No, Ben Bernanke Is Not to Blame for Today’s Inflation
The Federal Reserve did increase the money supply during his tenure, but that isn’t causing price increases now.
He deserves a smile and a Nobel.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North AmericaWhen Ben Bernanke won a share of the Nobel Prize in Economics earlier this week, I heard from a lot of irate readers suggesting that he did not deserve it because he is responsible for today’s high rates of price inflation. But the simple truth is that Bernanke, whatever mistakes he may have made as chair of the US Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014, is not to blame for today’s predicament.
It is true that Bernanke shepherded through a major program of quantitative easing and money-supply expansion. He oversaw a huge injection of reserves into the banking system; by October 2009 banking reserves had risen to $2.1 trillion from $870 billion before the crisis. Still, those policies did not spur massive inflation.