Feds Buy $600 Billion In Government Bonds

By: Jennifer Hong
11/03/2010 10:31 PM ET

The Federal Reserve launched a fresh effort to support a struggling economy on Wednesday, committing to buy $600 billion in government bonds despite concerns the program could do more harm than good.

The decision takes the Fed into largely uncharted waters and is aimed at further lowering borrowing costs for consumers and businesses still suffering in the aftermath of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The U.S. central bank said it would buy about $75 billion in longer-term Treasury bonds per month through the end of June 2011 and could adjust purchases depending on the strength of the recovery.

“The economy is slowly digging itself out of a deep hole,” said Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. “The Fed is making the right moves here to nudge the pace up a little,” he said.

Critics within and outside the central bank fear the Fed’s policy will lead to high inflation and worry that low interest rates in the United States risk fueling asset bubbles in other countries and destabilizing currencies.

But with the U.S. economy expanding at only a 2.0 percent annual pace in the third quarter of this year and the jobless rate seemingly stuck around 9.6 percent, the Fed had come under pressure to do more to stimulate business activity.