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The Federal Reserve released the results of “stress tests” for 19 financial institutions Tuesday — two days ahead of schedule — after J.P. Morgan Chase announced it successfully passed the test and was boosting dividends.

This week, President Obama delivers the State of the Union, then travels to five states that promise to be key battlegrounds for this year's election: Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan. As the President begins his swing state tour, Republican candidates will be setting up camp in Florida, preparing for two debates in the next primary state.

The Federal Reserve under Ben Bernanke has gone further than ever to explain its policies to the public. It's ready to go further still.

In an effort to help alleviate the symptoms of Europe's debt crisis, the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and other international banks funneled U.S. dollars into European financial systems on Wednesday. The move helped markets by making American dollars more easily available outside the U.S. Stocks shot up in reaction to the news. The increased liquidity had the immediate effect of boosting the Dow Jones industrial average by 484 points. It was the biggest single day gain since March 2009. Some wondered, however, whether the move was a smart long-term investment, or just a temporary fix.

Bloomberg News reporter Bob Ivry discusses this week's reporting - based on a batch of recently acquired documents - on the bank bailout: from the real size to the secret negotiations.

Bloomberg News reports what the Federal Reserve wouldn't: that the United States' central bank committed $7.77 trillion to bailing out the financial industry in the wake of the 2008 crisis, netting banks $13 billion in profits in the process.

The Fed's bailout package was more than ten times ...

The markets responded positively to the news last week of a euro zone deal to try and turn around their two-year financial crisis. Marcus Mabry, editor-at-large of the International Herald Tribune, which is the international edition of The New York Times, tells us how he expects the markets to continue to go this week and to be on the lookout at Italy, which could be the next euro zone country to be in financial trouble. Charlie Herman, business and economics editor for WNYC and The Takeaway, looks at the upcoming G20 Summit in France this week, and if they can come up with a framework to deal with Europe's economic troubles.

European and Asian markets are being hammered this morning as markets react to the Federal Reserve's warning about the weak state of the U.S. economy, and fears of another recession in the euro zone. On Wednesday, the Fed predicted the U.S. economy was still years away from a full recovery, and announced it would buy long-term Treasury bonds and sell short-term bonds to stimulate lending. Andrew Walker, economics correspondent for the BBC, has the latest.

This week, Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve will hold a rare two-day meeting to decide on interest rates, which are currently close to zero. Meanwhile, President Obama will release details of his deficit reduction plan this morning, and one key component is taxing the wealthy, which has many Republicans screaming "class warfare." The Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting begins tomorrow, and the primary topic of discussion will be jobs, as unemployment and poverty prove to be an ever-increasing global problem. Later in the week, the Palestinian Authority will ask the United Nations Security Council for full membership, which the U.S. has already said they will veto.

President Barack Obama continues his jobs tour this week, with stops in Columbus, Ohio and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., rallying support for his jobs plan. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is expected to speak at a conference on regulation of systemic risk on Thursday, five days before the Federal Open Market Committee begins its meetings next week. Tonight, is the first Tea Party debate, which GOP presidential hopefuls Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are expected to attend. And Anthony Weiner's old Congressional seat in New York's ninth district is up for grabs in a special election tomorrow.

It's Monday, so we're discussing news ahead for the week. Next Sunday will be ten years since the 9/11 attacks. This will be a week of reflection — not just for Americans but for everyone around the world. As we remember 9/11, many Americans are still without jobs and struggling to make ends meet. Charlie Herman, business and economics editor for WNYC and The Takeaway, says not to expect anything game-changing from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech this Thursday in Minnesota on the economic outlook. His speech will be followed by President Barack Obama's jobs speech. And across the Atlantic, Dominique Strauss-Kahn returned to France over the weekend, and the hunt for Col. Muammar Gadhafi continues in Libya.

Many eyes are on Jackson Hole, Wyoming today, as the markets wait on remarks from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. It was at last year's Fed Symposium that Bernanke laid the groundwork for the Fed to buy $600 billion in treasury bonds to stimulate the deflating economy. Many are hoping that this year, the Fed will unveil another economy-boosting plan. Conferences like the Fed retreat at Jackson Hole or Davos weren't always considered backdrops for major policy announcements. When did this change? And why?

Texas governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry is not backing down from his threat against Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve. At an event in Iowa on Monday, Perry said that it would be treason if the Fed were to print more money. The Federal Reserve is no stranger from receiving criticism, but where left-wing politicians were formerly it's biggest critics, more recently conservatives like Ron Paul have been lashing out against the Fed.

The slow down of the nation's economy does have at least one silver lining for anyone trying to get a mortgage or refinance an existing one.  The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed loan is now 4.43 percent according to HSH.com, a website that tracks mortgage lending across the country.

In the wake of Standard and Poor's decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, and an economy still struggling to keep its head above water, the Federal Reserve decided yesterday to keep the nation's interest rate close to zero through 2013. The rate has been static for the past two years. The response on Wall Street seemed mixed. At first stocks took a bit of a dive, but they recovered.  The Dow closed up 429 points yesterday after a late rally.

The United States Federal Reserve's policy board announced today it will extend its period of extremely low interest rates through 2013 if not longer.

But don't expect that to solve the nation's financial woes.

A macroeconomic look at the U.S. economic slump makes it clear that the Fed is limited in what tools they have to fix the economy, and they have already used most of the tools at their disposal, without much success.

Nicole Gelinas, contributing editor of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal and author of After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street and Washington, and Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and co-founder of the blog The Baseline Scenario, discuss some of the big economic stories in today's news. The Fed's program known as QE2 is coming to an end -- did it work? Bank of America is planning to pay $14 billion back to investors who lost money on mortgage deals gone bad -- is it enough? And what's going on in Greece, exactly?

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All the jawing and insult throwing has ceased for the time being as negotiations heat up on Capitol Hill over the debt ceiling. Vice President Joe Biden said there are four meetings scheduled, and "now we're getting down to the really hard stuff." Todd Zwillich, The Takeaway's Washington Correspondent, says Congress would love to get an agreement by the 4th of July—way ahead of the deadline in August. 

As Washington tries to get the debt ceiling squared away, the Federal Reserve will meet on Wednesday to discuss interest rates. Housing numbers have been consistently awful for some time now, with no sense of relief in sight. Charlie Herman, economics editor for The Takeaway and WNYC, looks at what we can expect from Wednesday's meeting, and whether or not it's likely that the Fed will decide to leave interest rates close to zero.

The Federal Reserve's program to boost economic growth comes to an end on June 30th. Was it a success?