US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke has called for the US government to take further measures to stimulate the country's weak economic recovery and reduce high budget deficits.
Bernanke said the current slow pace of recovery from the worst recession in decades could leave millions of workers unemployed or under-employed for many years.
'As a society, we should find that outcome unacceptable,' the Fed chairman said in a speech at a European central bank conference in Frankfurt.
While monetary policy was working in support of both economic recovery and price stability, there were limits to what could be achieved by the Federal Reserve alone, he said.
Bernanke stressed that the independent Fed is was non-partisan and did not make recommendations regarding specific tax and spending programmes.
'However, in general terms, a fiscal programme that combines near-term measures to enhance growth with strong, confidence-inducing steps to reduce longer-term structural deficits would be an important complement to the policies of the Federal Reserve,' he said.
Growth the priority, says IMF chief
The head of the International Monetary Fund said today that post-crisis global economy would be very different to the system in place before the turbulence, calling for nations to pull together. He was also speaking at the European Central Bank conference.
'The global economy after the crisis can't be the global economy before,' Strauss-Kahn said. 'We have to fix the problems, one by one, and imagine what the next system could be like, which can only be based on cooperation,' he added.
The IMF boss said the priority had to be to restore growth in the global economy 'even if it creates side effects'.
Turning to the euro zone, Strauss-Kahn said the domestic interests of individual countries can sometimes be in conflict with the zone as a whole. 'They have to work together. Co-operation is the way,' he said.
