WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is likely to follow its bold action last week to battle an economic downturn with further interest rate reductions although analysts are split on just what size the future cuts will be. Some believe the Fed will settle into a series of quarter-point moves especially if upcoming economic reports show the economy is slowing but not toppling into an actual recession. That would mean the Fed will cut its federal funds rate the interest that banks charge each other by a quarter point at the conclusion of Wednesday's meeting. It would be the fifth rate cut since last September. Last week the Fed announced a surprise three-quarter-point cut which drove the funds rate down to 3.5 percent. It was the largest reduction in this rate in more than two decades and the first change in the funds rate between meetings since the immediate aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues held an emergency videoconference call on Jan. 21 after a turbulent day on world markets when investors grew increasingly worried about what a recession in the United States would do to the prospects for global growth. Many analysts believed the Fed would quickly follow last week's aggressive move with a cut of at least a half-point at its first regular meeting of the new year. While some economists are still looking for a half-point cut other economists are arguing that the Fed is likely to produce only a quarter-point reduction especially in light of some better-than-expected recent economic data. The most surprising report came Tuesday with news that orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket durable goods jumped 5.2 percent in December the biggest increase in five months and demand in a key series that tracks business investment shot up at the fastest pace since last March. That unexpected strength may be a signal that the current slowdown will not be as severe as first believed although analysts cautioned that it would be a mistake to read too much into one report. Also being closely watched is the broadest measure of economic health the gross domestic product. Many analysts believe the GDP slowed to an anemic rate of around 1 percent in the October-December quarter and could fall into negative territory in the current January-March period. One definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of falling GDP. A Commerce Department report on fourth-quarter GDP was due out Wednesday several hours prior to the Fed's expected announcement on its interest rate decision. Worried about the possibility of a downturn the House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a $146 billion economic stimulus bill. Passage in the Senate could be slowed by an effort to expand the measure. Whatever the Fed does Thursday analysts said that further rate cuts are likely until the central bank is sure that the economy is back on sound footing. Bernanke pledged in a speech on Jan. 10 to take decisive action to combat a slowdown. Many economists believe the funds rate could fall to 2.5 percent before the Fed stops easing. "It is clear that the Fed has moved into a crisis-fighting posture " said David Jones chief economist at DMJ Advisors.

We all have our computer time-wasters. For some it's games for others IM'ing with friends. For me it's the geo-web. Just as I used to while away the hours with my beloved Rand McNally atlas as a kid studying the roads and mountain ranges and imagining what it would be like when I got there some day now I do it with Google Earth. These days I don't have to be as imaginative it's all right there on my desktop. Not only can I see the mountain ranges I can preview the slopes I'll ski on my next vacation in the Alps (if the dollar ever stops being a toy currency). I can search for news stories that happened within a 5 mile radius of the hotel I'm booking be it in Cleveland Corsica or Cape Town. Web content management vendors and as well as Australian enterprise search vendor are among the few content technology vendors that integrate geo-web map applications with their own. They're often spun under the rubric of 'Web 2.0 ' given that's the moniker put on anything that might also be described as 'cool' or 'interactive ' and vendors of course want to come off as both. Escenic has found a niche supporting news organizations allowing users to search for news geographically. On the web Flickr allows you to search for photos that are tagged geographically simply by clicking on a map. As is often the case these mashups are heavily reliant on good metadata or a geographic taxonomy. In other cases text mining technology will sift through your managed content look for location-based clues ('London ' 'Eiffel Tower' or 'SFO') and then assign GPS coordinates to that content as associated metadata which is in turn fed into the mapping application. Like many tools that vendors pass off as completely their own many of the geo-mapping mashups you might see in WCM or enterprise search demos use OEM'd products. Sniffing backwards along that path I recently chatted at length with the folks at whose raison d'être is integrating content and maps delivering what they call 'geographic value' to unstructured content. MetaCarta combines text and geographic searches then plots the results on a map. Smartly MetaCarta is 'map agnostic' meaning they'll use Google's Microsoft's or anyone else's mapping system to show the results. Note how it works on the ; news is automatically plotted on the canvas of Microsoft Virtual Earth. As a result of such software a whole new layer of geo-specific data is added to our content. Standards are emerging to support this geographic tagging including Google's Keyhole Markup Language or and the Open Geospatial Consortium's . If your car or your cell phone has GPS technology you are creating content just by moving around or going to pick up milk at the corner store. An interesting new company called has set up a geographic-based social network letting mobile phone users attach 'sticky notes' to locations so that the next person who drops by can 'pick it up.' A brave new world of geo-data is emerging and you will have to manage it. While this is surely a growing piece of the 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle that is Enterprise Content Management there's not necessarily a practical business application for the geo-web in your enterprise. Don't be too quick to be dazzled by the demo; after all do you really need your CMS to tell you where the local pizza joints are? MetaCarta claims that 74% of documents on the Internet are 'geo-relevant ' or plottable on a map. Is the same true of the content in your enterprise? Will plotting your documents geographically add value to the experience or enable you to manage or find content more effectively? Perhaps but as with any software that may look cool on the surface be sure to assess your real business needs before you invest.

