Part of the reason for the purchase of securities was to lower the interest rate on longer term securities like the 10 year treasury note. This lowered the rate a lot of consumer loans like mortgages, car loans, etc. with the hope of stimulating the economy. Usually the Federal Reserve just changes the discount rate (overnight rate to banks) to try and stimulate the economy but lowering the discount rate through 2007 and 2008 wasn't lowering the longer term interest rates and thus consumer borrowing rates. Thus Bernanke took the unprecedented step of buying the securities to drive down the longer term interest rates as well.
In effect they printed money to do this but inflation remained quite low by standard measures. Bernanke requested Congress to help stimulate the economy in the near term, but politically it was impossible for Congress to achieve even a short term second stimulus package. History will be the final judge of the extraordinary actions taken by the Federal Reserve but to me it seemed like the best of a lot of bad options. Even as I'm glad that some agency was trying to stimulate the economy I'm concerned about the historical precedent that a small unelected group can decide to take on so much debt with no public comment.
In effect they printed money to do this but inflation remained quite low by standard measures. Bernanke requested Congress to help stimulate the economy in the near term, but politically it was impossible for Congress to achieve even a short term second stimulus package. History will be the final judge of the extraordinary actions taken by the Federal Reserve but to me it seemed like the best of a lot of bad options. Even as I'm glad that some agency was trying to stimulate the economy I'm concerned about the historical precedent that a small unelected group can decide to take on so much debt with no public comment.