WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Reserve officials cut their forecasts for growth this year and signaled they stood ready to take new steps to keep the recovery alive if the economy worsens.

A new document, released Wednesday, revealed a more wow gold cautious mood among the Fed policymakers in light of Europe's debt crisis, a volatile Wall Street, a stalled housing market and high unemployment.

With risks growing, Fed officials at their June 22-23 meeting saw world of warcraft gold the need to explore new options for bolstering the economy. That's a turnaround from earlier this year when they were moving to wind down crisis-era supports.

No new specific steps were disclosed or agreed upon at that time.

However, if the recovery were to deteriorate, Fed policymakers have options. They could revive programs to buy mortgage securities or government debt. They could lower wow power leveling the rates banks pay for emergency Fed loans. The Fed also could create a new program to spark more lending to businesses and consumers in a bid to lure them to ratchet up spending and grow the economy.

The economic and political hurdles for taking such action would be high, economists said.

"If the economy takes a nasty spill, then yes, it would take new policy action. But if we continue to see kind of mediocre, ho-hum growth, then that won't be enough dvd copy for them to move," said Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan Chase.

In the end, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues agreed at the June meeting to hold a key interest rate at a record low near zero to help energize the video converter economy. And they repeated a pledge to keep rates there for an "extended period."

At that time, Fed policymakers said they didn't think the slowing in the economy seen thus far warranted new stimulative actions besides those already in place, according to the minutes of the June meeting.

However, Fed officials said the central bank "would need to consider whether further policy stimulus might become appropriate if the outlook were to Replica Handbags worsen appreciably," the document stated.

Fed officials concluded that the "economic outlook had softened somewhat." In fact, one-half of Fed officials saw "risks to growth as having moved to the downside."

Against this backdrop, Fed officials offered a slightly more downbeat view of the economy.