quantitative easing

Here's a quick primer on the Fed, why you never want a central bank to have to do anything, and the reason why we all hang on Ben Bernanke's every word.

Everyone now knows the federal government is about to run up against its limit for borrowing money, but everyone also knows that governments can -- and do -- just print the stuff. Washington owns the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Could the way to sidestep this looming crisis be just making more money?

Politicians in both Greece and the U.S. are struggling to find the common ground necessary to keep their governments from defaulting on their debts; QE2 hasn't ended yet, and already the Fed is considering QE3; and the SEC finally starts to regulate Wall Street's hedge funds.

Earlier this year, the Utah state legislature passed a law making gold and silver coins legal tender. Now, a Salt Lake City-area numismatist hopes to set up a depository system that will allow Utahans to use gold and silver to pay for anything they want.

When a Federal Reserve committee meets Tuesday to consider the federal interest rate, it will likely revise its glum outlook into something brighter. But will it also acknowledge the U.S.'s growing inflation problem?

The technical signs suggest we're at a crucial point for stocks: Either a decisive rise or a dramatic fall is coming. And if you're the type to dismiss technical analysis as unscientific voodoo, you're missing the point: It's not about pattern matching, it's about human psychology.

One would think that with the Mideast crisis, oil prices skyrocketing and U.S. manufacturing rebounding smartly, the buck would be flying high. But no. Why that's so may lie in international perceptions about where interest rates are heading.

Having committed itself to ultralow interest rates and quantitative easing, the Fed is now caught in a double bind: Continue those policies and keep pumping money into speculative, inflation-hiking commodity bets -- or end them and let rates rise, with the harmful economic impact.

Given an economy gaining steam and a vast expansion in the money supply, it's easy to assume a wave of inflation is up next. The causes of inflation, however, are anything but straightforward -- which is something investors need to remember.

While most analysts don't expect a major departure from the December Fed meeting, the voting lineup has changed substantially. Now, Chairman Bernanke has to deal with three new members of the rate-setting committee who have expressed reservations about quantitative easing.