The Federal Reserve stopped banks from charging you $40 or $50 in overdraft fees when you get a twenty from the ATM, not knowing there's only $19 in your account…

The Federal Reserve will begin banning banks from charging many overdraft fees unless customers sign up for the service, an unprecedented move that comes as a wave of consumer reform sweeps Washington.

The new regulations, announced Thursday, cover overdrafts from ATM withdrawals and debit card purchases, which account for roughly half of overdrawn transactions, and help to address widespread complaints that consumers who were unaware they had insufficient funds were being charged exorbitant fees for purchasing a cup of coffee, for example.

Q: If you love Ben Bernanke so much, why don't you marry him?

A: Because his wife Anna would never allow such a thing, sorry.

Final tally? America: 1. Econopocalypse: 0!

"From a technical perspective, the recession is very likely over at this point," Bernanke said in responding to questions at the Brookings Institution. "It's still going to feel like a very weak economy for some time because many people will still find that their job security and their employment status is not what they wish it was."

The recession, which started in December 2007, has claimed a net total of 6.9 million jobs.

Okay, okay. America: 1, Econopocalypse 0 + 6.9 million.

But who's counting? If you get all technical with the technical economic data, it spoils the fun.

Four more years, buddy…

Having pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into the financial system and tried to heal the economy with near zero interest rates, Mr. Bernanke needs to decide how and when to pull back. If he moves too soon, he could undermine a recovery, as happened in the U.S. in the 1930s and Japan in the 1990s. But if he moves too slowly, he could spur a new period of inflation, as in the U.S. in the 1970s.

Of course, for months Bernanke-haters have been grumbling about punishing Ben for failing to foresee the severity of the recession and screwing Lehman Brothers and doing a little hm-hm with Bank of America.

Congratulations, guys!

Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, is on a publicity campaign with a message: the central bank is here to help, and it is not as mysterious or menacing as people might think.

Lies, of course, all lies. Below every Federal Reserve bank is a secret vault where alien colonists raise human fetuses in petri dishes. Regardless, Ben and his beard took the Fed-boosting show on the road to Kansas City yesterday, where they sat with some Real Americans for a Real American tradition: the town hall pander…

When a small-business owner asked Mr. Bernanke why the Fed helped rescue big banks while "short-changing" small companies, Mr. Bernanke answered that he had decided to "hold my nose" because he was afraid the entire financial system would collapse.

"I'm as disgusted by it as you are," he told the audience of 190 people. "Nothing made me more angry than having to intervene, particularly in a few cases where companies took wild bets."

Oh boy.

Ben Bernanke is going to be furious when he finds out there was a guy who could've saved him from having to do all those bank rescues in the first place.

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I don't know about you, but I was just about to go into full-on panick mode. I was all like, Where are President Obama and his two adorable daughters going to eat their frozen yogurt or shaved ice or whatever that stuff is this summer if they cannot settle on which mansion to stay in on an island I'll never visit?

But, luckily, HuffPo was all over that shit with a front page headline the nanosecond that the crisis was averted.

Now I can go back to lazily wondering about stupid stuff, like which mystery foreign country has that half-trillion dollars of U.S. money.

At which point — according to Republicans, especially — Ben Bernanke sank his tusks into BoA execs' buttocks, saying, "Sorry dudes, you are gonna buy this thing so it doesn't collapse, here, we will lend you $20 billion and Tim Geithner will do all the photocopying himself."

Which brings us to this morning, when the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform summoned that scoundrel Bernanke to their offices so he could fess up…

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Federal Reserve officials acted with the "highest integrity" during tense negotiations with Bank of America Corp. over the bank's acquisition of Merrill Lynch, unequivocally stating that he did not threaten to replace management if they walked away from the deal.

"I did not tell Bank of America's management that the Federal Reserve would take action against the board or management," Mr. Bernanke said in his prepared remarks.

"Moreover, I did not instruct anyone to indicate to Bank of America that the Federal Reserve would take any particular action under those circumstances," Mr. Bernanke said.

Well, duh.

Why would Ben Bernanke indicate that he might filet their testicles with a steak knife when he could just go ahead and filet their testicles with a steak knife?

The proposal includes a provision that would allow Ben Bernanke to eat children if he deems it necessary to stabilize the economy, and that has some folks concerned…

"I do not believe that we can reasonably expect the Fed or any other agency to effectively play so many roles," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), noting that it also sets monetary policy, regulates banks and handles an array of other functions.

Some lawmakers have proposed that the job of overseeing large institutions be left to a council of regulators, not a single agency.

Geithner anticipated that point in his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, saying in his opening remarks: "You cannot convene a committee to put out a fire."

Timmy, please.

You're talking to the United States government.

Don't use up my time arguing. Just point to it in the Constitution.

Who do you think would win a CEO cage match tournament? Merrill Lynch's John Thain? AIG's Edward Liddy? What does your bracket look like?

Who would you like to see get the Prize next?