Fed May End QE2 Early

Some members of the Federal Reserve are quite worried about inflation and speaking their mind:

Fed Should Consider Curtailing Stimulus Program, Bullard Says
March 28 (Bloomberg) -- St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said policy makers should review whether to curtail a plan to buy $600 billion in Treasury securities, noting that the U.S. recovery may not need that much stimulus.

“The economy is looking pretty good,” Bullard said to reporters in Marseille, France, on March 26. “It is still reasonable to review QE2 in the coming meetings, especially this April meeting, and see if we want to decide to finish the program or to stop a little bit short,” he said, referring to the second round of so-called quantitative easing.
...
“If the economy is as strong as I think it is then I think it may be reasonable to send a signal to markets that we’re going to start withdrawing our stimulus, and I’d start by pulling up a little bit short on the QE2 program,” Bullard said. “We can’t be as accommodative as we are today for too long, we’ll create a lot of inflation if we do that.”

CPI is above its 2008 level so SS recipients should get a COLA this year, but like most of us who work and pay into SS, the gain will probably be eaten up completely by higher medical insurance costs.

• Table of COLAs: Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments by Year

At least most people on SS got a nice, big 5.8% raise in 2009 that they kept when CPI fell while most of the country took pay cuts or got no raises.

CPI Table by Year and Month

It ruins my day just to think how much my own medical insurance went up since that last SS COLA of 5.8%!