Bernanke: "Recession Likely to Come to an End this Year."

[Clio the Leo]

From 60's Minutes:

"Mr. Chairman, I'm gonna start with a question that everyone wants me to ask: when does this end?" 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley asked Bernanke.

"It depends a lot on the financial system," he replied. "The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis. We've seen some progress in the financial markets, absolutely. But until we get that stabilized and working normally, we're not gonna see recovery. But we do have a plan. We're working on it. And I do think that we will get it stabilized, and we'll see the recession coming to an end probably this year. We'll see recovery beginning next year. And it will pick up steam over time."

Asked if he thinks the recession is going to end this year, Bernanke said, "In the sense that this decline will begin to moderate and we'll begin to see leveling off. We won't be back to full employment. But we will see, I hope, the end of these declines that have been so strong in a last couple of quarters."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/12/60minutes/main4862191.shtml

I've had this theory for quite some time that the President might be OVERESTIMATING the time it will take for us to see improvements because, 1. it gives him some political cover and 2. it will only make him look BETTER if things improve sooner than projected. This gives a little credence to my theory. ;)

[phantom power]

1. Bernanke is dreaming.

Our nation's economy, and the world economy, have huge structural problems, and it's going to take a lot longer than the remainder of this year to reverse them.

[caseymoz]

27. Agreed. This is no cyclical garden-variety recession.

The economy of the world is unstable. Bernanke must be desperate and has the major TARP banks playing along.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. LOL

like this idiot knows anything?

[vaberella]

4. He doesn't but WS does trust every word he says. I lived on BB for a year.

He says pasta is shit and people would boycott Ronzoni.

[Botany]

10. Went to harvard .... taught himself calculus .. PhD M.I.T. ......

...... Professor @ Princeton.

You are right what an idiot.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

11. to publicly say something that patently

shillista, is stupid... I don't care how smart he was before he sold his soul to the machine

[Botany]

12. The man might be blowing some smoke to buy a little uptick in the ...

.... short run but he does know what he is doing.

1) Stabilize the banks

2) Open Credit to those that can handle it

3) Wise large Fed money into public & private projects that help out all of us in the long run

He did not just fall off the turnip truck.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

16. at the price of his long-term cred?

we shall see, I suppose

[Truth2Tell]

22. Don't even need to wait and see

just look at his track record with predictions so far. 0%. Only a complete fool would believe another word these criminals say.

[vaberella]

3. You know Clio...I don't trust Bernanke...but

WS loves the man. It's like what he says is gold. Second thing that got me thinking Bernanke and you are right is when I see that these banks who were all asking for Bail Out are now making PROFITS and some...was it JPMorgan Chase or Citigroup is already talking about paying the TARP money back. They made a profit, ready to send back funds----all because the word NAtIONALIZE was being used in the W.H. and not out of the mouth of Economists all over the world.

They were fucking with us and were trying to bankrupt he nation. Their bluff failed and I think you're right. Now all we have to do is stop the outsourcing and get more Americans back to work. We'd have bypassed serious disaster. I can't believe the banks were fucking with the American people. Not in the beginning but towards the end.

[Clio the Leo]

6. And the rise in unemployment is slowing and retail was better than expected last month..

.... which I also called because I WORK in retail. (Hey, I'm not as dumb about the economy as I thought, I mean I'm SLIGHTLY more knowledgeable about it than Meghan McCain is lol)

All I know is that I'm seeing as much good as I am bad lately, that's good, right?

And oh yeah, Austan Goolsbee is hot. That has nothing to do with anything, but I am just now realizing this and I felt the need to share. :)

[vaberella]

21. Nah, AG has Rat-ty features.

High pointed nose, pointed chin and noticeable front teeth.

But yeah, you seem to be on to something. I hope we nationalize the banks because I seriously think they're were setting us up more and more.

[Clio the Leo]

24. Yes, but he speaks as if he has a VERY LARGE .............

.... BRAIN ....... and yeah ... that thing you were thinkin, that too. ;)

Ballsy that kid is! Ballsy to quite ballsy! Love it! Be still my heart! :)

[vaberella]

26. Pass on some reading or videos that make him seem so ballsy.

I googled him when you mentioned him. Way out of touch apparently.

[Clio the Leo]

30. Did you see him on Fox News Sunday?

He did this: :spank: to Chris Wallace.

And there's also this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpXkiXlGxUc

[caseymoz]

25. Sorry, I don't think that's what's happening.

As much as I'd like to believe the good news, I think it's a coordinated snow-job. I can't say exactly what motivated it, but the reason why I believe it's a snow-job? It's not the end of the quarter yet. What are these banks doing declaring profits now? And all at once? I've never seen such a thing.

The other thing is, they themselves admit that their profit reports are preliminary and their accounting incomplete. It doesn't include, among other things, write downs of bad assets. And the assets they're holding are-- really bad.

Where do they get the income for this? It isn't like they're making loans now. Too many loans they have made have gone sour. They aren't making money in the stock and bond markets. The only real source they have of revenue right now is the TARP.

So, we have all the major banks coming out and declare profits at once at a time well before when their reports are due, and we have Bernanke coming out and saying everything is going to get so much better.

I think it's all theater. My conjecture? The dive in the stock market scared the hell out of them, and they weren't seeing a bottom if it continued, so they talked things up to gain time. Now Bernanke is continuing with the third act.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. a lower rate of decline is not a recovery

Sustained positive growth is how we measure these things, as Bernanke knows better than most.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. You might be right, but...

at least you acknowledge it's a theory.

(I wonder about those others who trash Bernanke as if they know something he doesn't.)

[Clio the Leo]

9. There is no greater critic of my knowledge than.........

.... me. :)

One reason why I do more cheering than jeering here is I will GLADLY conceed that the President and those working for him know more about the matter at hand than I do.

