Adding fuel to the fire that was the first quarterly decline in U.S. GDP since 2009, the Federal Reserve confirmed economic growth stopped toward the end of the last year. The Bernanke Fed also made it clear that it plans to continue its latest round of quantitative easing, in which it’s buying $85 billion in Treasuries and residential mortgage-backed securities a month, and that interest rates will remain at record lows until unemployment drops. The FOMC statement also revealed the specter of disinflation; stock markets initially fell.