However, there is a growing sentiment - now 18 percent, up from zero in recent weeks - that the Fed might call a halt to its monetary stimulus. Or, at the very least, it will warn that the cessation of rate cuts is near.
If that happens, the financial market could be caught off guard.
Several prominent economists and even some Fed members have expressed concern that rate cuts are doing more harm than good.
Rate cuts are killing the value of the dollar as well as America's reputation; causing a sharp rise in inflation, including commodities like gasoline, and bringing monetary policy to the brink of impotency.
And the heat is coming especially from Europe, where their central bank has been refusing to go along with the rate cuts - although injecting plenty of money into the financial system - because it, unlike our Fed, fears inflation more than economic stagnation.
It'll still be months before we will really know whether the six rate cuts that added up to a 3 percent drop in the federal funds rate are doing much good.
And it could be even harder to figure how much May's tax rebates will help.
Are we in the nightmarish economic quagmire some of us expected when the Fed began cutting rates last August?
Or are we making too much of an economic cloud that will soon lift?
Those are just some of the questions the Fed will be dealing with next week when the problem of the inability of people and companies to borrow money will be front and center.
I think you'd agree: We're all tired of the economic drag that the so-called credit crunch is causing.
And if the economy could be controlled like our TVs, with the press of a remote control, we'd simply change the channel.
But Ben Bernanke's Fed is finding this economic downturn to be different from others. The damn thing just won't click off.
Few people would still disagree that we are in a recession right now; but there's agreement on little else.
Take the issue of another reduction in interest rates.
While the Fed has been diligently ratcheting down its funds rate - which is the amount banks charge each other to borrow money - those lower costs aren't being passed on to borrowers.
Mortgages are a good example.
While the Fed has cut rates by 3 percent - or 300 basis points, in Wall Street lingo - the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has fallen very modestly.
These mortgages recently averaged 5.88 percent compared with 6.17 percent last year.
That's a drop of only 0.29 of one percent, or 29 basis points.
In other words, the Fed has cut the interest rate it controls 10 times as much as banks have cut what they charge would-be homeowners.
And that's not even the biggest problem.
Here's an e-mail I got re cently from a reader who recently had to navigate the mort gage market.
"I bought a vaca tion home in July - before the market hit the fan and the Fed had to lower [rates]. I locked in a 6.5 percent 30-year fixed mortgage when fed funds were 5.25 percent," says Scott J. Redler.
"So last month [I] figured, with [the] Fed lowering rates so many times I could refinance to a great rate for the long term."
Redler called up Chase Bank but the new rate had only dropped to 6.18 percent.
"How does that stimulate the economy," Redler asked, if the banks aren't passing much of the rate reduction on to consumers.
"That's problem No. 1," said Redler, who volunteered that he has a strong 795 credit score and probably got a better deal than most people could get.
"Then I get a phone call that the place I bought in July appraised for $30,000 less than when I bought it." So, in order to get a new mortgage Redler had to come up with $30,000.
"This downturn won't be short and sweet. There will be big-time problems down the road," Redler added. "I'm not an economist - just using common sense from experience."
Banks have been the hardest hit in this economic downturn, so it's understandable that they don't want to be generous to customers when they can use the money themselves.
Earnings of financial institutions in the first quarter are down 70 percent from the same time last year.
Unless the banking industry causes another panic the Fed could be finished with its magic for a while.
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