Stat Nerds Now Overtaking The Government

We know we re going all financial on you today over here, but here s something interesting: The new chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, appointed by President Bush, is a, of all things, sabermatrician. Yep: He s a Bill James cultist.

Supposedly, Bernanke, a longtime Red Sox fan, while in graduate school at MIT, wrote a lengthy, statistics-heavy dissertation on Boston s history of losing, using on-base percentage, and win expectancy, and value over replacement player, all those nerdy sabermetric terms that we use sometimes to convince our father he knows nothing about sports, nothing! While we re not surprised that Dubya would pick another baseball fan to take over a top post — frankly, we re surprised he didn t tap Nolan Ryan over Harriet Miers for Supreme Court justice — and we re excited to have a stat dork as the nation s Head Accountant, we can t help but point out a Bernanke sin that we kind of think is unforgivable.

When Bernanke, this supposed huge Red Sox fan, learned that Washington had notched a baseball team, he changed his allegiance to the Nationals. We don t know if we trust this guy to be in charge of interest rates.

Bernanke's Learning Curve [Washington Post]