June 2008: "Inflation risks, in my view, continue to predominate as the greater risk to the economy." September 2008: "I'm still not ready to relinquish my concerns on the inflation front." Many economists and observers, including conservatives, have argued that this focus on inflation and failure to recognize the risk of deflation significantly exacerbated the crisis. In his memoir, Chairman Bernanke writes about his frustration, "I vented in an email the next day to Don Kohn: 'I find myself conciliating holders of the unreasonable opinion that we should be tightening even as the economy and financial system are in a precarious position and inflation/commodity pressures appear to be easing.'" Warsh's principal concerns about the permanent use of QE were highlighted in a panel discussion later alongside Bernanke. Warsh stated "My overriding concern about continued QE, then and now, involves the misallocations of capital in the economy and the misallocation of responsibility in our government. Misallocations seldom operate under their own name. They choose other names to hide behind. They tend to linger for years in plain sight. Until they emerge with force at the most inauspicious of times and do unexpected harm to the economy." Recovery In September 2009, with unemployment at 9.5% and climbing, Warsh argued that the Fed should begin to pull back on its efforts to help the real economy recover: "if policymakers insist on waiting until the level of real activity has plainly and substantially returned to normal — and the economy has returned to self-sustaining trend growth — they will almost certainly have waited too long… There is a risk, of much debated magnitude, that the unusually high level of reserves, along with substantial liquid assets of the banking system, could fuel an unanticipated, excessive surge in lending." The runaway inflation he warned about never appeared. University of Oregon Professor Tim Duy wrote in response to the speech that it looked as though "monetary policymakers are more willing to use unconventional monetary policy to support Wall Street than Main Street." At the November 2010 FOMC meeting, Warsh was extremely skeptical of the Fed's plan to generate economic activity and jobs by trying to lower long-term interest rates. Although unemployment was close to 10%, Warsh told his colleagues that he would only vote for QE2 out of respect for Chairman Bernanke: "If I were in your chair, I would not be leading the Committee in this