# Ben Bernanke named TIME's "Person of the Year" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 16, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-bernanke-named-times-person-of-the-year/521538 "2009-12-16T22:20:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rex\_Goliath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@Rex\_Goliath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Goliath)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-bernanke-named-times-person-of-the-year/521538/1 "2009-12-16T22:20:53Z")
[http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1946375\_1947251,00.html](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1946375_1947251,00.html) A better pick than “you”, and IMHO a sound pick. Talk amongst yourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-bernanke-named-times-person-of-the-year/521538/2 "2009-12-17T21:21:28Z")
Consider the source. They named Hitler Man of the Year back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-bernanke-named-times-person-of-the-year/521538/3 "2009-12-18T00:05:30Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Consider the source. They named Hitler Man of the Year back in the day. They pick the most _influential_ person of the year. His or her influence needn’t necessarily be a _good_ one, just that said influence had, in their opinion, the greatest impact on people, and it’s hard to argue for someone who had more impact than the man who helped steer the US economy, and as a result, the rest of the world, into a gigantic recession. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-bernanke-named-times-person-of-the-year/521538/4 "2009-12-18T00:20:02Z")
From the article: > [@](#): > > Professor Bernanke of Princeton was a leading scholar of the Great Depression. He knew how the passive Fed of the 1930s helped create the calamity — through its stubborn refusal to expand the money supply and its tragic lack of imagination and experimentation. Chairman Bernanke of Washington was determined not to be the Fed chairman who presided over Depression 2.0. So when turbulence in U.S. housing markets metastasized into the worst global financial crisis in more than 75 years, he conjured up trillions of new dollars and blasted them into the economy; engineered massive public rescues of failing private companies; ratcheted down interest rates to zero; lent to mutual funds, hedge funds, foreign banks, investment banks, manufacturers, insurers and other borrowers who had never dreamed of receiving Fed cash; jump-started stalled credit markets in everything from car loans to corporate paper; revolutionized housing finance with a breathtaking shopping spree for mortgage bonds; blew up the Fed’s balance sheet to three times its previous size; and generally transformed the staid arena of central banking into a stage for desperate improvisation. He didn’t just reshape U.S. monetary policy; he led an effort to save the world economy. Works for me. Who you got? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-bernanke-named-times-person-of-the-year/521538/5 "2009-12-18T13:58:43Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Consider the source. They named Hitler Man of the Year back in the day. > [@Mindfield](#): > > They pick the most _influential_ person of the year. His or her influence needn’t necessarily be a _good_ one, just that said influence had, in their opinion, the greatest impact on people… They have also picked Usama bin Laden and, as Mindfield implied, they don’t run a popularity contest.