One way might be to raise interest rates. You'll recall they lowered them to a) stave off inflation and b) ease credit for insitutions. We've seen that inflation doesn't really seem to care about interest rates right now and the big institutions need to figure out their own sink or swim strategy. Further, I was just reading in WSJ the other day how they wanted the lower rates to bring down mortgage rates and yet this hasn't happened. Rates were cut in 1/2 and mortgage rates pretty much remained static. All the while the lower rates have eaten away at the dollar (recent upswing not included).