Bernanke Warns again about the Risk of Spending Cuts

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday repeated testimony to Congress, defending the central bank’s monetary easing and warning Congress against letting looming spending cuts take place.

“Given the still-moderate underlying pace of economic growth, this additional near-term burden on the recovery is significant,” Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee.

In testimony Tuesday, Bernanke strongly defended the Fed’s easy monetary policy and said there was little risk of a spike in inflation in the near term.

In criticizing the central bank’s easy monetary policy, Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, called Bernanke the biggest monetary dove since World War II.

Bernanke was quick to push back. “You called me a dove, well maybe in some respects I am, but on the other hand my inflation record is the best of any Federal Reserve chairman in the postwar period – or at least one of the best,” he said, citing the 2 percent average inflation rate.

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza