Obama--while Live Blogging--Praises Bernanke, but Blows Off Q on Growing Power of Fed
12:44: Third question on the performance of the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Ben Bernanke? “I’m not going to make news about Ben Bernanke, though I think he has does a fine job under difficult circumstances.” Adds that Bernanke has “performed very well” under the current financial crisis. On financial regulatory reform, the president says there has to be stronger consumer protections. “There’s a whole bunch of financial transactions out there where consumers are not protected the way they should be,” he said. As for the Fed, “they’re better off focusing on issues of broad systemic risk.”
12:47: Follow-up on the Fed getting too powerful? Obama defers, says the issue is making sure Fed has tools to make sure the current problems don’t happen again.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/06/23/live-blogging-obama...
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