Time Magazine's Man of the Year

Économiste Monétaire

... is Ben Bernanke. Link.

A bald man with a gray beard and tired eyes is sitting in his oversize Washington office, talking about the economy. He doesn't have a commanding presence. He isn't a mesmerizing speaker. He has none of the look-at-me swagger or listen-to-me charisma so common among men with oversize Washington offices. His arguments aren't partisan or ideological; they're methodical, grounded in data and the latest academic literature. When he doesn't know something, he doesn't bluster or bluff. He's professorial, which makes sense, because he spent most of his career as a professor.

He is not, in other words, a typical Beltway power broker. He's shy. He doesn't do the D.C. dinner-party circuit; he prefers to eat at home with his wife, who still makes him do the dishes and take out the trash. Then they do crosswords or read. Because Ben Bernanke is a nerd.

He just happens to be the most powerful nerd on the planet.

Time Magazine

It's true, he is.

Économiste Monétaire

:pac: You need to update the avatar picture :pac:

silverharp

its a pretty good contrary indicator.


Jeff Bezos made the cover in 1999 - the year the internet portion of the tech stock bubble topped out.

GW Bush made the cover as his popularity rating had just begun to slide, ending at the worst such rating since Nixon, concurrent with a stock market crash.

Hitler made the cover in 1938.

General Chiang Kai Chek in 1937. It turned out to be an ill omen, career-wise.

Stalin made the cover in 1939 and again in 1942.

Kennedy made the cover the year before he was assassinated, as did Martin
Luther King - a literal death sentence in both cases.

Lyndon B. Johnson made the cover in 1964 - he was about to lead the
country into the Vietnam catastrophe.

Nixon and Kissinger made it in 1972.

It was Yury Andropov's turn in 1983 - he died shortly thereafter.

Gorbachov became 'man of the decade' half a year before being forced to step down.

Obama's turn was last year.

Most worrisome however, in 2006 Time decided to write on its person-of-the-year cover 'You!'.

Flamed Diving

But 'Man of the Year' does not automatically invoke goodness, does it?

andrew

I thought man of the year just went to someone significant, not someone awesome. It's just that significant people are frequently awesome.

Anonymous1987

Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

Issue resolved

SLUSK

Ben Bernanke will be known as the man who destroyed the dollar.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Flamed Diving

SLUSK wrote: »

Ben Bernanke will be known as the man who destroyed the dollar.

ED 209

Bernanke pursues what he thinks is best. I think he was most definitely the man of the year. I disagree with him. However, I am not American so what happens at the FED is up to Americans to sort out. He did plug the hole. US stocks are soaring right now. He may have a strategy to prevent inflation down the line. We don't know.

What this award has done is make the general public more aware of the impact central banks can make.

SLUSK

ED 209 wrote: »

Bernanke pursues what he thinks is best. I think he was most definitely the man of the year. I disagree with him. However, I am not American so what happens at the FED is up to Americans to sort out. He did plug the hole. US stocks are soaring right now. He may have a strategy to prevent inflation down the line. We don't know.

What this award has done is make the general public more aware of the impact central banks can make.

US stocks are "soaring", compared to what? China outperformed the Dow loads of commodities outperformed the Dow. The dollar has also lost in value. So the gains in American stocks are really modest.

ED 209

I think he printed too much money. He needs to increase interest rates dramatically. It can be argued that a lot of the rebound in US stocks was due to a decline in the dollar. Being priced in dollars they didn't gain. Instead, the value of the dollar declined giving the illusion of an increase in stock prices.