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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Sunday that he had to "hold my nose" over last year's taxpayer-financed bailouts of big financial companies but argued that the action had to be taken to avoid a major meltdown of the U.S. financial system and the broader economy.

Bernanke's comments came during a town-hall style meeting in Kansas City, Mo., where he was peppered with several questions about government decisions last year to rescue so-called "too big to fail companies" like insurance giant American International Group [AIG 12.42 -0.04 (-0.32%) ] , whose collapse would have wreaked havoc on the global economy.

A small-business owner complained to Bernanke that such actions were "hard to swallow," saying he felt like small businesses — also struggling to survive the recession and all the financial fallout — were being shortchanged.

"Nothing made me more frustrated, more angry, than having to intervene" when companies were "taking wild bets," Bernanke said. But not acting would have had grave consequences for the economy, he added.

"I was not going to be the Federal Reserve chairman who presided over the second Great Depression," he said. "I had to hold my nose... I'm as disgusted as you are... I absolutely understand your frustration."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/32166745

Hey....as long as he had hold to his nose, that makes me feel better.....

You know I held my nose also. But Bernanke is a student of the depression and he knows there were two main reasons (probably more) that a recession turned into the great depression. (1) tight monetary policy and (2) bank failures, many many bank failures.

Two things we have not had this time around.

OL FU wrote:You know I held my nose also. But Bernanke is a student of the depression and he knows there were two main reasons (probably more) that a recession turned into the great depression. (1) tight monetary policy and (2) bank failures, many many bank failures.

Two things we have not had this time around.

Rampant consumerism is hard to hold down...

Bernanke impresses me less and less with each passing day. He has good scholarly creds, but he's doing this town-hall and 60 Minutes routine that's full of whiny, CYA, revisionist blather.

Ivytalk wrote:Bernanke impresses me less and less with each passing day. He has good scholarly creds, but he's doing this town-hall and 60 Minutes routine that's full of whiny, CYA, revisionist blather.

He is running for re-nomination

Ivytalk wrote:Bernanke impresses me less and less with each passing day. He has good scholarly creds, but he's doing this town-hall and 60 Minutes routine that's full of whiny, CYA, revisionist blather.

Reserving judgement on Bernanke just yet... right now he is like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, trying to keep inflation down. If he can manage that through the length of the recovery and all the big borrowing for the various stimuli (which is going to be about 3 years) then he will deserve a lot of praise.

CID1990 wrote:Reserving judgement on Bernanke just yet... right now he is like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, trying to keep inflation down. If he can manage that through the length of the recovery and all the big borrowing for the various stimuli (which is going to be about 3 years) then he will deserve a lot of praise.

CID,
The frequency of balanced, common sense posts by you is refreshing. I encourage you to keep it up.