I stick to what I KNOW.

Which is why I am gonna keep on him about the pleated pants.

And the mom jeans....



SERIOUSLY Mr. President, just STOP IT!!!!

[Mojorabbit]

14. I don't know anywhere

near as much as he does but I keep reading about the 500 trillion or so out there in exotic securities that is more money than in the whole world. Someone will have to take a bath on that and I can't see it ending well. I hope he has a really really good plan. I am planning for the worst and hoping for the best.

[RoyGBiv]

8. I don't think he's right ...

I also don't think he really believes that.

Bernanke isn't an idiot. His education and areas of expertise, on the surface, suggest he is among the best people for the job he holds right now. Under the surface, though, he has a little too much Chicago school in him and still thinks monetary policy can offer solutions. We're beyond that now.

But his real problem is that he's a poor public relations agent, and he's recently become acutely aware of how his ability or lack thereof influences the state of things. The concrete structural problems with our economy are one thing. The problem of perception is quite another, and Bernanke has been an anvil around the neck of perception since the crisis began. He seem to have taken quick lessons on how to choose his words so as not to generate panic with a single phrase, but given his history and the reality that is all too clear, it comes across as less than genuine.

In summary, I don't think he really believes a recovery will begin this year. Late 2010 is probably optimistic. But I also think he knows, now, that were he to say that outright, that just his words could be a part of a self-fulfilling prophecy that extends the best estimates into unknown territory.

Of course there's another, more paranoid way to look at it in that Bernanke could be seen as GOP operative trying to raise expectations so that Obama looks like a failure if the economy doesn't recover this year. I don't personally believe that right now. I don't think he's Rush. But, it's something to think about.

[ShadowLiberal]

13. I think it's being VERY over optimistic to say it'll end this year

No offense, but I'm very skeptical of someone whenever they claim the economy will be fixed within in a year. They're dreaming, I mean when was the last time we kept on losing over half a million jobs every month for this many months in a row? When was the last time the unemployment numbers got this bad?

Take a look at wikipedia and what it says on the great depression. Contrary to popular belief the economy didn't just start going into free fall and never recover for a decade when the depression started. The depression started in like October of 1929 I believe. The year after that, in 1930, the economy actually recovered in the first half of the year, with the stock markets going back up to what they once were at their lowest point in 1929 before the depression started. Then in the second half of 1930 the stock market tanked again, because while businesses and such were spending more, consumers had cut back on their spending by 10%, and the stock market never recovered from there until we were out of the depression.

Compare that to today, the meltdown started in September, and we're in March, last week there were some hopeful signs of a possible recovery with the DOW gaining for 4 days in a row, and some companies saying they didn't need more bailout money as originally anticipated. But if this current economic meltdown were to follow the great depression's timeline we'd 'recover' in the next 2 or 3 months, and then tank again.

When companies stop laying off over 100,000 people a month then I'll start to believe that the economy could be recovering, but for now I'm very skeptical.

[Clio the Leo]

15. He didn't say it "would be fixed" this year.

He said the RECESSION would end this year ... meaning the downswing will end this year .... but it wont be "fixed" because we'd still have to have the UPSWING .... which he said would start in 2010. ;)

"We'll see recovery beginning next year. And it will pick up steam over time."

[brentspeak]

17. Yeah, and what will a "Bernanke recovery" look like?

One where the numbers are massaged because some corporate stocks go up in value, but a jobless recovery everywhere else?

[sakabatou]

18. ROFLMAO

[iamthebandfanman]

19. whats wrong with him saying that ?

hes just following the old tried and tru method(which i call the rocky horror picture show method) ...

dont dream it, be it.

[PfcHammer]

20. ...provided it doesn't last into into 2011. LOL

[Juche]

23. I trust Roubini more

Roubini says weak economic growth in 2010 of about 0-1%, and improved growth rates by 2011.

He also says expect a big supply problem when the economy recovers. Because raw materials are losing value production is declining. Once demand starts going up again supply will be too dwindled to meet it and we will go back to $100/barrel oil and exorbant commodity prices for a while.

[caseymoz]

28. Maybe, but before any of that happens, we have a lot of bombs to defuse.

If the economy stops shrinking by 2010, something is probably wrong. Either they put the economy back together with dental floss and scotch tape, or they've desperate they're lying about the figures.

We still might get a commodity shortage someplace in the mess.

[FrenchieCat]

29. But, but, but Nouriel Roubini is a Clintonite and advised Geithner and calls Summers his hero!!

Nouriel Roubini (born on March 29, 1959) is a professor of economics at the Stern School of Business, New York University and chairman of RGE Monitor, an economic consultancy firm. After receiving his doctorate in international economics from Harvard University, he began academic research and policy-making by teaching at Yale while also spending time at the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Reserve, World Bank and Bank of Israel. Much of his early studies were focused on emerging-market countries. During President Bill Clinton’s administration he was a senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers later moving to the Treasury Department as a senior adviser to Timothy Geithner who is now Treasury Secretary.

Another intellectual hero is Larry Summers, the former President of Harvard, an amazing intellectual and academic, who is very deeply involved with the policy world. I worked for him for many years in the US Treasury during the Clinton Administration".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouriel_Roubini

He may be right, as he predicted the financial collapse (although they all should have seen it... cause all one had to do was look at the amortization schedule of some of these loans, where the payments for homeowners doubled)...but the recovery I believe is less obvious than how the shit fell apart.

[TexasObserver]

31. He's probably right. It likely ends by this time next year.

The ending of the recession does not mean things will be great, only that we will turn the corner and begin to see a recovery. The recovery will be long and slow, and we'll see many losses yet to be felt.

[LiberalFighter]

32. I don't trust Bernanke