Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said that, under the extremely difficult circumstances during the financial crisis, the Fed's response was sharply limited by the lack of tools available, describing some of the actions taken as "exceedingly distasteful".

In a speech to the Dallas Regional Chamber on Wednesday, Bernanke said: "The decisions we taken, in collaboration with the Treasury, to assist distressed firms during the height of the crisis ran strongly against the grain of