An Era Unto Himself

-Now-former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke leaves work for the last time on January 31^st. (Courtesy Federal Reserve).

When Ben Bernanke’s last day on the job as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board saw a 149.76-point slide in the Dow Jones index that he pumped (or should I say printed?) up repeatedly to many a successive record close, I had a hard time deciding whether I should pity him, or in some way be humored by the occurrence. It struck me almost as if the Big Board was replaying in six-and-a-half hours the roller coaster ride that was the eight years of Bernanke’s term: a Dow that, despite its occasional troubles, had triumphantly marched through years of sluggish growth to sit higher at the end of his term than it did at the height of the housing bubble, around his start; all this being atop a jittery overall-economy that, while not free-falling, couldn’t quite stand strong on its own legs, either.

There’s not a whole lot for me to say about the man that hasn’t already been said by people with a much higher knowledge of economics and finance than I do; but I have had occasion to analyze him from a more political perspective, and considering that hindsight is usually twenty-twenty, now would naturally be a great time to pause and reflect on the tenure of who may be nearly the most powerful of the most powerful financial officers to ever exist (can anyone really argue that the Treasury Department, especially under President Obama, wields anywhere close to the amount of raw power that the Fed does, or that it could use it so efficiently?).

I have no qualms in being straightforward about my criticisms of his policy, and I may yet be vindicated in my beliefs just as likely as I am to not be; after all, Quantitative Easing (the dastardly “QE3”) is just now beginning to end, as we enter the brave new world of the Yellen Fed (which started its own new day in central banking with a 300-plus crash in the Dow).

I have no regrets for passing along, if not silently endorsing, the theory that Chairman Bernanke was “destroying the economy” by way of the printing press; in the best case, it seems that, even if not in any way negative to our economy, quantitative easing did nothing to boost our prospects, either. We simply just hummed along at an anemic rate of growth, almost as if the years of solid gains on Wall Street were nothing more than the result of, well, artificial stimulus.

I know that I’ve at times incessantly mocked the ex-Chairman, first picking up the “Helicopter Ben” line (in reference to his long-ago speech on deflation and the theoretical “helicopter drop” of money); at times, I’ve gone as far as to use the phrase “Chairman Ben and his Politburo” (a thinly-veiled reference to Mao) to express my dislike for his policy decisions.

But I do have some nice things to say. I’ve always had a deep respect for Bernanke for his being the most powerful bearded man in the world; with his retirement, I fear we may have, for the time being, seen the last major power-player with prominent facial hair step off of the world stage.

And on a more serious level, I will always respect Ben Bernanke as the man who stopped the Great Recession dead, instrumental in the ending of a devastating free-fall. Especially after the departure of Bush and Paulson, Time was more than justified in honoring Bernanke as the 2009 Man of the Year for his work—even if it did begin to set the Fed down an uncertain and uncharted course.

Only time will reveal his full legacy, but regardless of how things turn out, one thing is already certain: an era has come to an end.