Telling the World's Bankers How It Is

She came to Jackson Hole, Wyo., to speak truth to the confessedly powerless. And becauseChristine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, is not a central banker, but a politician, she could speak truth in the simple language that politicians understand.

Here we have Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, on Saturday: "Smooth factor sustainability could rid us of the Harrod-Domar boom-bust cycle." Surely a rallying cry that will resonate in the corridors of power in Berlin, Washington, Brussels, Paris and wherever policy makers gather. Add to that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's confession of virtual impotence and his insistence that the next moves to prevent another recession are up to politicians, not the central bankers, who have almost run out of ammunition. This is a view in which Mr. Trichet implicitly concurs when he says that future growth will depend on the pace of technological progress, productivity, the removal of economic rigidities and all of the things repeatedly addressed at the serial meetings and by the serial pronouncements of European politicians, but beyond the purview of central bankers.