Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"In part, there is because the fed is always fighting a two-front war. One front is to keep the economy growing fast enough to generate new jobs and keep the unemployment rate at a reasonable level. But the second front is to keep inflation at bay. And the problem is that sometimes the goals of these two fronts are incompatible. And now really is a good example. As most people know, the Federal Reserve has been lowering interest rates. It's thought they will continue to lower interest rates in order to stimulate the slumping economy, but interesting research shows that if this is overdone, if the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates too much for too long and especially pumps a lot of money into the economy, this can spark higher inflation down the road. So the Fed is faced with a help me now, hurt me later scenario. Now the current thought, however, is that in terms of choosing which front to fight, the Federal Reserve is going to focus more on the front of stimulating the economy. They will ignore inflation problems and deal with those later."