THE Greenspan Federal Reserve never cut the funds rate by more than 0.5 percentage point at any one time.

The Bernanke Fed has done so twice in two months. Sharp reductions in the funds rate have been supplemented with numerous other initiatives.

Even so, we believe Fed officials have failed to prevent a recession. Their objective is now to avert a long and deep recession by limiting the fallout in financial markets. On that basis, we expect them to succeed eventually.