by Calculated Risk on 12/05/2008 03:44:00 PM

From Bloomberg: Fed Buys $5 Billion of Fannie, Freddie, FHLB Debt

The Federal Reserve bought $5 billion of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Home Loan Bank corporate debt under a new program aimed at reducing mortgage costs.

The central bank acquired bonds with maturities between December 2009 and November 2010, according to the New York Fed’s Web site. Dealers offered $12.9 billion of the securities. The purchases under the $100 billion program are the Fed’s first buying of long-term “agency” debt in 28 years.

This is exactly the road map Bernanke discussed in 2002: Deflation: Making Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here.

[S]ome observers have concluded that when the central bank's policy rate falls to zero--its practical minimum--monetary policy loses its ability to further stimulate aggregate demand and the economy. At a broad conceptual level, and in my view in practice as well, this conclusion is clearly mistaken. Indeed, under a fiat (that is, paper) money system, a government (in practice, the central bank in cooperation with other agencies) should always be able to generate increased nominal spending and inflation, even when the short-term nominal interest rate is at zero.
...
Normally, money is injected into the economy through asset purchases by the Federal Reserve. To stimulate aggregate spending when short-term interest rates have reached zero, the Fed must expand the scale of its asset purchases or, possibly, expand the menu of assets that it buys.
...
So what then might the Fed do if its target interest rate, the overnight federal funds rate, fell to zero? One relatively straightforward extension of current procedures would be to try to stimulate spending by lowering rates further out along the Treasury term structure--that is, rates on government bonds of longer maturities.
...
[A]nother option would be for the Fed to use its existing authority to operate in the markets for agency debt (for example, mortgage-backed securities issued by Ginnie Mae, the Government National Mortgage Association).
emphasis added

A speech worth rereading.