Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke displayed all his power in the weeks since May 22, when he testified before Congress and suggested quantitative easing could be tapered back over the next few meetings. Or maybe not. Back then, the Chairman made it clear economic conditions weren’t ripe for tapering. Since then, GDP has been revised down, inflation has barely managed to come in positive, and jobs growth has slowed. Yet the simple indication of cutting back on QE sent risk assets across the globe into steep declines.
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