Ben Bernanke Speaks About National and Regional Economic Overview

Joining in on the earlier Federal Reserve member’s speech, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke today at the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce about the credit market and monetary policy.

In the meeting today he stated that the economic growth up until the October Federal Open Market Committee meeting was strong. However, at the meeting in October and then again in November they decided that the credit market and housing market was likely to put strain on future economic growth. They estimated that economic growth would slow in the third quarter of this year and into early 2008.

The changes we have seen in the economy since these two meetings have mixed with the weakening residential real estate market with home sales continuing to be week, and with job employment doing well with 130,000 new jobs created and the unemployment rate remaining at 4.7 percent.

Higher gas prices, declining stock prices, tighter credit conditions, and weakening home prices are expected to create problems for the consumer into the months ahead. Bernanke also stressed that they will be monitoring inflation carefully during the financial crisis to make sure it does not get out of hand. They are also following the financial conditions to make sure that their policy decisions include the stresses from the financial markets. This hints at the chance of a rate cut come the December 11th Federal Reserve meeting stating that the turbulence in the financial markets has partially reversed the improvement that occurred in September and October.

You can watch Ben Bernanke’s speech to the Charlotte Chamber of  Commerce over at CNBC.com.