WASHINGTON (MNI) – The following is an excerpt from Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke’s press conference Wednesday following the Federal
Open Market Committee meeting:
First, as statement notes, the committee reviews policy as likely
to be appropriate at least until a specified threshold is met, reaching
one of those thresholds will not automatically trigger immediate
reduction in policy accommodation.
If unemployment was to decline at a time inflation and expectations
were subdued… the committee might judge an increase in target for the
federal funds rate to be inappropriate and ultimately in deciding when
and how quickly to reduce policy accommodation the committee will follow
a balanced approach in seeking to mitigate deviations of inflation from
the longer run 2% goal and deviations of employment from estimated
maximum level.
Second, the committee recognizes that no single indicator provides
a complete assessment of the state of the labor market and therefore we
will consider changing in the unemployment rate within the broader
complex of market conditions.
–MNI Washington Bureau; tel: +1 202-371-2121; email: dcoffice@mni-news.com
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