Title:
Bernanke Meets the Press in a First for US Central
Bank
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
Central bankers have to choose their words
carefully. So they often say little in public -- or
little that makes sense. But the United States
central bank says it is trying to be more clear and
timely in communicating its policies. The latest
example: a press conference by Chairman Ben
Bernanke. The April twenty-seventh event was the
first of its kind in the ninety-eight-year history
of the Federal Reserve. In his opening comments,
Mister Bernanke explained a decision by the Federal
Open Market Committee to leave its main short-term
interest rate near zero. The committee had just
completed a two-day meeting. Mister Bernanke said:
"The committee continues to anticipate that the
economic conditions -- including low rates of
resource utilization, subdued inflation trends and
stable inflation expectations -- are likely to
warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal
funds rate for an extended period."In other words,
the economy is not growing fast enough to worry
about inflation. A reporter asked what an "extended
period" means to the Fed. Mister Bernanke said it
suggests "a couple of meetings probably" but it all
depends on the economy. He said it is very hard to
blame the American public for being impatient with
the speed of the recovery. But he pointed out that
unemployment is still high. Oil and gasoline prices
are high. And the housing market remains very
weak.The committee said it will complete purchases
of six hundred billion dollars in Treasury
securities in June. The Fed launched the bond buying
program late last year in an effort to keep interest
rates low and strengthen the economy. Some
economists say this second round of what is known as
quantitative easing, or "QE2," has not been
effective. Mister Bernanke disagreed and pointed to
examples like gains in stock prices. The Fed has two
main goals for its monetary policy: the highest
possible employment rates and stable prices. The
bank faced criticism for intervening either too
little to some critics or too much to others in the
financial crisis.The press conference produced no
surprises. Yet, as recently as the middle of the
nineteen nineties, the Fed did not even release its
decisions or its interest rate targets to the
public. The Fed announced in March that Mister
Bernanke will hold four press briefings a year. The
next of three planned for this year will follow a
decision on interest rates in June.For VOA Special
English, I'm Alex Villareal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
