Episode 768: A Chat With Ben Bernanke : Planet Money Ten years ago, two little-known hedge funds blew up, and the financial crisis was on its way. Today, we ask the person at the center of it all, former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, why it happened.

Episode 768: A Chat With Ben Bernanke

Episode 768: A Chat With Ben Bernanke

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Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Katie Kramer/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images hide caption

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Katie Kramer/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Katie Kramer/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Today on the show, we sit down with Dr. Ben Bernanke, the medicine man of the markets and the money supply.

Ten years later, we're still dealing with the effects of the 2008 financial crisis. Some industries and parts of the country are still trying to recover from the worst economic period since the Great Depression.

It was Ben Bernanke's job to stop the crashing and pick up the pieces.

As chairman of the Federal Reserve, he had to balance the pressures of Congress, the White House, and the American people and come up with a solution to rebuild confidence in the country's financial system. He had to make tough call after tough call.

He's had 10 years to think it over on what happened, what could have happened and why. So, we sat down with him to ask a few questions, like:

  • Why didn't the Fed see this coming?
  • Why did America bail out the banks, and not the homeowners?
  • How close did we come to total collapse?
  • And we ask him about his trip to Hollywood.

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