Quite well, they, along other CBs alleviated the 2008 panic and stabilized markets significantly. The cost to the economy and common man would have been a many fold higher without intervention.
I am not a proponent for constant market intervention. But there are times imho when intervention is necessary. For example (though it's the government not the Fed here) , do you want Airlines to all go bankrupt each crisis just to see new ones to be born who make the same mistakes in the next crisis? What is needed is not less CB intervention or more CB intervention but more stringent regulation. Regulate and force companies to build up reserves just as banks and there will be money on the sidelines during crises. The main problem of our times in the economy is not central bank intervention but lack of stringent regulation. Leave corporations to their own devices and nothing good will come out for the common man.
