Bernanke is Time’s Person of the Year
EmailWhat a difference a week makes… Last week, Ben Bernanke faced a public flogging in the Senate Banking Committee, which votes tomorrow on his nomination to a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. A vocal minority blamed him for being asleep at the switch as banks leveraged themselves to the hilt with bad loans and called on him to resign. Today he is being lauded by Time magazine as the man who saved the nation and the world from a second Great Depression. As Bernanke himself has acknowledged, there's some truth to both views. The former Princeton economics professor has been frank to say "mistakes" were made at the Fed, which failed in one of its primary missions of overseeing the safety and soundness of banks. But he is also quick to argue that without the massive bailouts he and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson engineered last fall, the nation today would be mired in an economic crisis far worse than the one it's in. Bernanke supporters–and there are plenty of them in the financial community–have long said it's tough to get credit for something that didn't happen. But Time has decided to do just that in naming Bernanke its Person of the Year. Now we wait for Congress to sign off on him keeping his job for another four years.
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“and there are plenty of them in the financial community” Why would that be?
He has delayed the pain but moved us closer to financial insolvency. Good thing, bad thing? Don’t really know.
Posted by: Huh | December 16, 2009, 10:32 am 10:32 am
What about me? Barnard MadeOff.
Posted by: freedom | December 16, 2009, 10:59 am 10:59 am
What a freaking joke. The man -who was drunk off the idea of easy credit- helmed the ship that crashed into economic disaster and is now “man of the year” because he managed to salvage some of the wood from shipwreck he caused.
“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”
Posted by: greg | December 16, 2009, 11:09 am 11:09 am
Since we’re talking about TIMES magazine, “Person of the Year” really means “Villian of the Year” to most people with common sense. Even then, I felt Bernanke should have came in 2nd to Madoff.
Posted by: palestinianalarmclock | December 16, 2009, 11:16 am 11:16 am
The mainstream media continues to discredit itself daily…
Posted by: jafo | December 16, 2009, 11:53 am 11:53 am
Making Bernanke the person of the year is like giving Obama The Nobel Peace Prize.
Posted by: CW | December 16, 2009, 12:20 pm 12:20 pm
Anyone with a base knowledge of economics would realize that letting the banks fail simply was not an option. Letting the entire financial system implode? That would have put us in a pretty insolvent position.
Posted by: Tyler | December 16, 2009, 12:23 pm 12:23 pm
Darn, the FED must have bought off Time for this mistake. Oh wait, his confirmation vote must be coming up very soon. Maybe Bernanke believes Congress will agree with Time. Doesn’t matter he will be confirmed anyway, birds of feather.
Posted by: Meme | December 16, 2009, 12:23 pm 12:23 pm
You no longer need guns to rob banks, wall street or anyone else in this country!
Posted by: Themaddgreek | December 16, 2009, 12:33 pm 12:33 pm
The Washington Post reported yesterday that the IRS is giving CITI $38 billion dollars in tax credits.
Posted by: CW | December 16, 2009, 12:42 pm 12:42 pm
I agree something needed to be done about the banks and that letting them fail was not an option. However the previous administration under Paulsen gave them a trillion dollars with no strings. Biggest business mistake ever made. The banks took that money and gave us nothing in return. I have to believe Paulsen wasn’t that dumb and was just trying to help his “pals” remain obscenely rich. No other good explanation.
Posted by: moby | December 16, 2009, 1:13 pm 1:13 pm
Seriously, who the hell even reads Time?
Posted by: DP | December 16, 2009, 1:17 pm 1:17 pm
I am not content with the results, as he was like even not in the top three.
Posted by: Amirhosein | December 16, 2009, 1:31 pm 1:31 pm
Adolph Hitler made Times “Man of the Year”.
The year was l939.
Posted by: ddg | December 16, 2009, 1:53 pm 1:53 pm
Well I guess I have now lost faith on the Nobel people, and now time. Gues I will quit buying it if they are this stupid to name a man person of the year in an economy that hasnt really recovered.
Posted by: humberto gomez | December 16, 2009, 1:54 pm 1:54 pm
hey wait a minute! I thought Iranian protesters were number 1 in the list. If you didn’t select the nominees out of your voting page why did you set it up in the first place???
Posted by: ronak | December 16, 2009, 2:00 pm 2:00 pm
War mongering — Give him a Peace Prize!
Engineering a Depression with financial cronyism — Man of the Year!
Gee I bet those in the financial community that back ol’ Ben – might see things that way because of the Billions of Dollars handed out to them? Oh yeah..
War is Peace
Depression is Recovery
Tyranny is Freedom
Up is Down
Left is Right
Wake up people we have a 1 party system! – they prefer the title “New World Order”
Posted by: Stifled Truth | December 16, 2009, 3:31 pm 3:31 pm
Bernanke leads the most secretive, corrupt, and profitable banking cartel in the world– he has certainly earned the notoriety. TO be precise, they should call him ‘Racketeer of the Year’. Trouble is, he has earned his queationable accolades by destroying the US economy, bankrupting its citizens, and throwing millions out of their homes. “But it coulda been worse”, right, Ben?
