At this event, Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX) will discuss new legislation aimed at increasing the accountability of the Federal Reserve while strengthening its independence from political pressure.

The current economic environment of low—virtually zero—interest rates has hit savers hard, but abruptly raising interest rates could harm economic growth and the housing market. Until the economy stabilizes and the Fed begins raising interest rates again, savers have few options: they can adjust their lifestyles, dip into their savings, or take on riskier investments such as gold and stocks.

Can the current post-Bretton Woods international monetary system prevent a return to the beggar-thy-neighbor policies and competitive devaluations that so harmed international prosperity in the 1930s? What are the system's flaws? Can they be corrected, and if so, how? An expert panel will address these and related issues.

Despite frequent, dire warnings about the unsustainability of government budget deficits in the United States, Europe and Japan, investors are lining up to lend to some governments at very low interest rates.

For decades, investors have spent countless hours speculating about the Federal Reserve's agenda on interest rates. Market watchers study every adjective in often-cryptic Fed statements for clues about the outlook for monetary policy.

The world saw such extraordinary uncertainty in 2011 that a simple failure to repeat that debilitating climate of uncertainty in 2012 may engender a moderate recovery, especially in the US economy.

The Federal Reserve could give banks a big incentive to expand by setting negative interest rates on their excess reserves. 

The Huntsman plan for regulatory reform is a good effort, but it fails to come close to accomplishing the one major goal that it highlights in its summary description — “ending” too-big-to-fail (TBTF).

If financial stability was at the top of the central banks' agenda by 1999, one can reasonably wonder what they were doing about it from 1999 to 2007.

Has the Fed lived up to reasonable expectations of what the top central bank can and should do? Or are our expectations of its superior knowledge and insight into future trends and risks naïve and unreasonable? What should the Fed do or not do now? Our expert panel debates these and other issues.