Still more ironically, it was that crisis in the 1930s that spawned creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory bodies that took on part of the burden once shouldered almost exclusively by the Fed. After all, the Fed was created in direct response to another systemic shock, the Panic of 1907, when only timely intervention by J.P. Morgan himself saved the day. Scared by how close the financial markets and the economy had come to tumbling over the precipice, legislators created the Federal Reserve system in 1913 to guard against future banking collapses.

Bernanke has always paid a great deal of attention to the Fed’s nearly century-old role as regulator, as well as its better-known role as monetary policymaker. “Since its founding, the Fed has been entrusted with the responsibility of helping to ensure the stability of the financial system,” he reminded his audience in a 2002 speech, shortly after joining the Fed’s Board of Governors. “The Fed has a range of powers with respect to financial institutions, including rule-making powers, supervisory oversight, and a lender of last resort function.” Bernanke has used all of those tools over the last 18 months as he has struggled to address the most recent financial panic in our century-old financial system.

With Bernanke’s expertise and experience and that longstanding regulatory mandate in mind, it may seem eminently logical to simply formalize matters and make the Fed not only the de facto, but the formal, systemic regulator. But, cautions Robert Kurucza, a former regulator with both the SEC and the Office of the Comptroller of Currency who now heads the securities practice of Goodwin Procter LLP, “We can’t be designing a regulatory system that is a response to one set of experiences or one individual—no matter how compelling that individual appears at any point in time.”

The risk, Kurucza points out, is that a system that seems rational today may, over time, become just as irrational and ineffective as our current regime now appears. Bernanke is a shoo-in to stay at the Fed for another four years (though he may face some tough questions during his reappointment hearings), and he may stick around for another eight or even 12 years. But eventually, like Greenspan, Bernanke will make a dignified exit. And the financial markets will still have the Fed as their systemic regulator; a new money czar will inherit the throne and deal with a different president.

Solving the conundrum of systemic regulation by anointing Bernanke as the money czar in his second term as Fed Chairman might leave us all heaving a sigh of relief. But we may be creating more problems than we solve. Rushing to designate the Fed—or any other existing regulatory body—as the systemic regulator without stopping to consider what systemic regulation might mean for the 21st century could be disastrous.

We have already learned that undue deference to the judgment of an extremely intelligent policymaker in complex matters such as asset price bubbles can have disastrous consequences. We need regulators to deal with the important issue of systemic risk. But do we need a money czar? That’s the question to ask in the run-up to Bernanke’s second term.