Bernanke strikes back at stimulus plan critics
Echoing president, Fed chief also knocks China for its currency policies
FRANKFURT, Germany — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hit back on Friday at critics of the U.S. central bank's bond-buying program and issued a thinly veiled attack on China's policy of keeping its currency on a leash.
In his first speech since the Fed announced the program Nov. 3, Bernanke also made his most forceful case to date that Congress also must provide more stimulus aid.
Without more stimulus, high unemployment could persist for years, he said. But in making that argument, Bernanke risks heightening complaints that he's plunging the Fed into partisan politics.
Bernanke, facing a chorus of protests about the asset-buying spree from within and outside the central bank, said a more vigorous U.S. economy was essential to fuel the global recovery and dismissed charges he was debasing the dollar.
"The best way to continue to deliver the strong economic fundamentals that underpin the value of the dollar, as well as to support the global recovery, is through policies that lead to a resumption of robust growth in a context of price stability in the United States," Bernanke said in a speech to a conference at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.
The Fed's Nov. 3 decision to buy a further $600 billion in U.S. government debt with new money generated outrage among policymakers in many nations, who accused the United States of seeking to weaken the dollar to gain an export edge.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called the policy "clueless."
Critics at home, including Republican leaders in Congress and some Fed officials, say they doubt the program will help the economy. They also worry it could do harm — unleashing inflation and leading to speculative buying on Wall Street.
Fed officials circled their wagons this week to defend the program. Two added their endorsement on Thursday, but another expressed opposition and a fourth said monetary policy should not play the main role in driving a stronger recovery.
"Deficits and surpluses are generated by many countries' behavior not a single currency," Bernanke said in a later panel discussion with IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet.
"It will be very difficult for exchange rates by themselves to restore the balance and so I think structural adjustments on both sides are necessary," Bernanke said.
Strauss-Kahn said he too recognized the difficulties involved but said global imbalances could not be tackled without "important changes in the relative values in the currencies."
"We need to move in that direction," he said.
Addressing international criticism of the Fed's action, Bernanke said much of the recent weakness of the dollar reflected an unwinding of the increases that were notched as investors fled to the safety of the greenback during the European sovereign debt crisis in the spring.
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