This isn’t really saying much, but it seems that Ben Bernanke is the most popular guy in Washington.
Charles Schwab’s semiannual survey of investment advisors gives Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, a 73% approval rating. That’s in line with his rating in the last survey in January and well above the low point of his tenure, a 61% approval score when the economy was starting to crack in January 2008.
Though Bernanke has come under attack on Wall Street for everything from a supposed willingness to debase the dollar to a failure to communicate, it seems his star still hasn’t fallen on Main Street.
The results come from the online brokerage house’s latest survey, which was conducted over 10 days last month and tracked responses from 1,199 investment advisors.
Bernanke’s reception has remained solidly positive even as the economy has slowed. He has been helped, no doubt, by easy comparisons. The public loves to hate two other high-ranking economic policymakers, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House economics czar Larry Summers, and is plain disgusted with its elected leaders.
President Obama’s approval rating recently tumbled to a new low of 45%, a Reuters poll showed, and his disapproval rating is now higher, at 52%. Meanwhile approval of Congress, according to a Rasmussen poll this month, recently clocked in at 16% — its highest ranking in a year.