WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell compared the actions taken by the central bank early in the pandemic as the economy barreled toward a recession to British efforts in World War II to evacuate troops at Dunkirk. Asked Thursday in an NPR interview whether would have anything different back in March 2020 if given the chance, Powell said the most important thing was to use all tools available to the Fed, and do it quickly. The Fed slashed its key benchmark lending rate to a record low of 0% to 0.25%, created a number of emergency lending programs to shore up a financial system in crisis and began buying billions of dollars in bonds to keep long-term interest rates low.
