Now the internal debate turns to the future, particularly whether to do more, and if so whether to make small or large steps.
...
One thing is clear: Mr. Bernanke, though striving for consensus, is determined to avoid mistakes of past central bankers that created devastating bouts of deflation. As a Princeton professor in the 1990s, Mr. Bernanke lectured Japanese officials for being too timid about combating deflation. And in now-famous remarks he delivered as a Fed governor at a 90th birthday celebration for Milton Friedman in 2002, Mr. Bernanke promised the Fed would never allow a repeat of the deflation of the 1930s.
"The worst outcome for him personally would be to let something like deflation get under way on his watch," says Alfred Broaddus, the former president of the Richmond Fed who served alongside Mr. Bernanke from 2002 until 2005. "He will respond forcefully to evidence that the risk of a deflationary process getting under way is rising materially. He won't be ambivalent."
