A bunch of news outlets, including the Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal, are excited about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s testimony that the economy may be in recovery by 2010.
“Irrational Exuberance” HuffPo blares. “Bernanke Suggests Recession Will End This Year. . . 2010 ‘Will Be A Year Of Recovery.'” Well that’s one way to gild the Bernanke testimony lily. A more careful, and in my view appropriately skeptical, reading of the testimony is provided by Andrew Leonard at Salon, who points out that Bernanke’s rosy scenario contains a “giant, honking, humongous, get-down-on-your-knees-and-pray-for-salvation ‘if.'”
Here is the key quote from Bernanke, as italicized by Leonard:
If actions taken by the Administration, the Congress, and the Federal Reserve are successful in restoring some measure of financial stability — and only if that is the case, in my view — there is a reasonable prospect that the current recession will end in 2009 and that 2010 will be a year of recovery.
I read this and recall Dennis Hopper’s character in Apocalypse Now, who advises, “Suddenly he’ll grab you, and he’ll throw you in a corner, and he’ll say, ‘Do you know that ‘if’ is the middle word in life?'” By which Hopper was trying to tell us all to keep our heads about us, while we still can.