One might as well try to perform brain surgery with a sledgehammer.

The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing.

If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game.

Inflation is certainly low and stable and, measured in unemployment and labour-market slack, the economy has made a lot of progress. The pace of growth is disappointingly slow, mostly because productivity growth has been very slow, which is not really something amenable to monetary policy. It comes from changes in technology, changes in worker skills and a variety of other things, but not monetary policy, in particular.

...the Federal Reserve has the capacity to operate in domestic money markets to maintain interest rates at a level consistent with our economic goals

Indeed, in general, healthy investment returns cannot be sustained in a weak economy, and of course it is difficult to save for retirement or other goals without the income from a job.

Developments in financial markets can have broad economic effects felt by many outside the markets.