talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna [Schwartz, Friedman's coauthor]: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again." Bernanke has cited Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz in his decision to lower interest rates to zero. Anna Schwartz, however, was highly critical of Bernanke and wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times advising Obama against his reappointment as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke focused less on the role of the Federal Reserve and more on the role of private banks and financial institutions. Bernanke found that the financial disruptions of 1930–33 reduced the efficiency of the credit allocation process; and that the resulting higher cost and reduced availability of credit acted to depress aggregate demand, identifying an effect he called the financial accelerator. When faced with a mild downturn, banks are likely to significantly cut back lending and other risky ventures. This further hurts the economy, creating a vicious cycle and potentially turning a mild recession into a major depression. Economist Brad DeLong, who had previously advocated his own theory for the Great Depression, notes that the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 has raised the pertinence of Bernanke's theory. In 2002, following coverage of concerns about deflation in the business news, Bernanke gave a speech about the topic. In that speech, he mentioned that the government in a fiat money system owns the physical means of creating money and to maintain market liquidity. Control of the money supply implies that the government can always avoid deflation by simply issuing more money. He said "The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at no cost." He referred to a statement made by Milton Friedman about using a "helicopter drop" of money into the economy to fight deflation. Bernanke's critics have since referred to him as "Helicopter Ben" or to his "helicopter printing press." In a footnote to his speech, Bernanke noted that "people know that inflation erodes the real value of the government's debt and, therefore, that it is in the interest of the government to create some inflation." For example, while Greenspan publicly supported President Clinton's deficit reduction plan and