Ben Bernanke, the 56-year old chairman of the Federal Reserve, has been chosen as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year 2009. He is credited with saving the economy. The Federal reserve is the central bank of the U.S. It is perhaps the most important and least understood financial force shaping America, and thus, the world economy.
Bernanke isn’t part of the Washington dinner crowd. He prefers to be a homebody, and his wife gets him to help with the dishes.
Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time, had the following to say:
History is composed not only of what happened but of what didn’t happen. The latter, of course, is impossible to really know. We do know what happened to the U.S. and world economies during the past year, and it wasnt pretty. We know the damage caused by the plague of subprime mortgages and the fallout from risky investment vehicles that bankers invented but did not understand, and we know that we ourselves probably borrowed and spent more than we should have. What we don’t know is what the economy and our lives would look like if a few individuals had not acted on our behalf and had simply sat on their hands. We don’t know what didn’t happen, but I’m convinced that the economy would look much, much worse
The following 4 individuals were runners up: General McCrystal, Nancy Pelosi, Usain Bolt, and the Chinese worker.
People have different feelings about Bernanke. What we all have to agree on is we have no clue what would have happened had another financial road been taken.
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