Bernanke

WASHINGTON - Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the newest member of the Senate Banking Committee, waited patiently for her first chance to question top financial regulators at a recent hearing on Capitol Hill. When her turn finally came after 90 minutes, Warren quickly showed she wouldn't be following the custom that a freshman senator be seen and not heard. After some pleasantries, the longtime consumer advocate and Wall Street critic lit into the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke sent the first signals that with an improving economy and labor market, the central bank stood ready to ratchet back its massive stimulus effort gradually before completely pulling the plug on it. For now, Bernanke and his colleagues at the Fed said Wednesday that they will continue with their program to buy $85 billion in bonds every month. The stimulus is aimed at lowering long-term interest rates to spur investment and spending, but there has been growing concern in and outside the central bank that the Fed's easy-money policies are causing asset bubbles and will lead to higher inflation.

President Obama did the right thing Tuesday when he reappointed Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The Fed made its share of mistakes during his first term, but its resourcefulness last fall helped to limit the damage caused by the credit market's collapse. Looking ahead, Bernanke's experience and scholarship seem well-suited to the challenges the central bank will face as the economy rebounds. Yet the Fed's track record also demonstrates why lawmakers should enact new rules for the financial industry to reduce the risk of another round of meltdowns and bailouts.

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Wednesday that the central bank might gradually ratchet back its stimulus efforts if the labor market continues to improve, before completely pulling the plug on the unprecedented effort. The Fed has said it would continue purchasing $85 billion in bonds until there is substantial improvement in the labor market. Federal Reserve policymakers said Wednesday that moderate economic growth has returned after a slowdown at the end of last year and the employment situation has improved.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's dour assessment of the U.S. recovery hit U.S. stocks Wednesday, as the Fed chief's comment on "unusually uncertain" economic prospects discouraged investors. Stocks sank after Bernanke acknowledged the labor market's continued weakness while offering few specific options to stimulate lending and investment. "The market sold off because unfortunately there is no remedy provided in Bernanke's commentary to the rising threat of deflation, the excess capacity in the economy and the malfunctioning of the credit system," said Joe Battipaglia, market strategist at Stifel Nicolaus in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

President Obama said he released his long-form birth certificate to stop the conspiracy theories and keep the issue from distracting the nation from more important things. But in doing it Wednesday of all days when the issue has been simmering for months, two of his biggest critics, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, charged the White House with conspiring to create its own distraction -- from the first-ever news conference by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. That long-awaited event is also Wednesday.

Wall Street rebounded from last week's declines after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank will continue to keep interest rates low even as the economy shows signs of recovering. Bernanke said during a speech that the Fed would support “continued accommodative policies” to help the economy grow more quickly. He hopes this stance will help create enough jobs to lower the unemployment rate even further. The comments sent major U.S. stock indexes up more than 1% through much of the session.

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke maintained that the economy was continuing to grow at a moderate pace, despite the recent sharp deceleration in job growth and a slowdown in economic output in large part because of government spending cuts. In remarks Thursday before the Congress' Joint Economic Committee, Bernanke noted the weakening of hiring this spring as job growth slowed to an average of 75,000 a month in April and May from 225,000 in the first three months of the year.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, apparently seeking to mollify critics as he awaits Senate confirmation on his reappointment, said Tuesday that he welcomed a government audit of the central bank's role in the intensely unpopular bailout of American International Group Inc. In a letter to the head of the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, Bernanke offered to "make available to the GAO all records and personnel...

Despite the pickup in the U.S. economy since last summer, growth is likely to be "modest" during the coming year, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday, citing factors including tight credit for businesses and consumers, the long-depressed housing market and budget-strapped governments. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, in presenting the central bank's semiannual report on monetary policy and the economy to Congress, did not view the recent jump in oil prices as a major impediment, though he noted that higher energy costs could pinch consumer spending.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. economy barely grew late last year, thanks largely to a plunge in federal defense spending that in part was likely preparation for the budget cuts under the so-called sequestration. The nation's gross domestic product, or the total value of all goods and services produced, rose by a measly 0.1% in the fourth quarter, according to the Commerce Department's latest calculations released Thursday. The government's first estimate said inflation-adjusted GDP shrank 0.1% in the final three months of last year.

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Tuesday that the upcoming budget cuts under the so-called sequestration would create a "significant" burden on an economy that is growing only moderately. In his semi-annual economic report to Congress, the Fed chief urged lawmakers and the Obama administration to "consider replacing the sharp, front-loaded spending cuts required by the sequestration with policies that reduce the federal deficit more gradually in the near term but more substantially in the longer run. " He told the Senate Banking Committee that the sequestration set to take effect March 1, which would cut federal spending by $85 billion this year, and other recent near-term budget changes could create a "significant headwind for the economic recovery.

WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke urged Congress to avert the new spending cuts set to begin Friday, saying they are bad for the economy and fail to deal with the nation's long-term debt. The government has "made progress" in getting its deficit under control for the next several years, Bernanke said, but new cuts now would slow the recovery. What's needed, he said, are cuts that take effect in the next decade when the rising costs of retirement programs could send deficits soaring again.

WASHINGTON -- Despite the moderate pace of recovery, the Federal Reserve is so worried about the stubbornly high level of unemployment that it promised to extend its unprecedented stimulus steps until there is "substantial improvement," Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said. "The conditions now prevailing in the job market represent an enormous waste of human and economic potential," Bernanke told reporters Wednesday. The new goal for the Fed is to get the jobless rate down to 6.5%, the first time it has tied interest rates to a specific unemployment target.

WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke urged President Obama and Congress to shield the fragile economy from the full brunt of the so-called fiscal cliff or risk another recession just as the recovery is taking hold. Speaking Tuesday at the New York Economic Club, Bernanke warned that the Fed doesn't have the tools left to offset the one-two punch of significantly higher taxes and sharply reduced government spending set to begin in January. "Coming together to find fiscal solutions will not be easy, but the stakes are high," Bernanke said.

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Tuesday that President Obama and Congress must shield the fragile economy from the full brunt of the so-called fiscal cliff or risk another recession just as the recovery is taking hold. Speaking at the New York Economic Club, Bernanke warned that the Fed doesn't have the tools left to offset the one-two punch of significantly higher taxes and sharply reduced government spending set to begin in January. "Coming together to find fiscal solutions will not be easy, but the stakes are high," Bernanke said.

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke took advantage of historically low mortgage rates -- brought down by the central bank's near-zero interest rates -- to refinance his Washington condominium last year, according to his annual government financial disclosures. Bernanke and his wife, Anna, took out a new 30-year mortgage at 4.25% last year on the three-bedroom condominium in the nation's capital that they have owned since 2004, according to the disclosure form he filed with the Office of Government Ethics, and property records.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said recent news articles about the central bank's emergency lending contain "egregious errors. " "The articles recycle information that has been disclosed to the Congress and the American people in various forms for some time," Bernanke said in letters to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and the three other senior lawmakers who oversee the Fed. The Fed posted the letters and an accompanying four-page staff memo on its website Tuesday.

The "fiscal cliff" is coming, unless Congress acts soon. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Tuesday that President Obama and Congress must act promptly to avoid possibility of plunging the United States into recession again. He said the Fed doesn't have any magic bullets if a compromise isn't found to avoid automatic spending cuts and tax increases starting in January. Quiz: How much do you know about the 'fiscal cliff'? Is economic austerity the only answer?