Explores the work of the world's most powerful central bankers-- --Ben Bernanke of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Mervyn King of the Bank of England, and Jean-Claude Trichet of the European Central Bank--offering a view from the cockpit of the global economy as the three men struggled to keep it from going down.;Opening the spigot -- Rise of the alchemists, 1656-2006. Johan Palmstruch and the birth of central banking ; Lombard Street, Rule Britannia, and Bagehot's dictum ; The First Name Club ; Madness, nightmare, desperation, chaos : when central banking goes wrong-- in two acts ; The anguish of Arthur Burns ; Spinning the roulette wheel in Maastricht ; Masaru Hayami, tomato ketchup, and the agony of ZIRP ; The Jackson Hole Consensus and the Great Moderation -- Panic, 2007-2008. The Committee of Three ; Over by Christmas ; A wall of money -- Aftermath, 2009-2010. The battle for the Fed ; The new Greek Odyssey ; The King's speech ; The perilous maiden voyage of the QE2 -- The second wave, 2011-2012. The chopper, the troika, and the Deauville debacle ; The President of Europe ; Escape velocity ; Super Mario world ; Governor Zhou's Chinese medicine ; Back to Jackson.