Bernanke faces anger as he asks to keep job

Malaysia News.Net
Thursday 3rd December, 2009

Ben Bernanke, the US chief of the Federal Reserve, has invited anger from several quarters at a Senate Banking committee hearing.

While President Barack Obama has nominated Bernanke for a second four-year term, the Fed chairman has had to defend his record to senators and the millions of Americans who are out of work or facing home foreclosure.

The Federal Reserve Chairman has promised in Washington that if he is re-confirmed, he will work with Congress to overhaul the US financial regulatory system.

He said his steps to keep the United States on the road to economic recovery would all be in vain if "after all the hardships that Americans have endured during the past two years, our nation failed to take the steps necessary to prevent a recurrence of a crisis of the magnitude we have recently confronted."

Some members of the Senate Banking Committee hearing on his renomination were unimpressed with Bernanke's statement, with Republican Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, a conservative, going on the attack to accuse Mr Bernanke of failing to recognise the obvious signs that the housing bubble was threatening the overall economy, of bowing to pressure from Wall Street, and of abusing the central bank's powers by bailing out large financial institutions.

Senator Bunning said: "I will do everything I can to stop your nomination, and drag out this process as long as I can. We must put an end to your and the Fed's failure, and there is no better time than now!"

Bunning said that Bernanke's bailout of the troubled New York-based insurer American International Group should be reason enough alone to sack the chairman.

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