New Fox News Op-ed piece: Bernanke Doesn't Deserve a Second Term

My newest Fox News piece starts this way:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has been warning that a refusal by the Senate to reconfirm Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will be "very troubling" for financial markets. But this is just the lawmakers usual scare tactics: do as they like or else we are in for a disaster. We are getting tired of hearing it. Looming imminent “disaster” has been conjured up to motivate us to fund bailouts, massive government spending programs and huge increases in the national debt. Those fears weren't justified then, and they aren't justified now.

Despite Mr. Bernanke's obvious academic expertise on the Great Depression, he shouldn't be reconfirmed. The Federal Reserve's extreme powers have rarely been as overused and misused as they have been by Mr. Bernanke.

To name just one example, his mishandling of the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch merger is very disturbing. . . .