Ben Bernanke's Recovery Support as Vital as 2008's Fight Against Panic

Appearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on Sept. 23, 2008, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke deployed the skills he’d once used in teaching economics at Princeton University. He walked through the $700 billion bailout clearly, methodically, and as repetitively as his questioners needed. He was the Buddha of central bankers, as former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would later call him, but more activist. Also: fuller beard, smaller belly.