WASHINGTON - Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Wednesday that the U.S. job market remains weak and that it is too soon for the Federal Reserve to slow its extraordinary stimulus programs. Reducing the Fed's efforts to keep borrowing rates low would "carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery," Bernanke said in testimony to the Joint Economic Committee, a panel that includes members of the House and Senate.

By James Saft (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is an optimist about economic growth in the coming decades, rejecting "depressing" views about a slowdown to put his faith in collaborative innovation driven by a jackpot culture for inventors. For his mental health, let's hope he believes it. For our economic wellbeing, let's hope he doesn't act on it.

WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says pessimists forecasting that the economy will not reap sizable benefits from the computer revolution are likely to be proven wrong. Bernanke told a college graduating class Saturday that the long-range practical consequences of innovations such as faster computers and the Internet are hard to predict. But he said inventors have only scratched the surface of the commercial applications that can be obtained in such fields as medicine and clean energy.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday that the US economy still has far to go to recover to an acceptable state of health. "Today the economy is significantly stronger than it was four years ago, although conditions are clearly still far from where we would all like them to be," he said. The statement, made in a speech on banking in Stone Mountain, Georgia, came as economists and investors seek signs on whether the US central bank is ready to tighten up its easy-money policy aimed at holding long-term interest rates down.