WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) ) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke believes history has already vindicated the novel efforts of the U.S. central bank to revive the economy after the financial crisis of 2008.

The Fed and the Bank of England offered financial aid to beleaguered banks and deployed tools such as quantitative easing — creating new money — on a massive scale to help heal badly damaged economies.

The result has been that the U.S. and Britain have grown much faster than the European Union, whose response has been less aggressive.

“ ‘By stabilizing the financial system, we avoided much, much worse persistently bad consequences for our economies.’ ” — Ben Bernanke

“By stabilizing the financial system, we avoided much, much worse, persistently bad consequences for our economies,” Bernanke said in an interview with Mervyn King on BBC. King was head of the Bank of England during the crisis and was a constant ally of Bernanke, a longtime friend whom he had first met at MIT three decades earlier.

Critics of quantitative easing contend it’s too early for the Fed to declare victory. The central bank still has to successfully manage the reduction in historically large balance sheets without causing any severe economic side effects, they say.

In a Pattonesque way, Bernanke said he found dealing with the crisis “incredibly stimulating” because he was able to draw on a lifetime of academic study about the causes of the Great Depression and how to avoid another one. “I feel that the work I did as a academic paid off and that I was able to use that to help solved these problems,” he said. “That’s very satisfying, though it’s not an experience I would voluntarily repeat.”

No surprise there. Bernanke spent countless hours managing the crisis through 2008 and 2009 and had to see a doctor after experiencing episodes of physical discomfort.

“There certainly was a lot of stress. I once went to a gastroenterologist,” Bernanke recounted. “He said, ‘Do you think your problem might be caused by stress?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s possible.’ ”

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