Bobby Jones Golfer

Bernanke - Concern?

. Bernanke has always impressed me as a sincere and honest man who inherited problems not of his own making. I believe he works hard at - as golfer Bobby Jones might have said to him - playing the ball as it lies with little if any complaint. As best I know he is paid something north of U.S.$200,000 per year - hardly a princely sum for someone who holds one of the most important financial jobs in the world. How ridiculous is that when measured against the Wall Street, Bay Street, London City, and corporate executive salaries. One side of that equation is materially wrong - you decide which one.

' (reading time 4 minutes).

World events are currently highly volatile and unpredictable. It follows that it is very difficult if not impossible for anyone, irrespective of position, access to information, and intellect to accurately predict much of anything by way of specifically quantified future economic numbers these days. Trends, perhaps, but specific numbers beyond next week - I don't think so. As a result, I am neither surprised nor particularly fussed by Mr. Bernanke saying on Wednesday that he and the Fed now believe U.S. GDP Growth is going to be less in 2011 and 2012 than they had forecast only two months ago. I feel the same way about him saying that he and the Fed now think the U.S. housing market, financial sector weakness, and excess private sector debt might be more serious than had previously been thought. I am not that surprised or concerned that he said that if Greece or any other European country defaults that could have serious consequences for the U.S. economy - hardly a shocking statement given U.S. Bank exposure to European Banks that would be affected by such a default, and given what I see as the current general fragility of the U.S. economy.

That said, what I am concerned about is ". 'Precise' is a 'precise' word, and I wonder if he meant this in the strict dictionary sense. I suspect he added the word 'precise' to his sentence to tone down what he said - because think of how he and his colleagues would have looked if he had left the word 'precise' out of the sentence and simply said: "We don't have a read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting".

' Look, we have never experienced what is going on the U.S. economy before and haven't really known what would work.