NORCO Network Security Solution Secure E-banking Security ...

Application Background:

E-banking is the latest development that has added a new dimension to banking transactions. The popularity of online banking has revolutionized the banking sector by allowing customers to conduct financial transaction via Internet, which is widely used, especially by individuals and small and medium businesses for its easy and convenience.

While the popularity of internet banking also make people anxious about online banking security. Is the online banking safe? Maybe nobody would say so absolutely. Online banking faces different kind of risks that are specific to conducting sensitive business over the Internet. Online identity theft is unfortunately a reality, and ploys such as phishing and pharming, virus attacks, hacking, unauthorized access and fraudulent transactions put consumers at risk. Other risks such as network hacker, stolen login information, sever down, data loss or even the third party network risks caused in a variety of ways from connecting with an infected laptop to unauthorized access of network resources.

How to secure safe banking via internet? The innovation of bank information technology is the center for the bank security. To a large extent, the focus of ensuring security is to establish a safe and reliable banking network infrastructure.

Challenges to Banking Network Security System:

1. Hazard prevention requirement: This function will protect the network system and generate system recovery in case of some severe disasters with low probability of occurrence.

2. Anti-Disclosure requirement: Access control; this is to control the authorities to access to wireless network or network data

3. For business continuity: network data bank up and quick data recovery

The Cost-effective, Safe, Reliable Solution Developed by NORCO and Intel

To address the problems and challenges that are mentioned above, NORCO is working with Intel to develop a right solution that you seek. NORCO FW-1109, the new arrival to current security market, features multiple Ethernet ports with high networking bandwidth throughput, powerful core logic computing capability through the processor, and a friendly management interface, which makes it a perfect solution to the network security platforms such as banking, operators, government, police, education, tax administration, industry and commerce agency, social security, hygiene, business, etc.

This newly released network security barebone with 6x LAN adopts Intel Sugar Bay H61 chipset, go with Intel 3rd/2nd Generation Core LGA1155 i7/i5/i3, Intel Pentium/Celoron CPU, with powerful computing and networking capability. Intel 2nd/3rdGeneration Core Processor Family integrates inbuilt visualization function, offering a brand new technology innovation and experience to customers. System also supports 2x dual channel 1066/1333MHz DIMM, up to 16GB, non-ECC.

Source: http://embedded-computing.com/news/norco-secure-e-banking-security/

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Blog Archive ? Health And Fitness And Detoxification ... - Standing Still

September 14th, 2012

Detox items are utilized not just for eradicating drug residues in the body and get a negative lead to the drug examination, but these goods are a beneficial way for persons to start out a much healthier life. The first usage of a detox item and how to pass a saliva drug test will be to have a negative end result from meth, THC, alcoholic beverages, nicotine, cannabis, and several other kinds of drugs. Eventually, these items contributed positively towards the entire body aside from detoxifying it. Nearly all of them are made from organic health supplements and incorporate Vitamins and Minerals.

Organic Cleanse Master Tea is amongst the products and solutions that may be utilised for a very long time even following drug check. This tea gets rid of toxic compounds and increases body processes this kind of given that the perform on the kidney. Every day an individual can consume 1 cup to further improve over-all health and fitness.

Zydot Organic Blend Cleansing Tea also has the equivalent influence talked about earlier mentioned and might be properly use for everyday preservation. This tea might be taken in warm or chilly. It really is one of many most mouth watering detox product out there out there, that is definitely why many persons aren?t getting any trouble ingesting it.

Apart from the tea, most of the detox products and solutions are set in programs whereby it will have a particular person 7 or even more times being drug-free. Usually even though in the system, the individual ought to not just take any sort of medications. This may be a start for some who would like to end taking recreational medications. Aside from that, they could get use to possessing a much healthier existence.

Source: http://standing-still.org/health-and-fitness-and-detoxification-goods/

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Violence erupts at protests of anti-Muslim film

CAIRO (AP) ? Fury over an anti-Islam film spread across the Muslim world Friday, with deadly clashes near Western embassies in Tunisia and Sudan, an American fast-food restaurant set ablaze in Lebanon, and international peacekeepers attacked in the Sinai despite an appeal for calm from Egypt's Islamist president.

At least four people ? all protesters ? were killed and dozens were wounded in the demonstrations in more than 20 countries from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. Most were peaceful but they turned violent in several nations, presenting challenges for the leaders who came to power in the Arab Spring.

Security forces worked to rein in the anti-American crowds but appeared to struggle in doing so. Police in Cairo prevented stone-throwing protesters from getting near the U.S. Embassy, firing tear gas and deploying armored vehicles in a fourth day of clashes in the Egyptian capital. One person died there after being shot by rubber bullets.

President Barack Obama said Washington would "stand fast" against attacks on U.S. embassies around the world. He spoke at a somber ceremony paying tribute to four Americans ? including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens ? killed earlier this week when the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was stormed by militants who may have used protests of the anti-Muslim film to stage an assault on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

An elite Marine rapid response team arrived in Yemen's capital of Saana, where local security forces shot live rounds in the air and fired tear gas at a crowd of an estimated 2,000 protesters who were kept about a block away from the U.S. Embassy, which protesters broke into the day before.

In east Jerusalem, Israeli police stopped a crowd of about 400 Palestinians from marching on the U.S. Consulate to protest the film. Demonstrators threw bottles and stones at police, who responded by firing stun grenades. Four protesters were arrested.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had tried to pre-empt the violence a day earlier by saying the rage and violence aimed at American diplomatic missions was prompted by "an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with."

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi went on national TV and appealed to Muslims not to attack embassies. It was his first public move to restrain protesters after days of near silence and appeared aimed at easing tensions with the United States.

But the demonstrators came out after weekly Friday prayers. Many clerics in their mosque sermons urged congregations to defend their faith, denouncing the obscure movie "Innocence of Muslims" that was produced in the United States that denigrated the Prophet Muhammad.

In addition to countries where protests have occurred, U.S. embassies around the world, including in France and Austria, issued alerts Friday advising Americans to review their personal security measures and warning them that demonstrations may occur and may turn violent. Other embassies issuing alerts were those in Denmark, Mauritania and India. More than 50 U.S. embassies and consulates had released similar alerts Thursday.

Several thousand people battled with Tunisian security forces outside the U.S. Embassy in Tunis. Protesters rained stones on police firing tear gas and shooting into the air. Some protesters scaled the embassy wall and stood on top of it, planting the Islamist flag that has become a symbol of the wave of protests: A black banner with the Islamic profession of faith, "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet."

Police chased them off the wall and took the flag down. Two protesters were killed and 29 people were wounded, including police.

Protesters also set fire to an American school adjacent to the embassy compound and prevented firefighters from approaching it. Thick columns of black smoke wafted through the neighborhood.

The heaviest violence came in Khartoum, Sudan, where a prominent sheik on state radio urged protesters to march on the German Embassy to protest alleged anti-Muslim graffiti on mosques in Berlin and then to the U.S. Embassy to protest the film.

"America has long been an enemy to Islam and to Sudan," Sheik Mohammed Jizouly said.

Soon after, several hundred Sudanese stormed into the German Embassy, setting part of a building aflame along with trash bins and a car. Protesters celebrated around the burning barrels as black smoke billowed into the sky until police firing tear gas drove them out of the compound. Some then began to demonstrate outside the neighboring British Embassy.

Several thousand then moved via a convoy of buses to the U.S. Embassy on Khartoum's outskirts. They clashed with Sudanese police, who fired on some who tried to scale the compound's wall. It was not clear whether any protesters made it onto the embassy grounds.

The police then dispersed the crowd with tear gas, starting a stampede. Witnesses reported seeing three protesters motionless on the ground, although there was no immediate word whether they were dead or alive.

Islamic militants waving black banners and shouting "God is great!" stormed an international peacekeepers' base in Egypt's Sinai and battled troops, wounding four Colombians, said a senior official with the multinational force. The base near the border with Gaza and Israel houses some 1,500 members of the force, including U.S. troops.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, said it appeared the attack was connected to the wider protests in the region.

One protester was killed in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli in clashes with security forces after a crowd set fire to a KFC and a Hardee's restaurant. Protesters hurled stones and glass at police in a furious melee that left 25 people injured, 18 of them police.

In his bid to head off the violence, Egypt's Morsi said "it is required by our religion to protect our guests and their homes and places of work."

He called the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya unacceptable in Islam. "To God, attacking a person is bigger than an attack on the Kaaba," he said, referring to Islam's holiest site in Mecca.

Morsi's speech came after Obama spoke with him by telephone. The Obama administration has been angered by Morsi's slow response to the attack Tuesday night on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and the Egyptian made little more than vague statements about it for days without an outright condemnation of the security breach, in which police did nothing to stop protesters from climbing the embassy walls.

His silence reflected the heavy pressure that Morsi, a longtime figure from the Muslim Brotherhood, faces from Egypt's powerful ultraconservative Islamists. They are using the film issue to boost their own political prominence while challenging Morsi's religious credentials.

Leaders of Egypt's Jihad group, a former militant organization, held a conference in the Egyptian city of Alexandria and said anyone involved in "defamation" of the prophet should be killed. They called on Morsi to cut relations with U.S.

Several hundred people, mainly ultraconservatives, protested in Cairo's Tahrir Square and tore up an American flag. A firebrand ultraconservative Salafi cleric lambasted the film in his sermon, saying Muslims must defend Islam and its prophet.

