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In an unprecedented and controversial move, the Federal Reserve today announced the initiation of an open-ended round of Quantitative Easing (QE3) and extended the period for which it will keep rates between 0 and 1/4% to mid-2015. Here is the paragraph from the FOMC statement that sums it up: "....The Committee agreed today to increase policy accommodation by purchasing additional agency mortgage-backed securities at a pace of $40 billion per month. The Committee also will continue through the end of the year its program to extend the average maturity of its holdings of securities as announced in June, and it is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities. These actions...should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, support mortgage markets, and help to make broader financial conditions more accommodative." Translating from Fed-...

(Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday took aim at proponents of the gold standard, saying that such a system handicaps the government's ability to address economic conditions. Bernanke spoke in the first of a series of four public lectures at George Washington University that is the central bank's latest effort to counter a raft of negative public sentiment that has arisen from its handling of the financial crisis. The former Princeton economics professor delivers a second lecture on Thursday and two more next week. "Since the gold standard determines the money supply, there is not much scope for the central bank to use monetary policy to stabilize the economy," Bernanke said. "Under a gold standard, typically the money supply goes up and interest rates go down in a period of strong economic activity - so that's the reverse of what a central bank would normally do today." Embodied by Texas congressman and Republican president...

Congress risks taking the economy over a “massive fiscal cliff,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned lawmakers on Wednesday. In remarks that hit Wall Street stock prices, the central bank boss suggested the economy could hit a serious roadblock if Congress allows the Bush tax rates and a payroll tax cut to expire and $1.2 trillion in spending cuts to be implemented simultaneously in January. “Under current law, on Jan. 1, 2013, there’s going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases,” Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee. “I hope that Congress will look at that and figure out ways to achieve the same long-run fiscal improvement without having it all happen at one date. “All those things are hitting on the same day, basically. It’s quite a big event.” The tax hikes and spending cuts could knock GDP growth in 2013 down from 2.6 percent to 1 percent, according to Andrew Fieldhouse, a federal budget policy analyst with the libera...

Bernanke said in a testimony before congress, “Even the prospect of unsustainable deficits has costs, including an increased possibility of a sudden fiscal crisis. As we have seen in a number of countries recently, interest rates can soar quickly if investors lose confidence in the ability of a government to manage its fiscal policy. Although historical experience and economic theory do not indicate the exact threshold at which the perceived risks associated with the U.S. public debt would increase markedly, we can be sure that, without corrective action, our fiscal trajectory will move the nation ever closer to that point.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday defended the U.S. central bank's policies against charges from Republican lawmakers they risked sparking inflation, saying the economy still needs plenty of support. Testifying before Congress, the Fed chief was repeatedly thrown on the defensive as he parried critiques from Republican lawmakers over the Fed's zero interest rate policy, its focus on employment and its policy prescriptions for housing. Bernanke told the House Budget Committee that Europe's financial crisis still threatened the U.S. recovery, and said the Fed would do everything it can to ward off damage. "The basic reason for low long-term rates, which are also a feature of every other industrial economy, are low inflation, slow expected growth and the fact that the dollar is a safe haven," Bernanke said. Paul Ryan, the committee's Republican chairman, took issue with the central bank's new 2 percent inflation ...

Jim Rogers in the interview said, “If the US dollar turns into confetti there is no high for the price of gold because the dollar will become worthless.” He's also suggesting you invest in Myanmar also known as Burma.