Congrats, Bernanke
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The man of the year himself, above, delivers a Class Day speech at Harvard in 2008.
For those who came out of yesterday's Ec 10 final feeling not so hot, know this: the utility of an economics concentration is high.
At least it was for Ben S. Bernanke '75, the Winthrop House economics concentrator who, this morning, was honored by TIME Magazine as 2009's Person of the Year.
In his role as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Bernanke was credited with "creative leadership [that] helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression."
The steward of the nation's monetary policy, Bernanke—who went on to earn his doctorate from MIT and teach at Stanford and Princeton—kept interest rates aggressively low in order to stimulate borrowing and lending and expanded the role of the Fed.
At Harvard, according to the article, Bernanke was an "academic star," graduating summa cum laude after discovering "that he could no longer get straight A's without studying." (maybe we should try that....)
Of course, nobody's perfect. And academic stardom aside, the man's Class Day speeches could use some work...