*  *  *  Chairman Frank, Ranking Member Bachus, and other members of the Committee, I am pleased to present the Federal Reserve’s semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress. I will begin today with some comments on the outlook for the economy and for monetary policy, then touch briefly on several other important issues.
The economic outlook Although the recession officially began more than two years ago, U.S. economic activity contracted particularly sharply following the intensification of the global financial crisis in the fall of 2008.