Marketplace radio had a segment this morning in which former labor secretary Robert Reich discussed with the host Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's prospects for reappointment. Remarkably, neither the host nor Mr. Reich said a word about Mr. Bernanke's responsibility for the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Before taking over as Fed chair in January of 2006, Bernanke had served as head of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors and as a member of the Fed's Board of Governors. After Alan Greenspan, there was probably no one better positioned to stem the growth of the housing bubble than Bernanke. Yet, he did nothing to combat the bubble, arguing that everything was just fine. This negligence was directly responsible for the crisis and the resulting downturn. It is incredible that Bernanke's failure to combat the bubble does not even come up in discussions of his reappointment. This would be like a school bus driver coming up for a contract renewal with no one mentioning the fact that he had drunkenly taken his bus into oncoming traffic, killing all his passengers. Outside of the top echelons of power, workers are usually held more accountable for their job performance.
--Dean Baker
