In Turmoil, Bernanke Forged New Persona

Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke’s aggressive actions in March to douse the fire consuming financial markets won him fans on Wall Street and elsewhere, but created a cadre of critics who say the “Bernanke Doctrine” fuels inflation and hurts the dollar, the New York Times reports. “It has been a really head-spinning range of unprecedented and bold actions,” said one expert.

Bernanke’s moves, critics say, also put billions of public dollars into questionable investments and forever changed the central bank’s role. Bernanke, too, has changed, analysts say. Becoming "somewhat Buddha-like," his “growing understanding of the hardball ways the system actually works” has taken him out of his former academic self and created a legacy that will “be examined for decades.” (More Federal Reserve stories.)