Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's semi-annual congressional testimony confirmed that the FOMC is paying a lot more attention to the potential costs of continuing with its quantitative easing this year. Bernanke still appears to believe that the benefits outweigh the costs, but the trade-off between the two will narrow further as the Fed buys more assets this year. It is looking more likely that the Fed will slow the pace of its monthly purchases soon, possibly even in March, even if it doesn't see the desired improvement in labour market conditions.
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