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The Cult of Bernanke Bashing

I subscribe to several financial newsletters, and I got one today that linked to a post that made my blood boil a bit, wherein the author seizes on Time Magazine's having named Ben Bernanke as "Man of the Year" as evidence that "American culture rewards bad behavior".

It seems we cannot learn the actual lessons taught by the ongoing economic meltdown. Instead, the money men seem determined to sort the causes of this mess into neat ideological categories, prepackaged to divert blame from the originating causes, and onto their favorite bugaboo "lib'rul Democrat" boogeymen.

Somehow, their narrative goes, loosening credit to poor families on the part of FannieMae and FreddieMac single-handedly caused the Great Recession. Deregulating the financial and insurance industries, somehow, did NOT have anything to do with this. Somehow, the creation of a $600 TRILLION derivatives market --a market entirely consisting of imaginary products backed only in the loosest of senses by tangible goods-- didn't cause this mess, when that market happens to represent TEN TIMES the GDP of the ENTIRE WORLD.