The Federal Reserve’s latest anti-recession strategy will probably do no harm – but it won’t solve America’s deep-rooted problems It speaks volumes about the current parlous state of the US economy that America’s central bank on Wednesday announced fresh measures to boost growth . This time last year, all the talk was about how quickly the Federal Reserve would start withdrawing the extraordinary stimulus provided during the Great Recession of 2008-09. Wall Street was betting on when interest rates would start going up.