fire sales of assets and reassures financial institutions and their counterparties that those institutions will have access to liquidity as needed. to be sure, the provision of liquidity alone cannot address solvency problems or erase the large losses that financial institutions have suffered during this crisis. yet both our internal analysis and market reports suggest that the fed's ample supply of liquidity, along with liquidity provided by other major central banks, has significantly reduced funding pressures for financial institutions, helped to reduce rates in bank funding markets, and increased overall financial stability. for example, despite ongoing financial stresses, funding pressures around year - end 2008 and the most recent quarter - end appear to have moderated significantly. before leaving this category of assets, i should mention briefly the fed's actions to ensure liquidity to another category of financial institution, money market mutual funds. in september, a prominent money market mutual fund " broke the buck " – that is, was unable to maintain a net asset value of $ 1 per share. this event led to a run on the other funds, which saw very sharp withdrawals. these withdrawals in turn threatened the stability of the commercial paper market, which depends heavily on money market mutual funds as investors. following the long - standing principle that the central bank should lend into a panic, the federal reserve established two programs to backstop money market mutual funds and to help those funds avoid fire sales of their assets to meet withdrawals. together with an insurance program offered by the treasury, the fed's programs helped end the run ; the sharp withdrawals from the funds have been replaced by moderate inflows. although credit extended to support money funds was high during the intense phase of the crisis in the fall, borrowings have since declined substantially, to about $ 6 billion. direct lending to borrowers and investors a second set of programs initiated by the federal reserve – including the commercial paper funding facility ( cpff ) and the term asset - backed securities loan facility ( talf ) – aims to improve the functioning of key credit markets by lending directly to market participants, including ultimate borrowers and major investors. the lending associated with these facilities is currently about $ 255 billion, corresponding to roughly one - eighth of the assets on the fed's balance sheet. the sizes of these programs, notably the talf, are expected to grow in the months ahead. the commercial paper market is a key source of the short - term credit that american businesses use to meet payrolls and finance inventor

david dodge : summary of the latest monetary policy report opening statement by mr david dodge, governor of the bank of canada, at a press conference following the release of the monetary policy report update, ottawa, 27 january 2005. * * * today, we released the update to our october monetary policy report. the update reviews economic and financial trends in the context of canadaa€™s inflation - control strategy. the outlook for the canadian economy continues to be shaped by global developments, including the realignment of world currencies. the near - term outlook for the global economy is a touch weaker than projected in the october report, but more solidly based because of somewhat lower oil prices and greater confidence in the momentum of the u. s. economy. we expect the canadian economy to operate a little further below its full production capacity in 2005 than was anticipated at the time of the last report, largely reflecting the dampening effects on aggregate demand of the recent appreciation of the canadian dollar. for 2006, we project growth to pick up to slightly more than 3 per cent, consistent with returning the economy to its production capacity in the second half of the year, and returning core inflation to 2 per cent around the end of 2006. in line with this revised outlook, the pace of reduction in monetary stimulus is likely to be slower than that envisioned in the october report. there are both upside and downside risks around the outlook, which continue to relate to the adjustment to global developments. as circumstances change, we always need to be ready to re - assess the policy implications.