"Grave Threats"

Bernanke Sees `Grave Threats' to Financial Stability (Update1)

By Craig Torres

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the U.S. is facing ``grave threats'' to financial stability and warned that the credit crisis has started to damage household and business spending.

``Economic activity appears to have decelerated broadly,'' Bernanke said today to a congressional Joint Economic Committee hearing, downgrading the assessment of Fed officials when they met on Sept. 16. ``Stabilization of our financial system is an essential precondition for economic recovery.

Why not just go the whole nine and call it a "great and gathering danger" since there is abundant evidence that the same movie doesn't end any differently upon the ninth viewing.