If you agree with this, from a Financial Times columnist, we are in a bad place:

The Fed is divided on how far the risk of higher inflation argues for caution in maintaining, let alone increasing, the monetary stimulus provided by very low short-term interest rates and quantitative easing. Markets had come to assume there would be no QE3 when the present phase of easing ends: the only question was how quickly QE2 would be unwound.

The stalling recover, and the evident incapacity of Congress and the administration to respond, should silence talk of a rapid exit from QE2 and put QE3 back on the table. The case for additional easing is strong. A responsible central bank is always mindful of the risk of inflation – but with wages showing no sign of responding to the blip in prices, this danger is hardly imminent. True, exiting from an even larger programme of easing will pose problems, but again this should be weighed against the much greater costs of a failing recovery.

The economy is faltering and the government – if not actually making things worse – is flailing uselessly. The Fed is all there is. [emphasis added]

   I do agree, probably for some reasons the above columnist does not, that our elected leaders are apparently incapable of responding. But, it is a sad state of affairs if the Fed is the one keeping the whole economy from collapsing into the abyss.