8/29/2011 Bernanke: Fed still mulling additional stimulus

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that the central bank stands ready to provide further support to the weak economy, but he didn’t indicate that any specific action is imminent. The Fed “has a range of tools that could be used to provide additional monetary stimulus. We discussed the relative merits and costs of such tools at our August [Federal Open Market Committee] meeting,” Bernanke said at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

He added that the FOMC will continue to consider such issues, including economic and financial developments, at its Sept. 21-22 meeting that has been scheduled for two days, instead of one, to allow a fuller discussion. “The committee will continue to assess the economic outlook in light of incoming information and is prepared to employ its tools as appropriate to promote a stronger economic recovery in a context of price stability,” Bernanke said.

He also said that the debt-ceiling negotiations this summer, which flirted with a national default, “disrupted financial markets and probably the economy as well.” A repeat of such events in the future “could, over time, seriously jeopardize the willingness of investors around the world to hold U.S. financial assets or to make direct investments in job-creating U.S. businesses,” Bernanke warned.
Read Bernanke's speech.