Fed Lowers Forecasts, Hints at Cut

By Jeannine Aversa

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve on Wednesday sharply lowered its projections for economic activity this year and next, and signaled that additional interest rate reductions may be needed to help combat the worst financial crisis to jolt the country in more than a half-century.

With the economy forecast to lose traction, or even jolt into reverse, unemployment will move higher, the Fed predicted.

Facing the likelihood of "significant weakness" in the economy, some Fed officials suggested "additional policy easing could well be appropriate at future meetings," according to documents from the Fed's most recent closed-door deliberations on interest rate policy at the end of October.

At that Oct. 29 session, the Fed ratcheted down rates to 1%, a level seen only once before in the last half-century. Many economists predict the Fed will lower rates again at its last meeting of the year on Dec. 16, to help brace the sinking economy.

Even while hinting that another rate reduction could be forthcoming, Fed officials worried that the effectiveness of previous rate cuts "may have been diminished by the financial dislocations, suggesting that further policy action might have limited efficacy in promoting a recovery in economic growth," the documents said.

To help ease financial turmoil and spur banks to lend money more freely again to customers, the Fed has taken a series of other unprecedented steps, including offering short-term cash loans and buying up mounds of short-term debt that companies rely on to pay day-to-day expenses like payrolls and supplies.