I know we shouldn’t expect anything more or less from these mainstream media outlets, but are you kidding me? Is this some sort of a cruel joke, a double entendre?
I only read some of the Time article, but I stopped because I was about to vomit. Such a great contrivance of propaganda, I swear I’ve never seem a more blatant attempt at indoctrination in my life. This article is right up their with “Triumph of the Will”…I’m sorry, this is just disgusting!
We certainly can’t stop talking about him.
They love the regime.
The runners up were McChrystal and Pelosi.
What a wonderful trifecta these three are. And what wondrous gifts they are bringing to the world.
It should be noted that this award is not necessarily positive. As evidenced by this hilarious-in-retrospect list.
The scumbag-to-human ratio is astounding.
Ha. But, this is for all the wrong reasons. Then again, the Austrians are too “pedantic” for the mainstream(somehow this qualifies as a knock against the school).
And Americans wonders why we have recessions and why the sky is falling…!
I suppose the FED should start handing out WIN pins again.
yeap government propaganda. those words of Shakespeare reverberate: ‘all the world’s a stage’.
What irked me the most was their poor history. I wrote a letter to the editor:
Dear editor,
It is tragic that we have approached an age in which journalists refuse to objectively research the history they pretend to teach. Although confused about the choice of Bernanke over so many other options, I realize that not everyone shares my set of beliefs and ideologies. However, one thing is to believe that Ben Bernanke’s current policies are the right ones, and another thing is to spout completely counterfactual history. The financial and monetary history of the Great Depression is very different from the way your article tells it. Indeed, up to that point, Herbert Hoover became the largest peacetime deficit spender in the history of the United States presidency. Total government outlays during the final year of his presidency were, indeed, larger than the first years of Roosevelt’s’ (who, of course, was an even greater spender). All the while, the Federal Reserve did inflate the monetary base between 1929 and 1933, but simply could not compete with the contraction of uncontrolled reserves and the demand for money. I beseech your authors to commit themselves to a greater amount of research, or at least that the editors hire experts on the topic, or otherwise you risk spreading false information. Finally, the article suggests that a “great” depression is worse than hyperinflation. I was not aware that an economy where at least the majority can eat was worse than an economy where the money is worth so little that one’s entire savings has to be allotted towards the purchase of bread.
Sincerely
Jonathan Finegold Catalán
Many Austrians are too pedantic, and this makes it hard to get the message across. It’s not enough to be right, you must also be capable of expressing those better ideas.
I mean Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize.
I thought that being Time Person of the Year meant that you were very influential or had a great impact – something along those lines. I didn’t think that you were a good or bad person, for example. I mean, wasn’t Hitler Time Person of the Year?
It means you are a key figure in american fascism. An entity like bernanke surely qualifies.
Let’s hope that Bernanke of he future becomes even less popular than the Greenspan of today.
Here’s my Mises blog post on it: The Trinity is Complete
The first comment reads:
“When small men have large shadows, it means the sun is setting.” (by Kerem Tibuk)
What an epically poetic and fitting statement.
Did you notice the swipe at Ron Paul and the Tea-baggers as “reactionaries”?
After one of my finals today, I was conversing with one of my professors (who is an ultra-liberal by the way) about how TIME is a disgrace to themselves.
I was talking to him about the Fed chairman in the 70s, Arthur Burns, and how TIME magazine then humiliated Burns for going down a path that Bernanke is now taking (Just do a quick search on Google).
He agreed and he said he was somewhat confused as to why Bernanke was their final choice.
Could be sunrise, no?
From the wiki:
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.”
Despite the magazine’s frequent statements to the contrary, the designation is often regarded as an honor, and spoken of as an award or prize, simply based on many previous selections of admirable people.[5] However Time magazine points out those such as Adolf Hitler in 1938, and Joseph Stalin in 1939 and again in 1942, and the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, have also been granted the title.
I guess. I guess maybe Bernake is very very influential. It would be better if they didn’t call it Person of the Year. It would probably generate more revenue for them if they had a bad guy and good guy award.
What do you expect…its mainstream media. It is just to get people’s hopes up. If Time Magazine gives Person of the Year to Bernanke, then people are going to think he is doing a fantastic job. This is why Obama won the Nobel Prize. If he won the Nobel Prize, then it would set off the illusion that he is doing a good job
Time is the same magazine that brought you Adolf Hitler as Man of the Year in 1938.