Archive for Tag “Ben Bernanke”

The coming inferno?

Friday, January 29, 2010 by Jeff Scialabba

Ben Bernanke won a second four-year term at the head of the Federal Reserve yesterday with a 70-30 vote in the Senate. Alex Epstein pointed out the absurdity of reconfirming Bernanke on foxnews.com. Bernanke is among the individuals most responsible for the financial crisis, and he hasn’t changed his financial philosophy in the least. Yet nearly three-quarters of the Senate—and President Obama—think he saved us from disaster. To use one of Alex’s metaphors, we just elected the arsonist to put out the fire.

Image: Gage Skidmore on Flickr

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Ben Bernanke: financial firefighter or arsonist?

Tuesday, December 1, 2009 by Alex Epstein

Federal Reserve Building, Washington, D.C.Ben Bernanke recently penned an op-ed in the Washington Post sounding the alarm that the powers of the Federal Reserve might be undercut by pending legislation, and thereby undermine its ability to prevent future financial crises.

The Fed played a major part in arresting the crisis, and we should be seeking to preserve, not degrade, the institution’s ability to foster financial stability and to promote economic recovery without inflation.

In Bernanke’s view of the Fed—the same view that is shared by most narratives of the financial crisis—the Fed was a force for good in minimizing the crisis, which was caused fundamentally by greedy, reckless financiers. The only criticism of the Fed in this narrative, is that it did not use its powers strongly enough. As Bernanke puts it:

The Federal Reserve, like other regulators around the world, did not do all that it could have to constrain excessive risk-taking in the financial sector in the period leading up to the crisis.

Thus, the Fed is a financial firefighter that simply needs more resources to put out fires set by financial arsonists in the free market—and Bernanke is Financial Firefighter in Chief.

Hardly.

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