Senator Bernie
Sanders (I-VT) and others questioned Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on
Tuesday about the ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" protest in lower
Manhattan.
"Chairman, as
you know, there are people demonstrating against Wall Street in New York City
and other cities around the country, and I think the perception on the part of
these demonstrators and millions of other Americans is that as a result of the
greed, the recklessness and the illegal behavior on Wall Street, we were plunged
into the horrendous recession that we're in right now," Sanders said at a Joint
Economic Committee hearing on the economic outlook.
"Do you agree
with that assessment?" he asked Bernanke. "Did Wall Street's greed and
recklessness cause this recession, that lead to so many people losing their
jobs?"
Bernanke
responded that excessive risk taking on Wall Street and the failure of financial
regulators "had a lot to do" with the recession.
"You see
protests both on the right and the left," said another member of the Joint
Economic Committee, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX). "The protests you see right now
getting the headlines are on the left in New York. What is the protest saying to
you? What are you hearing from that activity in New York right
now?"
"Well, I would
say very generally I think people are quite unhappy with the state of the
economy and what's happening," Bernanke said. "They blame, with some
justification, the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this
mess, and they're dissatisfied with the policy response here in
Washington.
"And at some
level, I can't blame them," he added. "Certainly 9 percent unemployment and very
slow growth is not a very good situation." Raw Story
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