For the longest time now Ben and his band of governors were mostly on defense. At first they weren’t fighting back at all, preferring to stay on the ropes while the economy turned from bull to bear. Over the past few months the Fed started to fight back, taking a few jabs here and there without much oomph to them — lowering the federal funds rate, but without a real noticeable positive impact.

Now in the late rounds of the title fight and on the ropes again, Bernanke took a leap of faith this week, swinging wildly at anything that looked like it could put his opponent down for the count. And he finally connected with a good left hook and a right uppercut to the economy’s jaw. It may not be the knockout punch the American public is looking for, but it sure had a tremendous impact on the financial markets this week and goes a long way towards restoring confidence in the Fed’s ability to control fiscal policy.

The setup blow came without warning last weekend when the Fed took the following steps:

• Lowered its discount rate by 25 basis points to 3.25 percent
• Approved an increase in the maximum maturity of primary credit loans from 30 days to 90 days
• Created a lending facility to provide financing to participants in securitized markets (such as the mortgage-backed securities market)
• Approved the bailout financing of Bear Stearns Companies Inc. by JP Morgan Chase & Co.

These moves alone set up a wild ride on Wall Street early this week. Then came the uppercut with the expected lowering of the federal funds rate during Tuesday’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Seeing that inflation expectations have risen, the Fed took action and lowered the rate by 75 basis points.

“Growth in consumer spending has slowed and labor markets have softened,” the FOMC said in their official statement. “Financial markets remain under considerable stress, and the tightening of credit conditions and the deepening of the housing contraction are likely to weigh on economic growth over the next few quarters.”

Even with such reasoning, lowering of the rate by three-quarters of a percent was more than some people expected. In fact two of the Fed governors voted against the action, preferring “a less aggressive action” according to the Fed statement.

All told, it looks good that the Fed is finally awake and seeking to take appropriate action to fix our broken economy. Even if they’re not ready to admit we’re already in a recession.

Still, way to go Ben! The American public, especially distressed homeowners facing foreclosure, is counting on you to defend our way of life more in the future.

In the end, fixing the economy can only serve to help everyone — homeowners looking for ways to stay in their homes or get out gracefully and with dignity; legitimate real estate investors looking to finance home purchases to help out those distressed homeowners and to make a reasonable profit on their investments; and real estate professionals who are looking for the real estate market to come back so they can start making a living again.