Bernanke's midyear report

Fed chair Ben Bernanke gave his midyear report on the state of the economy to Congress yesterday, and the news is not encouraging: "The U.S. economy has continued to recover, but economic activity appears to have decelerated somewhat during the first half of this year."  Investment by businesses in plant, equipment and inventories is especially worrisome, Bernanke said.

Some lawmakers encouraged Bernanke to do more to stimulate the recovery.  However, his means to do so appear extremely limited.  The Fed's main tools are lowering interest rates and buying bonds to create more liquidity.  Yet banks have mountains of excess reserves and have decided it is better to keep them at the Fed to earn 0.25% than to loan them out.