Great And Terrible Things

Time Magazine has named Helicopter Ben its Person Of The Year.

So here he is inside his marble fortress, a technocrat in an ink-stained shirt and an off-the-rack suit, explaining what he's done, where we are and what might happen next.

He knows that the economy is awful, that 10% unemployment is much too high, that Wall Street bankers are greedy ingrates, that Main Street still hurts. Banks are handing out sweet bonuses again but still aren't doing much lending. Technically, the recession is over, but growth has been anemic and heavily reliant on government programs like Cash for Clunkers, not to mention cheap Fed money. "I understand why people are frustrated. I'm frustrated too," Bernanke says. "I'm not one of those people who look at this as some kind of video game. I come from Main Street, from a small town that's really depressed. This is all very real to me."

But Bernanke also knows the economy would be much, much worse if the Fed had not taken such extreme measures to stop the panic. There's a vast difference between 10% and 25% unemployment, between anemic and negative growth. He wishes Americans understood that he helped save the irresponsible giants of Wall Street only to protect ordinary folks on Main Street. He knows better than anyone how financial crises spiral into global disasters, how the grass gets crushed when elephants fall. "We came very, very close to a depression ... The markets were in anaphylactic shock," he told Time during one of three extended interviews. "I'm not happy with where we are, but it's a lot better than where we could be."

"I had to destroy the village to save it, you see."  Yes, Bernanke did avert a catastrophe.  But he's all but assured we'll see another such catastrophe again, and soon.  The banks are right back at the gambling table with derivative trillions, because that's what enabling compulsive gambling does.  When they come up snake eyes again, what then?

Having said that, I don't disagree for a millisecond that Bernanke is Time's Person of the Year.  When you think about your own personal economic situation right now, Ben Bernanke's face is the one you should see when you close your eyes.  He's done great and terrible things.  Hell, he deserves the honor for being the first guy in Washington to suggest ditching Medicare and Social Security.  He's run the numbers.  He knows what's coming.  Great and terrible things.

And still, he refuses to do anything about it.  He can't.  The banks are too powerful.  They own him, they own us, they own Washington.

Great and terrible things.