According to Stephanie Farr and William Bender 'Fed up with jet noise couple raise the roof' (Philadelphia Daily News 1/24/2008): Armed with white roof sealant and three choice words a Ridley Township couple has bypassed bureaucracy and taken their grievances...

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) doesn't convene until tomorrow but Fed watchers still have some news to digest today...( )

Danske Bank nyhed. USA/Danske: Rentedyk viser, at Fed er yderst bekymret (Opd. ... Den amerikanske centralbank, Fed, er yderst bekymret for udviklingen i den amerikanske økonomi.

Danske Bank nyhed. USA/Danske: Kraftigt rentedyk viser, at Fed er yderst bekymret ... Den amerikanske centralbank, Fed, er yderst bekymret for udviklingen i den amerikanske ...

Einleitung . Die Mailingliste FED-NEWS gehört zu den öffentlichen Mailinglisten des FED und wird seit 1996 vom FED betrieben. Über diese Liste erhalten Sie kostenlos aktuelle ...

Federal Reserve News Articles - MarketWatch offers federal reserve news articles. Learn the latest US fed news at our site.

Sportshaj.dk er din guide til sportsverdenen. Find de bedste links om alt fra fodbold og cykling til spil og motion.

Federal News Radio - Your source for federal news, now. ... Fed Talk - December 29th, 2006 Realities and Myths of the Federal Sector EEO Process

Banking Applications : Banking Market Definitions : Banking Publications : Circular Letters : The Discount Window : Federal Reserve Emergency Notification Services/Internet (FRENSi ...

Fed News

Børsen side 20: Den amerikanske centralbank (Fed) sænkede igår renten med 0,75%-point, og lagde dermed pres på den Europæiske centralbank for at sænke renten.

Danske Bank nyhed. USA/Danske: Rentedyk viser, at Fed er yderst bekymret (Opd. ... Den amerikanske centralbank, Fed, er yderst bekymret for udviklingen i den amerikanske økonomi.

Danske Bank nyhed. USA/Danske: Kraftigt rentedyk viser, at Fed er yderst bekymret ... Den amerikanske centralbank, Fed, er yderst bekymret for udviklingen i den amerikanske ...

Einleitung . Die Mailingliste FED-NEWS gehört zu den öffentlichen Mailinglisten des FED und wird seit 1996 vom FED betrieben. Über diese Liste erhalten Sie kostenlos aktuelle ...

Federal Reserve News Articles - MarketWatch offers federal reserve news articles. Learn the latest US fed news at our site.

Sportshaj.dk er din guide til sportsverdenen. Find de bedste links om alt fra fodbold og cykling til spil og motion.

Federal News Radio - Your source for federal news, now. ... Fed Talk - December 29th, 2006 Realities and Myths of the Federal Sector EEO Process

Banking Applications : Banking Market Definitions : Banking Publications : Circular Letters : The Discount Window : Federal Reserve Emergency Notification Services/Internet (FRENSi ...

Fed News

Børsen side 20: Den amerikanske centralbank (Fed) sænkede igår renten med 0,75%-point, og lagde dermed pres på den Europæiske centralbank for at sænke renten.