In any event, it will be important that the signals conveyed by balance sheet policies are consistent with the forward guidance about future interest rate policies. This has been a difficult communications challenge at times for the FOMC.
9 In its announcement on April 23, 2009, the Bank made the following conditional commitment: “Conditional on  the outlook for inflation, the target overnight rate can be expected to remain at its current level until the end of the second quarter of 2010 in order to achieve the inflation target.” 10 Some estimates for the United States are as high as 40 per cent.