Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the guy that most contributed to the recession and millions and millions of people getting unemployed.

Time’s person of the year.




  1. JohnS says:

    Next years candidate for the Nobel prize in economics no doubt as well. Seems we are over acheving in rewarding the least worthy of our praise. In a related story Tiger Woods – sportsman of the decade, who knew philandering was considered a sport now.

  2. jescott418 says:

    Why not give a Nobel prize while were at it.
    This guy allowed a meltdown of the financial system and yet we make him man of the year for cleaning up his own mess?

  3. Rufus says:

    This proves either that the mainstream media cannot be trusted (as they are Bilderberger-owned) or it proves that Time journalists don’t know anything about economics.

    Either way, it’s sickening.

  4. Faxon says:

    Saddam Hussein got it one year, didn’t he? It’s not a award.

  5. Faxon says:

    “an” award

  6. sandblade says:

    Time’s person of the year has never been about who has achieved the most good. It’s about who has impacted the news the most. That’s why Hitler, Stalin, and Khomeini have all made the list in the past. I think Bernanke is a great choice because I can’t think of any single person in the past year who’s decisions have impacted billions of people like Bernanke. Whether or not you blame him for the mess or credit him for avoiding a full-blown depression, the place we’re at now is largely due to his actions/inactions. That’s person of the year in a nutshell.

  7. TTHor says:

    Unbelievable!

    But then again… what was the ad agency they hired to kill the Ron Paul audit legislation…? big name! They won the beauty contest in Time Magazine (who reads that anymore?) as they have all the financial muscles and means.

    So – they won a battle but – certainly not the war, by a long shot. Reality will bite! Just as it does in Copenhagen these days. It is falling apart. You may lie and cheat but at the end of the day, the truth will prevail.

    I hope………………

  8. TTHor says:

    #1 Leave Tiger alone! He may have strayed in his marriage obligations (if you are a prune), but he is one hell of a good golf player. And none! can take that away from him.

    Shall we look into others that has strayed? Start with FDR, JFK….the list goes on and on and on and on and on and on….

  9. freddybobs68k says:

    #4 Faxon

    Yep it’s not apparently a did great things ‘award’.

    BUT thats not how its being pitched. On bloomberg this morning they had some muppet explaining how brilliant and how well deserved for him it is.

    And if you tell the average person that he won the ‘Time person of the year’ – they are almost invariably going to believe its positive, and that he did ‘great things’.

    We are in a bizarre world of opposites. Obama gets Nobel peace prize, and sends more troops to Afghanistan + here the guy who helped cause the finanical disaster, and has done little to nothing to help home owners, small businesses, and is devaluing the dollar via carry trade. He’s Time man of the year.

    News just in: War is peace, left is right, and up is down.

  10. bobbo, who you gonna believe says:

    I think VERY many people are responsible for our meltdown but very few for our efforts at recovery. Who is going to stand in the way of a greedy mob when money is for the taking?

    Serious Question: Any probable result if all the big banks were allowed to fail according to their market positions ==ie–no bailouts== WHILE at the same time the government supporting all the smaller still solvent banks and/or open up a government loan program as required?

    IE–seems to me in serious ways the fraud of Big Money is only continuing yet no one is really drawing a line underneath it or suggesting alternatives.

    No one in jail or even being prosecuted. No laws changed as yet. The very same bubble is unrestricted in its ability to grow.

    How about “our” government refusing repayment of TARP until $X in loans have been made? No???? Nothing?????

    The FRAUD continues.

  11. Dr Dodd says:

    At least Time is consistence in its perverted praise to evil. It must have been a tough choice this year with so many political degenerates in the running.

  12. Faxon says:

    Frustratingly, history is never clear until years pass by. We are simply too close, and victims of the hype, spin, and mania of zealots. After a few decades, the historians have shaken out the facts and the implications, and things are seen in a clear light. Now, nothing going on around us is clear in any way. Will Bush be considered a worse President that Carter? Will Obama have been worthy of the adulation and hysteria? Only time will tell. And I don’t mean the irrelevant periodical.

  13. RBG says:

    Sheesh, next you’ll be squawking that you also disagree with Obama’s Bush-choice for Secretary of Defense. Change You Can, er, um…

    RBG

  14. jman says:

    I didn’t think Time ever put anybody but obama on their cover…..

  15. freddybobs68k says:

    #10 bobbo

    Agreed. Nothing changed.

    If fact it’s worse because ‘too big to fail’ is now bigger, and now they _know_ they will be bailed out.

    So we’ve not come close to the worst of it.

    And the media just babbles ‘green shoots’ and ‘recession is over’, and now Bernanke is ‘Man of the Year’.

    Ridiculous.

  16. Hmeyers says:

    Lies!

    This recession was not caused by the Federal Reserve.

    Both parties have pursued policies and enacted laws and treaties that have eroded internal production of goods for about 2 decades now.

    This transformed our economy from a production based economy to an “exchange of unneeded services” economy only masked by the “mortgage your home” and buy foreign goods at “Best Buy” mentality.

    Credit collapsed, unmasking the fact we have no exports and therefore the US has a severe negative cashflow problem and that the country on a whole isn’t credit-worthy.

