If the Fed were to tighten, demand and investment would sink, and, as Mr Bernanke warned in March, "perversely serve to extend the period of low long-term rates".
There are two main reasons why the NHS is going to find it difficult to cope with belt-tightening: demand for services will continue to rise in line with our expectations and an ageing population; and it has got used to significant year-on-year real term increases.
In turn, the credit market has tightened demand for mortgages and CDOs have plunged as buyers have had a harder time getting credit.
Revenues have dropped as a result of the successive waves of belt-tightening demanded by the EU and IMF in return for rescue loans.
The IMF wants Ukraine to cut public spending from 48% of GDP to 45% by 2017, the same scale of belt-tightening demanded of Greece after its bail-out in 2010.
After discovering the country's deficit and debt to be three times bigger than previously thought, he has presided over a government on a rollercoaster, lurching from crisis to crisis as markets sent borrowing costs soaring, bankruptcy beckoned, bailouts were drawn up and protests swelled in reaction to the relentless belt-tightening demanded in return for EU and IMF aid.
As lending standards tighten, consumer demand could suffer, possibly prompting a recession in the United States.
The collapse in construction as orders for taxpayer-funded schools and public projects have dried up, and which has been a key cause of the latest downturn in GDP, is just one example of the coalition's fiscal tightening leeching demand out of the economy.
In his statement, the first minister said: "Since public sector budgets are likely to continue to tighten, and demand pressures grow, there is a clear need to examine how services can be sustained and standards of performance raised, so that people in Wales can continue to receive and influence the public services they need and value.
Mr. Hirschorn said insurance companies have tightened their demands.
