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Add Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's voice to the growing chorus that the recession appears to be over and a long slow recovery is beginning. Bernanke spoke at the Brookings Insititution yesterday about the events of the last year, and during his speech he noted that he was well aware that forecasters were announcing the end of the recession. Here is a key excerpt from the speech. But the general view of most forecasters is that that pace of growth in 2010 will be moderate, less than you might expect given the depth of the recession, because of ongoing headwinds, including still ongoing financial and credit problems, you know, deleveraging by households, the needs for adjustments in the economy, sectoral adjustments in the economy, the need for a fiscal exit at some point, many, many factors that will likely, at least based on current information, make the 2010 recovery moderate, and in particular, not much faster than sort of the underlying potential growth rate of the economy. And the arithmetic is that unless the economy grows, you know, significantly faster than its longer term growth rate, it’ll be relatively slow in creating jobs over and above those needed to employ people coming into the labor force, and therefore, the unemployment rate would tend to come down quite slowly. So that’s a risk, that’s a possibility. Of course, there is on both sides of that forecast; we could have a stronger recovery, we could have a weaker recovery, but if we do, in fact, see moderate growth, but not growth much more than the underlying potential growth rate, then, unfortunately, unemployment will be slow to come down. It will come down, but it may take some time. Obviously, that’s a very serious concern, and that’s one reason why, even though from a technical perspective the recession is very likely over at this point, it’s still going to feel like a very weak economy for some time as many people will still find that their job security and their employment status is not what they wish it was, and so that’s a challenge for us and all policy-makers going forward. You can read a full transcript of the speech, and watch the full session by clicking here .

Federal Chair Ben Bernanke held a town meeting at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank on Sunday, and he explained the Fed's actions prior to the recession, and in reaction to the economic meltdown last year. Jim Lehrer moderated, and The Newshour with Jim Lehrer has now made video of the meeting available. Here's the first segment (of three) in which Bernanke defends the Fed's actions and answers questions from the audience: You can view segments two and three by clicking here .

Ben Bernanke let CBS's Scott Pelley inside the Federal Reserve for last night's interview on 60 Minutes , and the Fed Chair let Pelley in on his thinking about where the US economy is headed. Pelley's first question: "When does it all end?," to which Bernanke replied: "It depends a lot on the financial system," he replied. "The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis. We've seen some progress in the financial markets, absolutely. But until we get that stabilized and working normally, we're not gonna see recovery. But we do have a plan. We're working on it. And I do think that we will get it stabilized, and we'll see the recession coming to an end probably this year. We'll see recovery beginning next year. And it will pick up steam over time." Bernanke thinks that the Fed's and the federal government's actions steered us away from a new depression. But that doesn't mean he doesn't continue to have mixed feelings about some of the bailout action. He once again told of his anger at the rescue of AIG--a popular topic this weekend as the global insurance company was to give out hundreds of millions dollars of bonuses to top executives even as it was going back to the government for more billions in bailout dollars. Bernanke told Pelley it was "absolutely unfair that taxpayer dollars are going to prop up" AIG when it was "operating out of sight of regulators" and making dubious, "terrible bets." But he said it had to be done in order to save the US economy. And he explained the thinking in preventing Wal Street collapses for the good of the whole country: "Let me give you an analogy, if I might," Bernanke said. "If you have a neighbor, who smokes in bed. And he's a risk to everybody. If suppose he sets fire to his house, and you might say to yourself, you know, 'I'm not gonna call the fire department. Let his house burn down. It's fine with me.' But then, of course, but what if your house is made of wood? And it's right next door to his house? What if the whole town is made of wood? Well, I think we'd all agree that the right thing to do is put out that fire first, and then say, 'What punishment is appropriate? How should we change the fire code? What needs to be done to make sure this doesn't happen in the future? How can we fire proof our houses?' That's where we are now. We have a fire going on." Here's an excerpt from the interview. Watch the full interview, and read a transcript of the interview here .