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Time Person of the Year 2009: Ben Bernanke

by Jordan Yerman | December 16, 2009 at 07:22 am

274 views | 34 Recommendations | 8 comments

Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2009 is Ben Bernanke, Chair of the US Federal Reserve. In other words, Ben Bernanke is the man who is in control of the US money supply, and therefore a singularly powerful player on the world economic stage. It's not too surprising that Time's man of the year is tied to the current economic climate. However, it's hard to separate the name "Ben Bernanke" from the too-oft-repeated term "bailout".

Both the Left and the Right have issues with Time Magazine Person of the Year 2009: Ben Bernanke says the recession is over, even if it may just be wishful thinking: US unemployment hovers around 10% while banks continue to give their own corner-office dwellers massive bonuses while remaining stingy with loans for regular people.

He just happens to be the most powerful nerd on the planet.

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merlingraycat

at 09:27 on December 16th, 2009

Bernanke says, "the recession is over." He probably means it is over for him and his buddies on Wall Street and the big financial institutions that were bailed out by him and the Bush administration. Of course President Obama is following in their footsteps. It always helps to be friends with the people holding the purse strings.

snuffysmith

at 12:09 on December 16th, 2009

Ben Bernanke, Person of the YearReading Michael Grunwald’s homage to Ben Bernanke, the 2009 Person of the Year, what’s striking is the list of defenders and opponents. At the top of the piece, Grunwald talks about how he has been assailed by “criticism from all directions”, but doesn’t really name names, relying instead on generalities such as “bleeding-heart liberals and tea-party reactionaries alike”. The list of named detractors is: Ron Paul, on the right, and Paul Krugman, on the left.

Meanwhile, the people lining up to praise Bernanke include Stanley Fischer; Mervyn King; monetary historian Liaquat Ahamed (who wrote the book Bernanke “wishes he had written himself”); Alan Greenspan; Frederic Mishkin; Jean-Claude Trichet; Kevin Warsh; Tim Geithner; and Hank Paulson. It’s heavy on Davos-circuit central bankers — the kind of men who instinctively circle their own wagons in times of crisis and will always say nice things about each other if asked. Besides, substantially all of them, bar Ahamed, would implicitly be criticizing themselves if they said anything bad about Bernanke’s decisions: they all signed on to what he did.

Complete Story

snuffysmith

at 12:32 on December 16th, 2009

Time's 'Person of the Year': Bernanke

snuffysmith

at 12:39 on December 16th, 2009

Sorry. I just had to post this here.

Stephen Colbert On Sports Illustrated Cover

snuffysmith

at 12:47 on December 16th, 2009

Time's Man of the Year: In Ben We Trust

René

at 14:07 on December 16th, 2009

TIME steals from the Ahmadinejad Playbook - "Hey, Time, where is my vote?

Hugh Askew

at 14:10 on December 16th, 2009

Bernanke = Fail

snuffysmith

at 20:33 on December 16th, 2009

Time Magazine's Kiss of Death: "You!"

Time Magazine is wrong of course. Bernanke did not save the world. Moreover Bernanke is a poor student of the great depression. He understands neither the cause nor the cure of depressions. It is equally clear Time Magazine doesn't either.