"It will elicit a substantial revision in the outlook for the surplus, and we were already getting awfully close to not much left".
They have said the Fed would keep buying bonds until there was a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market.
Announcing the decision on QE, made at its October policy meeting, the Fed said: "The committee judges that there has been a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labour market since the inception of its current asset purchase programme.
In a speech earlier this week to the National Association of Business Economists, the Fed's vice chairwoman, Janet Yellen, reaffirmed the Fed's commitment to its bold accommodative policies until there is a "substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market".
The minutes stated: "A number of participants stated that an ongoing evaluation of the efficacy, costs and risks of asset purchases might well lead the committee to taper or end its purchases before it judged that a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labour market had occurred".
"If there's a substantial change in the economic outlook in either direction, then there would be a change in the outlook," Mr. Bernanke said.
Faced with the significant deterioration in financial market conditions and a substantial worsening of the economic outlook, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) continued to ease monetary policy aggressively in the final months of 2008, including a rate cut coordinated with five other major central banks.
Our sense is that at this stage these developments do not pose a substantial risk to the US economic outlook," she said.
"We find it inconceivable to conclude, based on the present record, that the use of one small feature, the date-picker, constitutes a substantial portion of the value of Outlook".
Yellen, in testimony prepared for delivery to a congressional committee, nodded to the recent volatility in global financial markets, but said at this stage it does "not pose a substantial risk to the U.S. economic outlook".
Yellen said the Fed was "watching closely the recent volatility" adding: "Our sense is that at this stage these developments do not pose a substantial risk to the U.S. economic outlook.
