美联储主席贝南克(Ben Bernanke)在美联储首次新闻发布会上表示，自2007年夏季以来对经济的紧急干预将在今年下半年结束。美联储周三表示，6月最新的资产购买计划规模将限制在6,000亿美元，贝南克暗示，美联储将在几次会议上停止将资产负债表收益进行再投资。这一步将开启缩减美联储资产负债表的进程，并开始收回其用于引导经济度过上世纪30年代大萧条以来最严重危机的刺激措施。美联储预计将在2012年初开始加息。从某种意义上说，伯南克周三史无前例地与媒体沟通，本身就可以被视为收紧政策过程的第一步。美联储已经明确表示了自己的意图，用伯南克的话来说，就是允许它们“资本化”。那么，自2007年8月开始加息以来，美联储的表现到底有多好呢?从经济角度来看，它本可以采取更激进的措施，尤其是考虑到今天发布的一季度GDP报告疲软。美联储于2007年8月开始降息，此前美联储与前财政部长、高盛首席执行官鲍勃•鲁宾(Bob Rubin)举行了会晤，当时鲁宾是花旗董事会成员。鲁宾会见了伯南克，向他介绍了银行家对即将到来的灾难的看法。 In response, the Fed pushed rates lower by expanding its balance sheet from about $800 billion to as much as $2.1 trillion following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The balance sheet began to shrink, but the economy remained weak, and the Fed resumed an additional $600 billion in asset purchases late last year. And beginning with a series of moves in August 2007, the bank slashed the interest rates that it controls to near zero. Bernanke, the 57-year-old Princeton professor and student of the Great Depression, has been criticized both for doing too much and too little. Economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman have said the Fed’s stimulus program should have been several orders of magnitude larger than it was — and that today’s modest economic recovery, stubbornly high unemployment rate and still-weak housing market are the legacy of the bank’s politically timid policy. Others are worried that the Fed has pumped too much liquidity into the system, and downplayed the inflationary risks of higher energy and food prices, a weak dollar and the soaring Federal debt, which prompted S&P to warn in April that the U.S. is at risk of losing its Aaa credit rating during the next two years, unless it gets its fiscal house in order. After the press conference on Wednesday, the price of gold and oil rose, and the price of the dollar fell, suggesting that some investors believe the Fed is letting inflationary pressures build. But the government reported on Thursday morning that the economy rose just 1.8 percent in the first quarter, which is less than expected. It is a sharp slowdown from the 3.1 percent gain in the fourth quarter of 2010, and may reflect higher energy prices, unrest in the Mideast and the catastrophe in Japan. So how has Bernanke fared during the last few years? One economist says the Fed has done a pretty reasonable job of balancing the dual mandates of economic growth and price stability. “In hindsight, they might have been a bit more aggressive, with a larger stimulus up front. It might have been helpful, but a larger stimulus also might have complicated the Fed’s exit strategy,” says Joshua Feinman, chief economist at DB Advisors, the institutional asset management business of Deutsche Bank.
Feinman说:“我认为他们对去年的经济没有好转感到有点惊讶，因为2010年中期经济增长放缓。”“但从经济角度来看，我们比2008年和2009年的情况要好得多——我们正在螺旋进入一个黑洞。”