by Calculated Risk on 1/10/2008 12:26:00 PM

From Chairman Bernanke: Financial Markets, the Economic Outlook, and Monetary Policy

Although the TAF and other liquidity-related actions appear to have had some positive effects, such measures alone cannot fully address fundamental concerns about credit quality and valuation, nor do these actions relax the balance sheet constraints on financial institutions. Hence, they cannot eliminate the financial restraints affecting the broader economy. Monetary policy (that is, the management of the short-term interest rate) is the Fed’s best tool for pursuing our macroeconomic objectives, namely to promote maximum sustainable employment and price stability.

Although economic growth slowed in the fourth quarter of last year from the third quarter’s rapid clip, it seems nonetheless, as best we can tell, to have continued at a moderate pace. Recently, however, incoming information has suggested that the baseline outlook for real activity in 2008 has worsened and the downside risks to growth have become more pronounced. Notably, the demand for housing seems to have weakened further, in part reflecting the ongoing problems in mortgage markets. In addition, a number of factors, including higher oil prices, lower equity prices, and softening home values, seem likely to weigh on consumer spending as we move into 2008.

Financial conditions continue to pose a downside risk to the outlook for growth.
emphasis added

Sounds like more rate cuts (no surprise, the market is pricing in a 50bp cut later this month).