Gambles says there are many options for the Fed to financially engineer and pump money into the system without resorting to overt quantitative easing, like the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) scheme in 2008 when the Treasury bought up equity stakes in troubled U.S. financial institutions; and when the Fed took on the liabilities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac onto its balance sheets.
"They got to do something now if they want to try and give this impression of creating jobs and of supporting asset prices," he said.
"In this context," Bernanke concluded, "monetary policy cannot be a panacea." The Fed Chief hopes gas prices will ease, but until employment data improves we "cannot consider the recovery to be truly established." The Federal Reserve, in other words, is out of time, money and ideas for fixing the economy in the foreseeable future.