Of course Ben Bernanke is Time magazine’s Man of the Year. The Federal Reserve is the most powerful policy-making body in the United States. The United States is the most powerful economic force in the history of the world. Ben Bernanke is Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The financial crisis threatened the Federal Reserve, the U.S. economy, and the economies of every country on the planet. And Ben Bernanke led a Fed response of almost unimaginable scale and scope.
If relevance to the lives of people is a metric for Man of the Year, Ben was off the scale.
It worked. The financial panic subsided, financial markets have begun to heal, evidence continues to mount that growth is returning in the United States and elsewhere.
If success is a metric for Man of the Year, Ben was off the scale.
Ben, the Fed and his colleagues in the U.S. and abroad literally made it up as they went. New programs were invented, some were discarded, and others expanded. The Fed quickly shifted from reactive fire-fighting to laying a foundation for financial markets. They moved from institution-specific policies (Bear Stearns, AIG, etc.) to supporting markets (commercial paper, mortgage-backed securities, etc.) that were crucial elements of the financial circulatory system of a healthy economy.
If creativity and ingenuity is a metric for Man of the Year, Ben was off the scale.
And the public and Congress don’t really understand what happened. Ben has been lambasted for doing exactly what a central bank should do in a crisis – anything and everything to restore calm. The Fed’s independence is under attack; Ben’s qualifications are being questioned.
If mystery and controversy is a metric for Man of the Year, Ben was off the scale.
Think about it, a decade ago Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan shared the cover of Time with Robert Rubin and Larry Summers because the so-called Committee to Save the World had run off a modest problem with the peso. Ben Bernanke ran off a major problem for the world. Of course he should be Man of the Year.
Besides, he has the same first name as Roethlisberger.
9 responses so far
1 DFL // Dec 16, 2009 at 5:24 pm
And our children will have to shoulder more debt due to our lack of fiscal discipline. Once again the long term has lost out to the short term. Such is democracy.
2 sinz54 // Dec 16, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Holtz-Eakin:
Ben Bernanke was Fed chairman in the months leading up to the financial crisis. Evidently he failed to predict it, he failed to take steps to shield us against it–and was just as blind-sided about it as everyone else.
Of course, all that happened in 2008, so it doesn’t affect Bernanke’s qualifications for Man of the Year 2009. Still, it does tarnish his shining armor a bit, don’t you think?
3 franco 2 // Dec 16, 2009 at 6:40 pm
This award or whatever it is has become worthless. Time magazine has become a joke and the Person(s) of the year is the best punchline..”YOU!”
Who cares what Time says. The real name for this publication should be TimeWarner.
4 LauraNo // Dec 16, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I am very relieved that we didn’t go completely over the cliff, taking the world with us. Yes, I blame him for the fact we needed saving but he was hardly alone in creating the mess. Deregulators of all stripes and Alan Greenspan’s blind faith in corps and hedge fund managers and various other money mongers being sensible in face of quick, greedy profits shoulder most of the blame in my mind. However we came to that very, very bad place, he took us out of it and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of man of the year, even man of the century. Or should I say man of last 100 years since this century is so young?
5 MI-GOPer // Dec 16, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Time magazine picked Bernacke? What next? Obama gets the Nobel? Gore gets an Oscar?
Oh, wait, never mind.
I haven’t read Time magazine since Claire Booth Luce died in her Watergate apartment. It’s amazing it is still around. Like the NYTimes. Or Detroit. Amazing dinosaurs of an irrelevant past.
6 jruss89 // Dec 17, 2009 at 1:18 am
DFL // Dec 16, 2009 at 5:24 pm
“And our children will have to shoulder more debt due to our lack of fiscal discipline.”
And that has nothing to do with Bernake. The Fed controls American monetary policy and not fiscal policy, which is under the jurisdiction of Congress.
7 Toddtheconservative // Dec 17, 2009 at 8:56 am
Man of the year! I’m sick to my bones ! Now contrast that with this article:
http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/12/unemployment-benefit-extensions-are-a-blatant-lie/
8 DFL // Dec 17, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Bernanke not only has he devalued the currency by printing up greenbacks, he has not given the two presidents and Congress a stern enough warning about the looming doom.
9 He Does The Dishes, Too « Around The Sphere // Dec 17, 2009 at 1:35 pm
[...] Douglas Holtz-Eakin at [...]
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