The euro rose to a new nine-month dollar high point after the announcement of a second phase of "quantitative easing" measures, soaring as high as 1.4244 dollars in London trade, a level not seen since January.

European leaders have already complained that the euro was too high, pointing a finger at Chinese moves to peg its yuan to the dollar in a race for competitive advantage over exports.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said the US central bank took the decision to pour an additional 600 billion dollars into its economy because it has "a particular obligation to help promote increased employment and sustain price stability."

He added: "Increased spending will lead to higher incomes and profits that, in a virtuous circle, will further support economic expansion."

The measure will push total Fed spending up to nearly a trillion dollars by next July.

"Printing money again will trigger a tsunami across the world economy," said German liberal lawmaker Frank Schaeffler.

"I fear that will only lead to a new cycle of protectionism," he underlined as the EU calls on Group of 20 leaders to act to avoid that temptation at a summit in South Korea next week.

With Republicans having regained control over the purse-strings in Washington, the scope for Obama to maintain his drive for other means to inject stimulus spending looks to have floundered -- and analysts say that monetary policy is stepping in to fill the political void.

"The coincidence signals that budgetary policy is now in political deadlock and that monetary policy is the only instrument left" for Obama, Brussels-based Brueggel think-tank analyst Jean Pisani-Ferry told AFP.

On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund cut its expectations for world economic growth this year and next year to 3.0-4.0 percent, and praised "courageous" Fed action -- but also noted that its effects would not necessarily be positive in Europe.

The outcome there would depend on what European policymakers decided to do, chief economist Olivier Blanchard said in remarks to French Europe 1 radio.

"If the euro rises very strongly because of (Fed) expansionary monetary policy, EU exports will suffer... and that could have consequences for the European Central Bank's monetary policy," Commerzbank's Michael Schubert also told AFP.

A chastened Obama acknowledged that he had suffered a "shellacking" and took "direct responsibility" for the sorry state of the US economy, saying voters' concerns and frustration about the slow pace of progress had driven them to oust Democrats and usher in a Republican wave.

"I have got to do a better job, just like everybody else in Washington does," the president said with unemployment in the United States remaining pegged at 9.6 percent.

Pisani-Ferry said the general trend was for "absolute priority" to be given to internal problems, resuscitating the 1930s Depression-era tendency for states to adopt a "less internationalist" stance.

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