George Zornick

Unemployment is stuck at over 9 percent, and recent jobs reports have been increasingly ominous. With the legislative branch mired in what can charitably be called cataclysmic paralysis, the Federal Reserve stands as one of the few Washington institutions that can help goose the economy and stimulate employment. In November, the Fed began a second round of quantitative easing, in which it bought up $600 billion worth of long-term US Treasury bonds in order to lower interest rates and stimula…