s a story told that a British Treasury official was taking a bath. An aide came running in, saying, ‘We’re off the gold standard, we’re off the gold standard!’ And he said, ‘I didn’t know we could do that!’ But they could, and they had to — they had no choice, because there was a speculative attack on the pound.

The lesson there? Yeah, even from Bernanke, economics is still boring.