Federal Reserve chairman and electric-beard-trimmer owner Ben Bernanke held a press conference today to announce the Federal Open Market Committee’s latest attempt to save the economy: a six-month extension of “Operation Twist,” a bond-swap program that is designed to keep interest rates low and stimulate growth.
The Fed’s plan, which the Times called a “placeholder” and HuffPo called “running in place,” was a half-hearted measure designed to give the economy a small shot of adrenaline while saving some big guns for later, when Europe blows itself up and we need to defend ourselves.
If you, like most sane people, only know that the Fed is “that money place people are always talking about,” you probably don’t understand any of this. But it’s important! So we took Chairman Bernanke’s jargon-filled statement and gave it plain-English subtitles.