    Shame on Time magazine for perpetuating the lie that there isn’t something fundamentally wrong with how our economy is managed.

    The problems with the economy are NOT skin-deep and such an idea that monetary policy and lending policy alone could tank a healthy economy is preposterous and absurd.

    China has 2 trillion in JUST surplus US dollars sitting around from their trade imbalance with us. They don’t need credit, why is the US economy so dependent on credit? It’s because our economy doesn’t have NET INCOME.

  17. Godfish says:

    As one of the people that is sitting at home with no money coming in, This really pisses me off! I’m sick of these bastards kissing each others AZZ’s and saying what a good job they do? Time and all the other government run propaganda rags are just showing there hand.

    They will be the first up on the wall.

  18. Breetai says:

    It’s not a Nobel prize. Hitler made Man of the Year and Stalin made it twice. It wasn’t these guys are great, it was look at these scumbags.

    Oh and #16 Hmeyers,
    The “justification” for the fed being separate entity apart from government was that if government was telling them to do something stupid they wouldn’t be forced to do it.

    What came first, the horse or the carriage?

  19. SparkyOne says:

    I have 47 days left in my home and I have run out of unemployment. I do wonder if perhaps Bennie may stop by for tea and 9mm slugs.

  20. Awake says:

    Bernanke has actually kept the US from falling into a full economic depression by making many unpopular but necessary moves, including bank stabilizations, company rescues, etc

    If you want to blame anyone, blame Greenspan and his acolytes for the supply-side no-regulation philosophy that he now admits turned out to be a disaster.

  21. N74JW says:

    I’m just confused…

  22. audion says:

    To be fair, at this point, your average religious tract stuffed under your windshield wiper has more pages and cultural relevance than Time Magazine.

    Have you looked at Time lately? It’s more of a leaflet…

    Person of the Year isn’t an honor. It’s damning with faint praise.

  23. Buzz says:

    Cherman has special knowledge that Time magazine’s staff of researchers and fact checkers couldn’t possibly get close to, let alone match.

    Tell us Mr. Cherman, what evidence can you point to that supports your appraisal?

  24. AdmFubar says:

    dvorak.org/blog now in stereo

  25. AdmFubar says:

    ah i see the feed list was adjusted so there was only one article about this..

  26. Ah_Yea says:

    Ah, Times magazine. The unofficial mouthpiece of the Obama Administration.

    It’s easy. While Obama berates the bankers for us sheeple, he actually is in bed with them and does their bidding.

    This is one of the very best articles I have read in a long time. Worth your time.

    Once you’ve read this, you will know why Bernanke is on the cover.

  27. Hmeyers says:

    @18 Breetai

    The Fed didn’t cause the recession. We are in recession because the US economy depends on credit because our manufacturing sector has rapidly declined and we’ve outsourced the jobs.

    No one builds anything here.

    Dell moved all it’s factories overseas in the last 4 years, all 18 of them.

    We have a production-less economy. This economy was dependent on credit because there is a “net loss” ($500 billion/yr export deficit).

    With the credit gone, it exposes the fundamental lack of goods production in the country.

    Without production, there are no jobs. Without jobs, there is no tax base. Without a tax base, the government will deflate the currency.

  28. Awake says:

    #20 Pedro –

    On the contrary, I blame Dumbya and his conservative brethren more than ever.

    Bernanke may have been part of the problem, but when things went really bad, he became a leader in the solution.

    People that don’t understand the mportance of Bernanke’s actions are also the same shortsighted people that don’t “get” why the Nobel Peace prize went to Obama this year.

    Pedro, please bother yourself to read the following article, it is a VERY good opinion piece about Bernanke.

    http://tinyurl.com/yhr56ag

    The link above concludes with:

    “Still. As Grunwald writes, “It’s no consolation to the 1 in 6 Americans who are underemployed, the 1 in 7 homeowners with a delinquent mortgage or the 1 in 8 families on food stamps, but there would be far more joblessness, foreclosures and hunger were it not for Ben Bernanke.”

    I think most economists, whether conservative or liberal, would agree with this assumption. It’s a tough call to make, lauding someone as a hero because of something that didn’t happen, but upon reflection, it doesn’t seem all that crazy.”

  29. pguyton says:

    remember it’s not a positive thing just the person who most affected the year; in that sense it’s right on the money. Remember …. hitler was man of the year once

  30. Yes Man says:

    While I’m no huge fan of Bernanke’s I am in complete agreement with Awake #29 and would add that his is one of most intelligent posts in this group. What is clear is that most of the people who post here don’t know their ass from a hole in ground and don’t seem to have any sense of time. They see a guy in a suit and think “he must be the guy that caused this”. It’s a sad sad situation for America that so many people are either just stupid or are so blinded by their pathetic allegiance to one party or another that they can’t even see straight anymore. You want to know who caused this? Look in the mirror you credit hungry, greedy, real estate tycoon wannabe Americans – you caused it. You also dragged the rest of the world down with you while you greedily went about buying and buying and justifying and rationalizing and feeling entitled.


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