Source:
Bloomberg March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke may be facing something worse than a loss of personal credibility on Wall Street and in Washington: waning faith in the ability of the institution he leads to turn around the economy and the financial markets anytime soon.
Bernanke has reached deep into the Fed's toolkit to come up with innovative ways to head off a recession and restore some calm in credit markets. While many have initially been greeted with rallies in stocks, cumulatively they haven't yet had lasting impact on bringing down credit costs and setting the stage for economic recovery.
``The Fed has been playing the equivalent of Whac-A-Mole as financial turmoil keeps cropping up in new and unexpected places,'' says former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder, referring to the arcade game where players try to hammer down plastic critters that randomly pop out of holes. ``Yet many of the problems facing us are beyond its reach.''
Home buyers are unlikely to put down offers on houses that they think will lose value -- no matter how much the Fed does to lower mortgage costs. Banks with mounting loan losses will shy away from lending to borrowers they think might go bust -- no matter how much money the Fed pumps into the financial system. And investors will remain jittery -- even after the Fed throws a lifeline to struggling financial institutions, as it did last week with Bear Stearns Cos.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aLKjRvxDFICQ&refer=home
Whac-A-Mole is an excellent analogy for what's taking place right now.