Friday, May 15, 2009

Simple Answer to a Simple (but Complex) Question

Christine Chmura (right) chats with one of the business professionals attending the Annual Business Appreciation Breakfast this morning^

Christine Chmura, former Roanoke banker and now president and chief economist at Chmura Economics and Analytics in Richmond put just about as fine an edge as was possible to a direct question about the economy this morning.

Speaking at Roanoke's Business Appreciation Breakfast at the Hotel Roanoke, radio journalist Roger Fowler asked Chmura, following a presentation packed full of numbers, charts and graphs, "Just what would have happened if [the Federal Reserve] had not bailed out the banks?"

Precise. To the point. Not much wiggle room. Chumura's answer honored the question:

"If the Fed didn't go in and support the banks as it did, we'd have seen Depression No. 2," she said.

Chmura is one of the most respected and most often quoted economists on the East Coast and her word has weight in some weighty quarters.

--DAN SMITH

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