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All of the Fed's measures would come in addition to what has already been an unprecedented expansion of lending by the Fed. Since last September, the central bank has roughly doubled the size of its balance sheet to nearly $2 trillion from $900 billion "” even before Wednesday's action "” mainly because of its efforts to rescue credit markets.
Despite a trickle of encouraging economic data in the last few weeks, Fed officials were clearly unimpressed and in no mood to cut back on their emergency efforts.
