To get the easy part out of the way, it is, in my opinion, a fact that Bernanke was asleep at the wheel, both as Fed chair and before he took the job, while the financial bubble grew and, then, exploded–to the great detriment of the American people.

  The basis for his reappointment seems to be, according to the president, that he did a good job after the bubble burst:

"Ben approached a financial system on the verge of collapse with calm and wisdom; with bold action and outside-the-box thinking that has helped put the brakes on our economic freefall," Mr. Obama said. "Almost none of the decisions he or any of us made have been easy."

  I dissent, respectfully. And here are three broad questions left to ponder:

1. Why are so many of the people who got us into this mess still at their day jobs? It isn’t just that they should have been fired–a good number should have been indicted and made to stand trial for fraud, illegal manipulation of the markets, wire fraud (where were the RICO indictments?) and other crimes. Instead, akin to the meme that "we should move forward, not look backward", many of the financial elite have been let of the hook. How have we prevented the same thing from happening again if the people who bore the brunt of this fiasco were mostly the millions of American who lost their jobs and their life savings because of the actions of a few who now are off the hook? Bernanke bears that responsibility. Where is the "outside-the-box" thinking here?

2. Where are the broad changes in the Fed’s power that would signify a truly "outside-the-box" thinking? In fact, the Fed is seeking to expand its power. What got us into this mess–and, in a moment, I will expand on what this "mess" is–is pretty simple: The Fed’s strategic vision and agenda is run by the large banks in the country, not by the peoples’ elected representatives. And those who want to parrot the line about the Fed’s independence are, to out it kindly–full of it. The Fed is a creature of Congress and Congress has the power to shape the Fed’s policy–but Congress lacks the spine to do so.  

  "Outside-the-box" thinking would, to give one example, have inspired the idea that, in fact, we should break up the big banks and move to a much more economically stable system of regional and community banks–where the decisions made by the purveyors of credit would be more in tune with local concerns rather than some Ponzi-like scheme of financial manipulation that spans the globe.

3. Ah, "the mess". The criteria being used for stopping our economic "free fall" is something that I have questioned repeatedly. Here is what Bernanke said

today at the press conference:

We have been bold or deliberate as circumstances demanded, but our objective remains constant: to restore a more stable economic and financial environment in which opportunity can again flourish, and in which Americans’ hard work and creativity can receive their proper rewards.

  If you believe that, Mr. Bernanke, then, it is curious, at best, that you would not explicitly say:

  A: your policy as the Fed chair would be to achieve FULL EMPLOYMENT–which is part of the Fed’s legal mandate but goes virtually unmentioned, either by the Fed or, frankly, by most of the people who masquerade as the representatives of the workers in the country (meaning, Congress), Democrat or Repulican. We have accepted full-blown poverty in our country as a matter of economic policy and "reality" of the "free market".

  B: That a more stable economic and financial environment means that we have to dispense with the lie that we have an unemployment rate of 9.4 percent. The effective unemployment rate–meaning, a rate which makes it impossible for "opportunity" to flourish–is now 16-17 percent, if you count all the people who have given up looking for work, the people who can’t find full-time work and can only find part-time poverty level jobs; and the people who work one hour a month (who are considered "employed"). And I don’t even include in this number the full-time workers who get paid the minimum wage–which is a poverty-level wage.

   THERE IS A FULL-BLOWN DEPRESSION OUT IN THE STREETS WHEN IT COMES TO REAL, MEANINGFUL WORK.

  C: That workers have been robbed now for 30 years. Yes, Mr. Bernanke, Americans, should get the benefit of their "hard work and creativity" but until we are honest about why they have not, then, your promise to act rings hollow.

  So, I am unmoved by the debate about Bernanke, whether he is a Republican or a Democrat. It is the system that we must challenge.