Fed Debate Moves From Tapering to Extending Bond Buying

``"We heard a lot of discussion earlier in the year on the timing of tapering," Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies Group LLC. in New York and a former Richmond Fed economist, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview yesterday. "Some of the more recent developments -- the slowdown in the economy, the somewhat disquieting inflation data -- has taken that off the table for now."'' -- Which is exactly what we predicted back then.