Time Person of the Year not going to bail Bernanke, Fed out

I watched Republican senator and last year’s U.S. presidential election aspirant Ron Paul two nights back on CNBC Squawk Box castigating the Federal Reserve for their seemingly mishandling of the financial crisis. For him the institution has become outdated and irrelevant in this modern age of complex financial products. I thought he was just in his usual maverick mood as the panel were pretending to be interested in his theories when in fact they were aching for the queue to call for a commercial.

Little that I know, since I have spent less time watching the news lately because I have a lot on my plate at work, that there has been a clamor in the U.S. Congress to curb the powers of the Federal Reserve amidst questions of their handling of taxpayer’s money to bail out Wall Street  in the height of last year’s financial collapse.

This comes as as Fed chairman Ben Bernake was hailed by Time Magazine as Person of the Year for 2009 for his role in bringing the United States economy out of recession. Expectedly, this has been met with criticism just as how people questioned President Barack Obama’s winning of the Nobel Peace prize last week.

Although Bernanke is set to be nominated anew as chairman of the central bank, he will probably be ushering a new age for the institution where it will no longer enjoy the autonomy it used to have after it was acknowledged for its failure to stop the American economy’s descent  to its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.