버냉키 의장은 이날 대담에서 "국채매입 규모를 6000억달러에서 더 늘릴 수 있느냐"는 질문에 "확실히 가능하다(certainly possible)"며 "국채매입 프로그램의 효과와 인플레이션, 종국적으로 경제가 어떻게 되느냐에 달린 문제"라고 말했다.
버냉키 의장은 "위기후 850만개 일자리가 사라졌는데 거우 100만개 정도만 회복됐다"며 "지금 상태라면 미국의 실업률이 5~6%로 추정되는 정상수준으로 돌아가려면 4~5년 걸릴 것"이라고 내다봤다.
다음은 대담내용 원문 요약이다.
Scott Pelley: We lost about eight million jobs from the peak. And I wonder how many years you think it will be before we get all those jobs back?
이 시각 인기 뉴스
Bernanke: Well, you're absolutely right. Between the peak and the end of last year, we lost eight and a half million jobs. We've only gotten about a million of them back so far. And that doesn't even account the new people coming into the labor force. At the rate we're going, it could be four, five years before we are back to a more normal unemployment rate. Somewhere in the vicinity of say five or six percent.
The other aspect of the unemployment rate that really concerns me is that more than 40 percent of the unemployed have been unemployed for six months or more. And that's unusually high. And people who are unemployed for such a long time, their skills erode. Their attachment to the labor force diminishes and it may be a very, very long time before they find themselves back in a normal working position.
Pelley: What did you see that caused you to pull the trigger on the $600 billion, at this point?
Bernanke: It has to do with two aspects. The first is unemployment. The other concern I should mention is that inflation is very, very low, which you think is a good thing and normally is a good thing. But we're getting awfully close to the range where prices would actually start falling.
Pelley: Some people think the $600 billion is a terrible idea.
Bernanke: Well, I know some people think that but what they are doing is they're looking at some of the risks and uncertainties with doing this policy action but what I think they're not doing is looking at the risk of not acting.
Pelley: Many people believe that could be highly inflationary. That it's a dangerous thing to try.
Bernanke: Well, this fear of inflation, I think is way overstated. We've looked at it very, very carefully. We've analyzed it every which way. One myth that's out there is that what we're doing is printing money. We're not printing money. The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way. What we're doing is lowing interest rates by buying Treasury securities. And by lowering interest rates, we hope to stimulate the economy to grow faster. So, the trick is to find the appropriate moment when to begin to unwind this policy. And that's what we're gonna do.
Pelley: Do you anticipate a scenario in which you would commit to more than $600 billion?
Bernanke: Oh, it's certainly possible. And again, it depends on the efficacy of the program. It depends on inflation. And finally it depends on how the economy looks.
Pelley: How would you rate the likelihood of dipping into recession again?
Bernanke: It doesn't seem likely that we'll have a double dip recession. And that's because, among other things, some of the most cyclical parts of the economy, like housing, for example, are already very weak. And they can't get much weaker. And so another decline is relatively unlikely. Now, that being said, I think a very high unemployment rate for a protracted period of time, which makes consumers, households less confident, more worried about the future, I think that's the primary source of risk that we might have another slowdown in the economy.
