Ben Bernanke: What’s needed is more stimulus

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that what the economy needs is more government stimulus in the form of easy money, or qualitative easing.

Bernanke, speaking Wednesday to a crowd of economists in Cambridge, Mass., bases his advocacy for continued stimulus of financial institutions upon current employment and inflation numbers.

“Both the employment side and the inflation side are saying that we need to be more accommodating,” he said, according to Agence France Presse. “Put that all together, I think you can only conclude that highly accommodative monetary policy for the foreseeable future is what’s needed in the U.S. economy.”

Though stocks rallied early Thursday morning, not all economists are happy. At a June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, which Mr. Bernanke also heads, about half of the committee’s policymakers had pushed for an end to qualitative easing by the end of the year.