Reuters | The Federal Reserve has moved closer to embarking on a new round of its controversial money-pumping after the central bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted a grim outlook for the U.S. economy. Bernanke on Wednesday opened the door a bit wider for the Fed to return to buying securities in the months ahead to buttress a weak recovery and keep inflation from slipping too far below its newly adopted 2-percent target.

CNBC | The Federal Reserve may need to be even more aggressive in its easing policies than it has been so far unless the economy shows significant improvement, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans told CNBC.

WSJ | How’d you spend your weekend? Some of the biggest (and most bearish) guns in economic and market prognostication put their heads together at a small confab on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire this past weekend.

Reuters | Might the Federal Reserve extend its bond purchases beyond June? What until this week was a pie-in-the-sky notion is suddenly fair game for market speculation. The triggers have been many. The latest one-two punch came from reports on Wednesday showing both a sharp deceleration in private sector hiring and a slowdown in manufacturing.

TheInternationalForecaster.com | We believe that for the past 2-1/2 years the price of gold has been mainly driven by a flight to quality, as gold vied with the dollar for supremacy, as the world's reserve currency. As we have witnessed gold has won that battle. The only way the dollar or any other world reserve currency can compete is by being backed 25% by gold. The elitist's royalty of Wall Street and the City of London are quite upset with these developments, because they want all currencies to be fiat, so that they would not have to have a gold backed international monetary unit.

FinancialSense.com | Over the past few weeks, we have spent a lot of time digging into the macro data pertaining to the world’s developed economies. After careful analysis, our research has convinced us that quantitative easing (money creation out of thin air) will not end anytime soon. 

PaperEmpire.net | Each time we begin to approach the end of an announced QE period, the nervous jitters of financial markets start to set in. Will Bernanke continue with QE(n+1) or won’t he? Now it’s true that professional traders live and die by their ability to front run rumor and perception, but for long term investors who fret over such decisions, it demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of what QE really is. To put it succinctly, QE is an economic deal with the Devil. Once it is begun in earnest there can be no turning back. It must be played to its ultimate conclusion.

CNBC.com | Falling stock prices will be met only with more money injections from the Federal Reserve, Marc Faber, the so-called "Dr. Doom," told CNBC. Speaking as global markets fell violently lower in the wake of the Japan earthquake and fears of a nuclear meltdown, Faber said a stock correction actually is healthy in view of how far equities have come from the March 2009 lows.

Infowars.com | On Monday, Atlanta Fed boss Dennis Lockhart said that if oil prices continue to climb the Fed will make a new round of asset purchases, in other words it will kick off QE3. “If [the rising price of oil] plays through to the broad economy in a way that portends a recession, I would take a position we would respond with more accommodation,” Lockhart said at the National Association of Business Economics in Arlington, Virginia.

Reuters | The Federal Reserve could debate extending its bond-buying program beyond June if U.S. economic data proves weaker than expected, Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig said. Another round of bond buying "may get discussed" if the numbers look "disappointing," Hoenig told Market News International in an interview published on Tuesday.