Bernake - Economic outlook

5/5 美國聯邦準備理事會主席Ben Bernanke在國會作證時表示，他看見了經濟復甦跡象，並預期經濟將於今年晚些時候觸底，後開始再度成長。

他指出，下跌3年的美國房價，已出現反彈跡象；從去年下半年開始崩盤的消費者的消費，今年首季重現生機；金融機構的信貸壓力，也出現改善跡象。

生產可望於今年稍後增加速度，補充已經匱乏的庫存；其他國家下滑的經濟活動，有緩和跡象，對刺激美國出口有利。

不過柏南奇警告，即使經濟開始復甦，經濟活動仍可能在正常標準以下。企業界對僱用員工仍會保持小心謹慎，因此可以預期失業率仍將繼續維持高檔一段時間。

而這些經濟復甦的前提是基於銀行體系恢復健全, 而若金融體系故態復茗, 將會使得復甦停滯.

而在未來幾個月，由於歐巴馬總統推出的7870 億美元經濟振興方案中的減稅效應發酵，消費者的消費應該會增加。 (source:chinatimes )
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Testimony of Ben Bernake before the joint economic committee: A few excerpts

Economic outlook

Recent Economic Developments

..the recent data also suggest that the pace of contraction may be slowing, and they include some tentative signs that final demand, especially demand by households, may be stabilizing. Consumer spending, which dropped sharply in the second half of last year, grew in the first quarter. In coming months, households' spending power will be boosted by the fiscal stimulus program, and we have seen some improvement in consumer sentiment. Nonetheless, a number of factors are likelyto continue to weigh on consumer spending, among them the weak labor market and the declines in equity and housing wealth that households have experienced over the past two years. In addition,credit conditions for consumers remain tight.

-The housing market, which has been in decline for three years, has also shown some signs of bottoming....

-Conditions in the commercial real estate sector are poor.

-An important influence on the near-term economic outlook is the extent to which businesses have been able to shed the unwanted inventories that they accumulated as sales turned down sharply last year.

-The outlook for economic activity abroad is also an important consideration.

The Economic Outlook

We continue to expect economic activity to bottom out, then to turn up later this year. Key elementsof this forecast are our assessments that the housing market is beginning to stabilize and that the sharp inventory liquidation that has been in progress will slow over the next few quarters. Final demand should also be supported by fiscal and monetary stimulus. An important caveat is that our forecast assumes continuing gradual repair of the financial system; a relapse in financial conditions would be a significant drag on economic activity and could cause the incipient recovery to stall. I will provide a brief update on financial markets in a moment.

Even after a recovery gets under way, the rate of growth of real economic activity is likely to remain below its longer-run potential for a while, implying that the current slack in resource utilization will increase further. We expect that the recovery will only gradually gain momentum and that economic slack will diminish slowly. In particular, businesses are likely to be cautious about hiring, implyingthat the unemployment rate could remain high for a time, even after economic growth resumes. In this environment, we anticipate that inflation will remain low...