Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was recently given the Nobel prize for economics largely because of his policies during the Great Recession: bank bailouts, interest rate suppression and quantitative easing.
The timing could not be worse.
The nation is currently going through the painful withdrawal pains of tapering off Dr. Bernanke’s feel-good medicine. Make no mistake: Bernanke’s term as Fed Chairman was an abject failure.
He continued rate hikes in 2006, helping to trigger a deflationary recession which he was slow to see and respond to. Bernanke vastly increased money supply and yet arrogantly claimed to “60 Minutes” he was 100 percent certain that the excess money could be withdrawn in order to avoid inflation.
The agony we’re going through today started with the false solutions of the Bernanke era.
Bernanke deserves blame—not a Nobel prize.