The commentator from the financial times is a little disingenuous when saying that the Federal Reserve lost credibility. The truth is that policy makers will always project more optimism so as not to talk down the markets.
I believe Bernanke is just responding the disfunction in Congress. What we should be surprised about is the business community has not lobbied congress more strongly to resolve the fiscal gridlock. Without the sequester we could have had 3% growth instead of 2%. And with good fiscal policies, we could have had 4% growth.[/quote]
I watched the first few minutes, will watch more, but i’m frankly flabbergasted that these panelists are saying they’re surprised that the Fed delayed tapering. It is exactly what they’ve been saying they would do since April. Then clarified in June, July and August, that if the economic growth didn’t meet projected targets (threshholds they called them), then tapering would not begin. Nobody suggested that those targets were for unreasonable growth levels, even though none of thresholds haven’t been met. It should have been surprising….even shocking, if they had started tapering.
