《時代》週刊精選片段選讀：人物事件(第2輯)（簡體書）

Now that Bernanke has gotten us past the crisis, inflation hawks and dovesalike are trashing him for unbalancing the Feds "dual mandate" to stabilizeprices and maximize employment. The mostly right-leaning hawks rail aboutHelicopter Ben, Zimbabwe Ben and the Villain of the Year, whose cheap printedmoney is driving us to hyperinflation. Its true that Bernanke drove interest ratesdown to zero and tripled the Feds balance sheet to avert a depression: he hasalso bought more than $1 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities to lowermortgage rates, boost housing prices and pull us out of recession. Now that therecession seems to be over, hawks are badgering him to start tightening themoney supply to avoid inflation and an overheated economy. Bernankesresponse is simple: What inflation? Theres little evidence in the data, andeven a cursory review of the morning papers suggests that the economy is stillunderheated. Bernanke repeatedly stressed that the big problem today is highunemployment, that places like Dillon are suffering, that persistent joblessnesscan create ripple effects that damage families, communities and the nation forgenerations.
So why doesnt he do something about it? Why talk so much about theeventual need to undo his extraordinary money-easing interventions and not at allabout additional interventions? The mostly left-leaning doves believe thatBernanke. as bold as he was during the crisis, is now being outrageouslycautious. They want him to buy even more mortgages and pump even moreliquidity into the economy. They would welcome a little inflation, which couldmake Americans feel a bit poorer but could also encourage lenders and investorsto put more money to work rather than hoarding it. Some of them suspect thatBernanke, a onetime economic adviser to George W. Bush, is choosing thebrakes over the gas because hes a conservative Republican at heart.