The big economic news today is the testimony of the Fed Chairman Bernanke on the Hill. Mr. Bernanke testified before the House Banking Committee, and budget deficits were on his mind. Funny, how the whole world keeps talking about it. The Chinese, for instance, have been grumbling about the health of their dollar investments for months. They’ve been raising “serious concerns”, even if disingenuously, about the stewardship of the U.S. economy by the government that “keeps printing money.” The Chinese government is now taking steps to demonstrate exactly how concerned they are about the dollar by establishing trading regimes with their partners like (drum roll, please) Malaysia, that only rely on yuan and ringgit. This piece of international theater notwithstanding, Bernanke’s concern about the health of the U.S. economy is without an ulterior motive. In fact, it is his job. “Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth,” said the Fed Chairman in his prepared remarks to the Banking Committee. The markets were in the sour mood with the Dow spending all day in the negative territory from the gains of yesterday. All three major U.S. exchanges finished the day of trading in the red.