Bernanke - TIME 2009 Person of the Year ?

A few days back, TIME announced Ben Bernanke as their 2009 Person of the Year.

I think Mr. Bernanke deserves credit for working diligently to prevent a total meltdown of the global financial system - all the time wearing a cool look and a calm demeanor.

But in fact, he did not do much in 2009.  The year started with the target Federal Funds rate at 0 - 0.25% and will most likely end the year at the same number.  And to take it a bit further, the Fed's steady stance in 2009 can be seen as abetting some other bubbles that will become more noticeable in the next few years.  The system is flush with liquidity (although banks are still not lending for fear of defaults - a lesson they have learnt too well), asset prices are rising, and bank's that were bailed out by taxpayers money have repaid their TARP dues so that bankers can get their fat end-of-year bonuses - although the very folks who bailed out these bankers out are sitting on unemployment rates of 15% or so (counting the discouraged workers, part-time employed workers, etc that are not included in the official unemployment statistics).

And he did not do much to fix the fundamental issue that was in fact the whole raison d'être of the crisis - the concept of "Too Big to Fail"; which essentially implied that bankers could make all the money they wanted in good times but could depend on tax-payer sponsored bail-outs in bad times.  This encouraged the kind of behavior that I have eluded to before.

No doubt, Mr Bernanke has this as his top priority for the next few months and I expect to see a few changes that will have far-reaching implications;  I only wish TIME has waited a year or so before making him their choice.  There were definitely others in 2009 who deserved this more.