Fed Chair of the Year: It’s Ben!

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A concerned reader writes:

After Stengel announced on Morning Joe that Time’s Man of the Year was Bernanke, I heard a pop.  So, I just wanted to make sure that wasn’t your head exploding.

First of all, it’s Person of the Year, you sexist dolt. But anyway, I’m fine, thanks very much, and happy to see that the Obama administration now has a second Time award to go along with its single (so far) Nobel Peace Prize.  But what I really want to know is: what did Bernanke do this year?  It’s true that I didn’t want him reappointed, but I freely acknowledge that, a few mistakes aside, he did a helluva job last year.  So what’s the deal?  Was 2009 really so boring that Time’s editors decided they had to reach back a year to find someone worth putting on their cover?

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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