WASHINGTON (MNI) – The following is a transcript of part of
an answer Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke gave to a
reporter’s question Wednesday:
BERNANKE: Why don’t we do more? I would reiterate, we’re doing a
great deal, our policies are extraordinarily accommodative. You know all
the things we’ve done to try to provide support to the economy. I guess
the the question is, does it make sense to actively seek a higher
inflation rate in order to achieve a slightly increased pace of
reduction in the unemployment rate? The view of the committee is that
that would be very reckless. We have — we, the Federal Reserve, have
spent 30 years building up credibility for low and stable inflation,
which has proved extremely valuable, in that we’ve been able to take
strong accommodative actions in the last four or five years to support
the economy without leading to a … expectations or destabilization of
inflation. To risk that asset, for, what I think would be quite
tentative and, uh, perhaps doubtful gains, on the real side would be an
unwise thing to do.
** MNI Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **
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