What else is there to say but the obvious snark: the award goes to the person who has made a mark for better or for worse. You can find the full list of award winners here (including SLU alum Owen D. Young in 1929). Among the names there are many of the really nasty folks of the 20th century. Bernanke didn't kill anyone, but in terms of the damage he may have inflicted on the US economy over time, he might well have made many of us notably poorer than we would have been.
That monetary policy so depends on the powers of one person that he or she could be Time's Person of the Year is the best summary of exactly what's wrong with central banking. Creating the powers to do what we imagine will be great good inevitably become powers of destruction, given the epistemic limits of human control. Ben Bernanke and the Fed illustrate that as well as anything.
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