BEN BERNANKE IS WORRIED; HE SHOULD SUGGEST THE INFRASTRUCTURE POLICIES OF FDR! THE US SHOULD JOIN THE NEW SILK ROAD!

Ben Bernanke Is Worried, Maybe We Should Be –Samuelson/Real Clear Markets
“Ben Bernanke is worried – and perhaps we should be, too. As chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014, it was Bernanke, along with others, who prevented the worst recession since World War II from becoming the Great Depression 2.0. Now he fears that, should another sharp recession occur, the Fed won’t be able to contain it. Bernanke – while Fed chairman – adopted what’s called ‘unconventional monetary policy.’ First, the Fed flooded the economy with money by buying an estimated $3.7 trillion worth of mortgage bonds and U.S. Treasury securities…And second, the Fed gave ‘forward guidance’ that short-term interest rates would stay low for a long period. In a paper presented recently at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank, Bernanke judged that these policies – to some extent – had helped end the Great Recession and sustain the recovery. What troubles him now is the possibility that the same policies won’t work in a severe recession or financial crisis in the future….In his paper, Bernanke makes a proposal to allow the Fed to escape this predicament. His plan is complicated and, in practice, would involve the Fed throwing more money at a faltering economy in the hope that it would recover and be stabilized….We may be reaching the limits of the Fed’s power over the economy.”