Posted by: h5mind | December 16, 2009, 4:02 pm 4:02 pm
With a national debt of over $12 trillion and newly raised ceiling of $14
trillion, insolvency is already here.
Posted by: Meme | December 16, 2009, 4:25 pm 4:25 pm
Most of the comments I’ve read here have been foolish in nature. Third quarter U.S. GDP rose by 2.8%. The number of net jobs lost last month was only 11,000, and the unemployment rate in November FELL from 10.2% to 10%. For all those folks who know nothing about economics, THESE ARE ALL GOOD SIGNS!
People criticize Bernake because they want someone to blame. And though more could have been done to prevent this disaster, what set the stage for this crisis was the laissez-faire attitude of the Fed while Greenspan was still Chairman, as he kept interest rates unsustainably low. The SEC also deserves blame for not regulating and accounting the sale of mortgage-backed securities on the open market. Had Greenspan and the SEC actually done their jobs, this mess never would’ve happened.
Now Bernake is cleaning up their mess. And give the man some credit because it definately could have been worse. Unemployment will always lag behind GDP growth because companies will focus on stabilizing profits before creating new jobs. That’s just the way capitalism works. I know it’s not perfect but if you don’t like it then move to Cuba. (The weather must be nice there this time of year).
If you don’t know what you’re talking about, please don’t open your mouth. Bernake isn’t a hero. But he definately did prevent things from getting much worse. I think he deserves this.
Posted by: Joe | December 16, 2009, 5:32 pm 5:32 pm
I believe Time’s persons of the year should have been the “taxpayers of America”. They have did the most for the country this year
Posted by: Carolene | December 16, 2009, 5:45 pm 5:45 pm
ya, but also remember previous winners, Adolf Hitler, Sadam Hussain, their not always good guys…
Posted by: remember | December 16, 2009, 6:18 pm 6:18 pm
Yes that is him on the cover of Time as worthless as the Federal Reserve Note they inset his picture on.Just shows you the Federal Reserve controls the news,media and the U S Goverment.Capt.Sullenberger is Person of the Year.Hudson River landing
Posted by: Jerry Venerella | December 16, 2009, 6:23 pm 6:23 pm
“Bernanke leads the most secretive, corrupt, and profitable banking cartel in the world”
This is such utter nonsense it is nearly impossible to frame a response. The Federal Reserve is under almost constant audit both internally and externally. The go the extra mile to ensure absolute transparency in their operations and make it a point to exhibit role model like compliance and full disclosure of all their operations. Furthermore, the regional banks reach out to communities and perform exemplary acts of public service and unsolicited assistence in multiple ways. People who seem to have nothing better to do than sit in front of their computers and hatch conspiracy theories would have better luck choosing another target. We are very lucky, as is the whole world, to have the stabilizing, steadfast influence of the Federal Reserve.
Posted by: J Robinson | December 16, 2009, 8:35 pm 8:35 pm
Joe – Unemployment is 17.2%
There are no real green shoots.
Please stop drinking the kool aid and look at the reality.
Turn off MSNBC and read some real statistics like at zerohedge.com
Bernanke and his Bankster friends are all criminals
Do yourself a favor and read The Creature from Jekyll Island.
Posted by: Tommy J | December 16, 2009, 11:15 pm 11:15 pm
The Iranian protesters had more votes than anyone. If you do not care about people’s vote then why did you set up that page?
Posted by: Max | December 17, 2009, 8:15 am 8:15 am
The mind game designed to enslave the masses to a debt-based matrix continues. Bernanke is a saint because he flooded the field, to cover the usurious implosion of trickle down economics. Bernanke is a savior because the game can continue. When you play monopoly and you go bankrupt, the bank can’t just give you more money so that you can keep playing, that’s cheating. Bernanke is not a saint, he is a cheat.
Bernanke is not a savior, he is a slaver.
Posted by: Mary T. Ficalora | December 17, 2009, 2:27 pm 2:27 pm
Nice try Joe. You can’t hand out billions (& indeed Trillions) of dollars to your crony buddies – and then claim this somehow saved our economy. That money that was to be lent back to the people – was instead used to line their pockets with bonuses, and buy out other businesses. Evil corrupt bankers should have been left to fail, PERIOD.
This inflation will invariably make our situation worse. The spending power of the dollar is on the decline in a big way for a reason. Commodities are up for a reason. Gold is rising in value for a reason – that reason is the billions of dollars handed out by our Fed, quite simply the value of that money is drawn from the existing money supply. This is a giant tax on the people in the form of inflation, and the only people saved by these actions were the corrupt bankers. – duh
Posted by: Joe is a liar | December 17, 2009, 2:30 pm 2:30 pm
Hey! living the vida loca! that’s What Americans love to do! catch the criminal who commits the crime in the economy if you what to fix it! people! Ben Bernanke is a great teacher! I want to see his time magazine cover on a t-shirt soon! way to go Ben! !
HV
Posted by: Henry Villarreal | December 17, 2009, 9:19 pm 9:19 pm