The prior Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said recently he believes the type of surprising steps the Federal Reserve has used to help extricate the American economy out of what has been called a Great Recession ten years ago should now be seen as a ploy to limit the scope of the central bank’s ability to lower interest rates in case there is another catastrophic collapse of credit and financing. But, he hastens to add, that would be contingent on quite a few factors.
For one thing, Bernanke said during a wide-ranging interview with the media, the tension between the United States and Iran, as well as North Korea, which has triggered massive embargoes that have a negative impact on the US economy, as well as the continuing question of tariffs on Chinese goods, means that businesses are very hesitant to either borrow money for expansion or spend money on new hiring and restocking of inventory. This kind of uncertainty acts as a laudable restraint on speculations in housing, stocks, and bonds, which were one of the original and biggest causes of the original Great Recession. Bernanke feels that as long as the Trump administration hold firm on backing up current international policy there is little chance of another recessionary debacle.