| − | Bernanke was appointed to the Federal Reserve Board, and elevated to Chairman, by a [[Republican]] President, [[George W. Bush]]. However, the [[Wall Street Journal]] reported that Dr. Bernanke has endorsed the proposed economic policies of [[Democrat]] [[Barack Obama]].<ref>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455027730552509.html</ref> | + | Bernanke is a Republican and was appointed to the Federal Reserve Board, and elevated to Chairman, by Republican President, [[George W. Bush]]. Bernanke played a major role, along with Treasury Secretary [[Henry Paulson]] in forging a vast, extremely expensive response to the [[Financial Crisis of 2008]]. The Fed and Treasury commitments exceeded $1 trillion in direct aid and over $6 trillion in loan guarantees as the economy spiraled downward. Bernanke, an expert on the Great Depression of 1929, was intervening aggressively to prevent a repeat of that disaster, but as of December 2008 the economy continued to fall rapidly. He refused to allow Fed funds to be used to rescue the automobile industry. |