Fed Chief Bernanke Sees End to Recession

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says he thinks the recession will probably be over by the end of this year but he still sees a risk there is not enough political will to stabilize the banking and financial sectors.

"This [economic] decline will begin to moderate, and we'll begin to see a leveling off[.]"

"We've seen some progress in the financial markets, absolutely," Bernanke said. "But until we get that stabilized and working normally, we're not going to see recovery.

last week, U.S. banking giants Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase all said they were profitable in the first two months of the year, unleashing a relief rally in battered financial shares around the world.

Still, Bernanke stressed — as he did to Congress last month — that the prospects for the recession ending this year and a recovery taking root next year hinge on a difficult task: getting banks to lend more freely again and getting the financial markets to work more normally.

Bernanke told Congress in January that the Fed believes there is a reasonable prospect the recession that took hold in December 2007 will end this year and that 2010 will be a year of recovery.