Economic Woes Near End, Says Bernanke

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said yesterday that the heart-stopping economic free fall of the past nine months was nearing an end and that the United States should begin a fragile recovery by the end of this year.

In his most upbeat assessment in a long time, Bernanke said a wide array of indicators, from consumer spending and home sales to a revival in the credit markets, now suggested that the economy was stabilizing.

But the Fed chairman also warned that the recovery would be slow. He predicted that job losses would probably continue until sometime in 2010, and that unemployment is virtually certain to climb from its current rate of 8.5 percent.

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