I am going to have to say yes, he did keep the economy from a second depression, he did everything perfect. How hard is it to take rates down to 0%, create programs like xyz and abc to give the banks free access to all the money they need and run the printing press 24/7 creating what we all know today as MONOPOLY money.
I have to disgree with the belief that Bernanke kept us from a second depression. If you view high double digit unemployment figures as a depression - and to me that's all that matters - than we are in one right now. I don't see anything on the horizon that will re-absorb the 6.7 million jobs lost so far. In terms of employment - the past decade of job growth just vanished. Remember, we need a GDP of 2.5% just to keep employment steady - to absorb 150,000 people per month into the work force to maintain the waterline. That's not happening. It is only getting worse and this crap about it getting less worse is just that - crap. What Bernanke has done, however, is to avoid a systemic collapse - you know, the reliance on shot gun shells and canned food type of scenario. And if so... did he really avoid the systemic collapse, or just put it off? Just my humble opinon. As for the choice of Bernanke.... the current paradigm cannot be replaced too easily or too sharply. It's a catch 22. Replace the current paradigm and things get a lot worse quicker until they rebalance. Maintain the paradigm, and you potentially just succeed in delaying the inevitable all the while praying for a new bubble in some growth industry that will save us from the inevitable. My guess is that it will utlimately lead to a major war. There's just no other event or plan that can get us out of this mess. Period.
They didnt keep us from a depression. They basically charged every man woman and child about 8000 dollars in future taxes with how much deficit they have run up so far. What is really sad is that a baby that is born today, is already in debt to the government for over $38,000.
âThe time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this armyâ -- Gen. George Washington, to his troops before the battle of Long Island
We are in one. Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama knows better than to withdraw troops at this point. Destroying and killing keeps a lot of people employed.
Doesn't the notion of "Major War" imply the use of nukes at some point? How does a nuclear exchange "get us out of this mess"? I don't see major war as a positive alternative in even the most remote sense.