You realize the "Time Magazine Person of the Year" is not necessarily an award or recognition of any type of accomplishment? "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year." Time Magazine chose Bernanke because they believed he like none other coined the course of the world in 2008, not because he necessarily did such an amazing job at what he's doing. Both Hitler and Stalin were "Person of the Year".
I was aware of that but the editorial was nevertheless very clear on it's interpretation of Bernanke's performance these last years. "The story of the year was a weak economy that could have been much, much weaker. How the mild-mannered man who runs the Federal Reserve prevented an economic catastrophe ." http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1946375_1947251,00.html An opinion they are entitled to ofcourse.
This clown is insulated from the natives. I will give him credit for taking lying to a new, higher plane, though.
Thank you Mr Option James Bond! Someone else remembers when times were great so noone questioned Bill Clinton when he repealed Glass-Steagal (and handed the pen to Sandy Weil of Citicorp) or his sleazy back room deals to purposely do an end-around republican controlled congress to enhance Jimmy Carters CRA. He did this with the help of Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy, and a young wide-eyed rookie head of HUD Andy Cuomo. They forced FNM and FRE to relax lending practices to sub-prime borrowers. At the time this move was applauded by the left and even some of the rest of the country. 5 years later there were concerns, 10 years later it was out of control, 15 years later it nearly brought the financial world to its knees.
Caveat emptor. If they get rid of Bernanke, it won't be to bring in a reformer. They will bring in someone who will ramp QE up to new levels and debase the dollar.
Ben is the favorite pal of the republican elite and their teagagging foot soldiers. He's not going anywhere. They're hell bent in destroying America and ben is the right guy for that. All of a sudden we'll see the party of NO turn into the party of yes when ben's confirmation comes up. I'll bet it's going to be a voice vote.
It's difficult to see what a central bank governor who doesn't believe in "creative destruction" could have done differently. Maybe cut rates a bit earlier? He cut rates before the ECB, BOE and others. He used a lot of policy tools to try to avert a systemic meltdown. If there's a problem with Bernanke, it's a problem with the nature of the Fed rather than his stewardship of it. He saw the crisis too late, that was his only real fault, but does anyone really believe people would have listened if in his first year he'd have warned about a housing bubble and subsequent crash? Basically Bernanke hasn't done amazingly well but didn't do too badly in the circumstances.