The Obvious Choice
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.