Bernanke’s Press Conference – Today
February 3rd, 2011Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, made a rare appearance at a press conference today for the first time in 2 years. The National Press Club hosted the event and provided live streaming video, however the archive footage is not available yet. Everyone’s favorite blunt blogger – “Tyler Durden” from zerohedge, made it clear that the event was nothing but a broadcast of “chairsatan Bernanke lying to room full of sycophant journalists live.”
Sounds about right.
Although food and energy prices have risen Bernanke stated that inflation levels remain low. However he addresses core inflation, noting that the levels were 2.5% in 2007 as the recession began…while 2010 only saw .7%.
“To assess underlying trends in inflation, economists also follow several alternative measures of inflation. One such measure is so-called core inflation, which excludes the more volatile food and energy components and therefore can be a better predictor of where overall inflation is headed,”
When video comes available we will post it immediately! Unfortunately this press conference could very well have been a PR stunt; wouldn’t you love to see an open admission press conference? I don’t know if Bernanke would make it out alive (figuratively speaking of course).
