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Ok, I feel silly having to point this out to those unaware, but Time's Person of the Year is NOT an honor or award.
......................
actually by defination it is
anytime someone is recognized it is considered an honor or an award
Award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize excellence in a certain field; a certificate of excellence. Awards are often signified by trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins, or ribbons. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Award
award: a tangible symbol signifying approval or distinction; "an award for bravery"
Honour or Honor (see spelling differences), (from the Latin word honos, honoris) is the evaluation of a person's trustworthiness and social status ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor
An objectification of praiseworthiness, respect. (I.e., something that represents praiseworthiness, respect. ...
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/honor
so to be NAMED , Time magazines (or any other entity (to include MAD magazine)) would be considered a Honor, or an award
No surprise. It's a good pick. Bernanke along with Geithner and a relative handful of others pulled off what nobody (including them) was sure could be done. This ain't no bed of roses that we're left in, but it's oh so much better than what might have been and what we appeared almost certainly headed for...
I agree it is a good pick but I don't think Geithner deserves any credit. Bernanke pulled us from the fire, Geithner was just along for the ride.
No surprise. It's a good pick. Bernanke along with Geithner and a relative handful of others pulled off what nobody (including them) was sure could be done. This ain't no bed of roses that we're left in, but it's oh so much better than what might have been and what we appeared almost certainly headed for...
Giving credit to a couple of greedy power hungry suits?
I think it is the perseverence of the American people that prevented us from falling into depression.
anytime someone is recognized it is considered an honor or an award
Award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize excellence in a certain field; a certificate of excellence. Awards are often signified by trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins, or ribbons. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Award
award: a tangible symbol signifying approval or distinction; "an award for bravery"
Honour or Honor (see spelling differences), (from the Latin word honos, honoris) is the evaluation of a person's trustworthiness and social status ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor
An objectification of praiseworthiness, respect. (I.e., something that represents praiseworthiness, respect. ...
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/honor
so to be NAMED , Time magazines (or any other entity (to include MAD magazine)) would be considered a Honor, or an award
I shall step aside. You have out nit-picked me. Congratulations.
But if I must clarify, Bernanke's designation as Time's Person of the Year is not a recognition of positive things he has done; it's a recognition of things he has done, good or bad or in between, and the influence he has had on the world.
So Helicopter Ben got the Person of the Year. Well I don't disagree with it - he single handedly issued so much debt and increased the money supply so much he actually got the director-general of the China Banking Regulation Commission to say this:
""We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion, we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do."
He was referring to the notion that an increase in the money supply will inherently cause each dollar to be worth less in a fiat money system. Ben has increased the money supply by so much that China and a lot of other creditors to the USA have gnashed their teeth at the loss of their investments.
However, it makes total sense because the USD is basically the only reserve currency in the world which is worth a damn investing in due to our economy and the fact that the US consumer drives 20% of WORLD GDP. Think about that for a moment ... if you think about 2/3 of our population is able to buy stuff on a meaningful level, that's 200 million people who can buy your stuff, and for many years did so at the expense of their savings. 20% of the world's GDP driven by 3.5% of the world's population, or if 3 billion of people in the world can buy stuff on a meaningful level, then 7%.
So, Ben made the right choice given our money system at hand. Trying to overhaul the system into something else wouldn't have made much sense because he earned a PhD in economics on our system , not another, and if he was to let banks fail then it would simply paralyze the credit markets and NOBODY would be doing business anymore. We'd revert to lending money to neighbors, like what we had in the Great Depression. And doing what Jackson did in abolishing the Second Bank of the USA (the ancestor of the US Fed) during a time of crisis in favor of another system or going on a metal / tangible asset based economy would have been a nightmare. If Helicopter Ben hadn't expanded the money supply and kept the credit markets creaking by, and simply let the banks fail, it would have been a repeat of the 1930s all over again and likely 1/3 of us would be unemployed.
So, he averted immediate catastrophe, but now his real work lies ahead in reducing the Fed's balance sheet. Good luck Ben, you need it.
Last edited by eskercurve; 01-01-2010 at 04:06 PM..
Bernake was named Man of the Year for bailing out the financial system with money made out of thin air while maintaining a calm demeanor.
They couldn't find someone who was actually worthy of that award ?
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I shall step aside. You have out nit-picked me. Congratulations.
