The Federal Reserve will close its two-day meeting Wednesday with a heavy air of uncertainty as the central bank moves forward in its efforts to bring down inflation and stabilize the troubled banking sector. At the moment, those two goals seem to be in conflict: Getting inflation down requires the same higher interest rates that have inflicted crisis-level effects on banks. Still, after much volatility markets seem to have coalesced around expectations that the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee will approve a 0.25 percentage point, or 25 basis point, increase. But that won’t be all that policymakers will ... (full story)