US Fed member allays fears over European debt
18 Nov 2011
St Louis Federal Reserve president James Bullard, says Europe's persistent debt crisis would likely "tumble along" for an extended period of time but not have much effect on the US.
Speaking to CNBC, Bullard said, rather than explode and cause global contagion, the problems that countries such as Greece and Italy have repaying their sovereign debt probably would be contained from damaging the American economy as the Fed had the policies in place to safeguard the American economy.
He added that the American consumer did not seem to be bothered overmuch by the debt situation in any event.
He said, Europe was obviously a risk, adding it was not known what was going to happen and if it blew up in a big,
disorderly way, which was what everybody was worried about, then it could return to haunt.
Bullard said if it just kind of tumbled along for a long period which was the most likely outcome then it probably would not harm the US.
"Europe is too far away for the American household to get them to cancel the Disney World trips," he said. "They will not pull back from their ordinary activities just because they're getting a lot of headlines about something going on in Italy or France."
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