Fed ready to slash interest rates

The Federal Reserve is seemingly prepared to slash a key interest rate.
The Fed's key rate has been dropping for quite some time and is moving closer and closer to 0%.
The Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was in a two day meeting working on the economic crisis and exploring more tools to help the situation other than interest rate cuts.
"The message is simply the Fed stands ready to do everything in its power to stop the economy's free fall." stated Richard Yamarone who is an economist at Argus Research.
This is to suggest that perhaps this slash is more of a psychological tactic than a financial one.
Since the economic recession began last December, the Federal Reserve has already all but used up it's most significant tool for influencing the economy. The target to the federal funds rate has been cut to 1%, a number seen only once in this half of the century.
It is speculated that this rate could drop to 0.5% or even 0.25%.
The area of the economy that the Federal Reserve has been trying to affect are the loans currently not occurring between banks.
With so many unstable companies and customers, many banks have been very reluctant to lend money and help reinstate the cash flow necessary.
The lowering of the prime rate would affect home equity loans, certain credit cards and other consumer loans.
By dropping the rate from 4%, where it currently is, to an even lower mark would perhaps stimulate spending.
Up to now however, the rate slashes that have been put into effect have yet to have the influence desired.