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Washington - Four months into the job and the honeymoon is over for Federal Reserve chairperson Ben Bernanke. The stock market is gyrating. Inflation is picking up. Economic growth is slowing down.
It's an unsettling picture for Alan Greenspan's successor.
Bernanke's biggest concern is making sure inflation does not spread through the economy. The main remedy is raising interest rates.
Yet that also is Bernanke's dilemma: how high can rates go before they slow an economy that already is showing signs of lethargy?
Earning stripes
"In the eyes of many, Bernanke will truly earn his stripes as Greenspan's successor if he can tame inflation and avoid a recession," said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com.
When Bernanke took over the Fed on February 1, the economy was motoring ahead. Inflation, outside a burst in energy prices, was fairly well behaved. The Dow Jones industrials average was drifting upward, breaking the 11 000-mark in the middle of February. By early May, an all-time high was in reach.
Then the market skidded in early June, spooked by Bernanke's tough talk on inflation and the spectre of higher interest rates.
In a surprisingly candid speech on June 5, Bernanke made clear that he would do all he could to tame inflation. Fed watchers say Bernanke's tough words were intended to bolster his inflation-fighting image.
Rising inflation barometers, Bernanke said, "are unwelcome developments."
Inflation mind-set
Consumer prices for the first five months of this year are bounding ahead at a 5.2% annual rate, compared with the 3.4% increase for all of 2005.
Prices - excluding food and energy - are advancing at a 3.1% pace this year; it was 2.2% last year.
For Bernanke, it is not just the inflation numbers that are so crucial. So, too, is the inflation mind-set of investors, businesses and consumers. If they believe prices will keep climbing in the future, it can affect behavior.
"The best way to prevent increases in energy and commodity prices from leading to persistently higher rates of inflation is by anchoring the public's long-term inflation expectations," Bernanke said on June 5.
"Achieving this requires, a strong commitment of policymakers to maintain price stability ... and a consistent pattern of policy responses to developments as needed to accomplish that objective."
That means another bump in interest rates at the Fed's next meeting, on June 28-29, to 5.25%, economists predict. Further increases could be in store depending on how inflation and economic activity unfolds.