-->vorerst hab ich nur Sprechblasen




10:01am 02/21/03


MOST FIRMS HAVE ACCESS TO CREDIT IF DEMANDED: BERNANKE


10:01am 02/21/03


BANKING SYSTEM IS SOUND: FED'S BERNANKE


10:02am 02/21/03



10:00am 02/21/03


INVESTMENT, HIRING SHOULD PICK UP SOON: BERNANKE


10:00am 02/21/03


NO EVIDENCE OF HOUSING MARKET BUBBLE: BERNANKE


10:00am 02/21/03


HOUSEHOLDS' FINANCES IN GOOD SHAPE: BERNANKE


10:00am 02/21/03


FED'S BERNANKE: DEBT LEVELS NOT TOO HIGH

-->>BANKING SYSTEM IS SOUND: FED'S BERNANKE

-->Debt levels not too high: Bernanke

By Rex Nutting, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 10:30 AM ET Feb. 21, 2003

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (CBS.MW) -- The economic recovery will not be stalled by high levels of debt in the household and corporate sectors, Federal Reserve Gov. Ben Bernanke said Friday.

Bernanke addressed"Balance Sheets and the Recovery" in remarks to the Center for Economic Education. A copy of his prepared text was made available in Washington. Read the speech.

Both households and firms have taken advantage of historic low interest rates to restructure their balance sheets, Bernanke said.

Mortgage refinancings totaled $550 billion in the fourth quarter and $400 billion in the third. This extraction of wealth has offset the decline in stocks for many families, Bernanke concluded.

Although household debt levels are high, Bernanke concludes that the recent wave of refinancings has improved the financial position of most households, because high-cost credit card debt has been replaced with cheaper mortgage-backed debt.

"The rise in consumer debt for the most part does not presage financial problems in the household sector," Bernanke said.

As long as layoffs don't increase, consumer spending should remain strong, he said.

"The consumer seems in pretty good shape for this stage of the cycle," he said.

The picture in the corporate sector is more mixed.

Profits are being depressed artificially by the need to fund pension obligations, but that shouldn't affect future profit expectations, he said. As long as firms have the financial wherewithal to fund investments, their pension obligations should have no impact on their willingness to invest.

Cash flow has improved and yield spreads between corporate debt and Treasurys have narrowed in recent months, he said. The bulk of the corporate debt that has been downgraded has been in a few, high-profile sectors.

Outside of sectors like telecom, airlines and energy, most firms have access to credit and will soon see the necessity of ramping up hiring and buying new capital equipment, Bernanke said.

"Investment and hiring should pick up in the months ahead," he said. Inventories are low and high-tech equipment purchased in the late 1990s is obsolete, he said.

"Presumably, businesses cannot indefinitely squeeze increasing productivity out of fixed resources and eventually will need to invest and add workers to meet the demand for their output," he said.

Investment remains weak, in part because firms are unsure about the war and about the near-term pace of demand.

"As uncertainty diminishes, investment should increase," Bernanke said.


<ul> ~ Bernanke: Debt levels not too high</ul>

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ziemlich lang

Zitat der 'conclusion'

Conclusion
My objective today was to assess whether there exist financial constraints that might impede the developing recovery in the U.S. economy. My sense is that the household and banking sectors are in good financial shape for this stage in the business cycle; and that, though financial problems exist, they should not in themselves restrain the building economic recovery.
The corporate sector presents a more mixed picture. Equity prices have fallen significantly in the past three years, profits have made only a hesitant recovery, and aggregate indicators of financial stress remain at elevated levels. Still, closer examination of the corporate sector yields some grounds for optimism. Two points in particular deserve re-stating: First, many of the financial problems of the corporate sector are concentrated in just a few industries; excluding these industries, corporate financial conditions are not especially weak for this stage of the cycle. Second, and less widely recognized, many firms have used the past two years to significantly restructure their balance sheets, reduce their interest burdens, and increase liquidity. At such time that they feel they are ready to begin hiring and investing again, these firms should be financially capable of doing so.

<ul> ~ Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke</ul>