Bernanke Tells One Truth About The Unemployed, Too Much Time Has Already Passed

Referring to long-term unemployment is a "national crisis", Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday suggested once again that Congress should take further action to combat it as well as lawmakers provide more help to the battered housing industry.


Bernanke noted that 45 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for at least six months.

"This is unheard of," "This has never happened in the post-war period in the United States. They are losing the skills they had, they are losing their connections, their attachment to the labor force."

In that he is absolutely right, and that is a huge crisis, which unfortunately has been going on for too long, and for way too many it's too late to fix.

That is a calamity.

In his speech, Bernanke also said the United States and other rich nations could re-learn a few lessons from fast-growing developing nations: successful emerging economies such as China had adopted disciplined budget policies, embraced freed trade, made public investments and supported education.

"Advanced economies like the United States would do well to re-learn some of the lessons from the experiences of the emerging market economies, such as the importance of disciplined fiscal policies,"