With the unemployment rate too high and inflation too low, the U.S. economy still has its problems, but it’s time for the Federal Reserve to end its large-scale asset purchase program, also known as quantitative easing 3.0, or QE3. The Fed meets on Tuesday and Wednesday to consider tapering the number of bonds that it buys every month from the current $85 billion to perhaps $75 billion as a prelude to winding up the program completely sometime in 2014. Most analysts expect the Fed to hold off announcing the first taper until March, but it would be better to do it now. Here are three reasons to taper now: QE3 was ... (full story)