US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended the central bank’s response to the financial crisis and recession in a forum to be televised this week, saying he sought to avoid a “second Great Depression.”
“The problem we have is that in a financial crisis, if you let the big firms collapse in a disorderly way, it will bring down the whole system,” Bernanke said yesterday at a town hall-style meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, taped for broadcast on Public Broadcasting Service television this week.
“I was not going to be the Federal Reserve chairman who presided over the second Great Depression,” he said.
Bernanke’s appearance indicates he is stepping up public-relations efforts while confronting criticism from lawmakers over government aid to big financial firms.
His first term at the central bank’s helm ends on Jan. 31, and US President Barack Obama needs to decide whether to reappoint him for another four years.
“People still have big questions, which are, how did we get in this mess, how do we get out of this mess, how are we going to make sure this mess never happens again?” said Gregory Hess, an economics professor at Claremont McKenna College in California and a member of the Shadow Open Market Committee, a group of economists that critiques the Fed.
Participating in the meeting was an “enormously smart decision” for Bernanke, Hess said before the event. “It’s a time where he can really leverage his ability to communicate.”
Bernanke, responding to a man who said he was a small business owner “frustrated” over billions of dollars in aid provided to large financial firms, said: “I understand your frustration.”
“We’re working really hard to try to make it better,” he said, referring to Fed efforts to improve credit for small businesses.
Bernanke said he expected the US economy to grow at an annual rate of 1 percent in the second half, while unemployment would exceed 10 percent before beginning to decline.
The Fed chief said independence from political interference in setting interest rates produces “much better results” for the economy.
“We are very, very sensitive to this issue,” Bernanke said at the forum. “We need to have some independence from Congress and the administration.”
Voter concern that the Fed overstepped its authority prompted a majority of House lawmakers to co-sponsor a measure allowing for audits by the Government Accountability Office of the central bank’s monetary policy and other operations. Bernanke opposes the measure, which was introduced by US Representative Ron Paul.
The Fed chief appeared on the CBS program 60 Minutes in March, his first televised interview since becoming Fed chairman in 2006.
Before that, a Fed chairman last gave a broadcast interview in 1987, when Bernanke’s predecessor, Alan Greenspan, appeared on ABC’s This Week with David Brinkley.
Greenspan later said he regretted the interview because he “made some inadvertent news.” Stocks slipped after Greenspan suggested on the program that inflation could become a problem.
Bernanke’s comments are scheduled to air in three segments this week as part of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat