Bernanke: Growth Good

Ben Bernanke will be replaced by Larry Summers or another stooge in the very near future. It's a win win for the government and Uncle Ben: the government has their fall guy in the near term and Ben gets to step away before the CIT really hits the fan.

Ben will take a graceful bow as the economy "rights itself" and we start to see moderate, to strong growth in the next several quarters. He will be blamed with Greenspan for the recession but will be credited for saving the US economy from the brink of annihilation.

Ben, no idiot, sees the inflation on the wall like the rest of us and the end of the road for the US Economy. The economy sure will be growing, granted, at a much slower pace than that of the supply of 'money.'

Bernake Calls Growth Prospects 'Good'

In his most optimistic economic forecast since the financial markets plunged nearly a year ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke declared that “the prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good.”

Bernanke made the comments Friday in a speech at an annual Fed event in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

It’s the latest in a string of increasingly hopeful pronouncements from Fed officials that the end of a recession many economists feel has been the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s will soon be over — or might be already.

Earlier this month, the Fed said “economic activity is leveling out,” and in late July said the western states were among four of its 12 regions of the country where the economy was showing “signs of stabilization.”

Other statistical indicators have pointed toward the same conclusion over the past two months — though this week’s dip in consumer spending and unexpectedly sharp growth in new unemployment claims suggest that any recovery is tentative and fragile.

Indeed Bernanke, in a speech that charted key events over the course of the downturn, said that credit markets remain constricted and financial institutions could expect additional losses on underperforming assets.

“The situation is not back to normal,” he said.