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Bloomberg: Bernanke’s Battle for Jobs Eclipses Inflation Concerns

September 14, 2012, 06:58 AM
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Topic: Economy

An article on Bloomberg notes Ben S. Bernanke pledged for the first time that the Federal Reserve will buy bonds until the economy gets closer to his goals, signaling the battle against unemployment eclipses any concerns about inflation for now.

The central bank announced on September 13 its third round of large-scale asset purchases since 2008, with the difference that it didn’t set any limit on the ultimate amount it would buy or the duration of the program. Instead, Bernanke said stimulus will be expanded until the Fed sees “sustained improvement” in the labor market.

Stocks rallied, sending benchmark indexes to the highest levels since 2007, and gold climbed after the Fed announced it would buy $40 billion of mortgage debt a month. The central bank also extended the prospect of near-zero interest rates until mid-2015 and said policy will stay accommodative “for a considerable time” even after the economy strengthens.

“This is a Main Street policy, because what we’re about here is trying to get jobs going,” Bernanke said at a news conference yesterday in Washington. “We’re trying to create more employment. We’re trying to meet our maximum employment mandate, so that’s the objective.”

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