"With our soul, our blood, we will avenge you, our Prophet," they chanted as police fired volleys of tear gas.

Soldiers opened fire to drive away young Muslims in the central Nigerian city of Jos, witnesses and authorities said, and demonstrators in the county's Muslim north burned a U.S. flag.

Hundreds of hard-line Muslims held peaceful protests against the film throughout Pakistan, shouting slogans and carrying banners criticizing the U.S. and those involved in the film. Police in Islamabad set up barricades and razor wire to prevent protesters from getting to the diplomatic enclave, where the U.S. Embassy and many other foreign missions are located.

About 1,500 protesters in Afghanistan's eastern city of Jalalabad shouted "Death to America" and urged President Hamid Karzai to cut relations with the U.S.

___

Additional reporting by Ahmed Al-Haj in Sanaa, Yemen; Bouazza Ben Bouazza in Tunis; Mohamed Osman in Khartoum, Sudan; Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Beirut; and Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/violence-erupts-protests-anti-muslim-film-212653631.html

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Mortgage rates unchanged, still near record lows

By MARCY GORDON, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage held steady this week, staying slightly above the lowest level on record. Low mortgage rates have aided a modest housing recovery.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on the 30-year loan was unchanged at 3.55 percent. In July, the rate fell to 3.49 percent, the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.

The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, slipped to 2.85 percent, down from 2.86 percent last week. That's above the record low of 2.80 percent.

Cheap mortgages have helped lift the housing market. Sales of new and previously occupied homes are well above last year's levels. Low rates have also allowed people to refinance, which lowers monthly mortgage payments and helps boosts consumer spending.

Home prices are increasing more consistently this year, largely because the supply of homes has shrunk while sales have risen. And the number of Americans who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth declined in the second quarter.

Still, the housing market has a long way back. Home sales are below healthy levels. And many people are still having difficulty qualifying for home loans or can't afford larger down payments required by banks.

Mortgage rates are low because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. A weaker U.S. economy and uncertainty about how Europe will resolve its debt crisis have led investors to buy more Treasury securities, which are considered safe investments. As demand for Treasurys increase, the yield falls.

To calculate average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday of each week.

The average does not include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for 30-year loans was 0.6 point, down from 0.7 point last week. The fee for 15-year loans was changed at 0.6.

The average rate on one-year adjustable rate mortgages was steady at 2.61 percent. The fee for one-year adjustable rate loans also was unchanged, at 0.4 point.

The average rate on five-year adjustable rate mortgages fell to 2.72 percent from 2.75 percent. The fee declined to 0.6 point from 0.7.?

? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/13/13846688-mortgage-rates-unchanged-still-near-record-lows?lite

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Teacher evaluations at center of Chicago strike

A large group of public school teachers marches past John Marshall Metropolitan High School on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 in West Chicago. Teachers walked off the job Monday for the first time in 25 years over issues that include pay raises, classroom conditions, job security and teacher evaluations. (AP Photo/Sitthixay Ditthavong)

A large group of public school teachers marches past John Marshall Metropolitan High School on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 in West Chicago. Teachers walked off the job Monday for the first time in 25 years over issues that include pay raises, classroom conditions, job security and teacher evaluations. (AP Photo/Sitthixay Ditthavong)

Children holding posters supporting striking teachers join a large group of public school teachers as they march on streets surrounding John Marshall Metropolitan High School on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 in West Chicago. Teachers walked off the job Monday for the first time in 25 years over issues that include pay raises, classroom conditions, job security and teacher evaluations. (AP Photo/Sitthixay Ditthavong)

A large group of public school teachers seek support from neighborhood communities as they march on streets surrounding John Marshall Metropolitan High School on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 in West Chicago. Teachers walked off the job Monday for the first time in 25 years over issues that include pay raises, classroom conditions, job security and teacher evaluations. (AP Photo/Sitthixay Ditthavong)

Karen Rieck, a teacher at Faraday Elementary School, greets her students as they show support for public school teachers rallying on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 in West Chicago. Teachers walked off the job Monday for the first time in 25 years over issues that include pay raises, classroom conditions, job security and teacher evaluations. (AP Photo/Sitthixay Ditthavong)

A public school teacher thanks two boys wearing stickers supporting the Chicago Teachers Union as a large group of teachers' march around John Marshall Metropolitan High School on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012 in West Chicago. Teachers walked off the job Monday for the first time in 25 years over issues that include pay raises, classroom conditions, job security and teacher evaluations. (AP Photo/Sitthixay Ditthavong)

CHICAGO (AP) ? Educators in Los Angeles just signed a new deal with the city's school district. So, too, did teachers in Boston. Both require performance evaluations based in part on how well students succeed, a system that's making its debut in Cleveland.

So what's the problem in Chicago, where 25,000 teachers in the nation's third-largest district have responded to an impatient mayor's demand that teacher evaluations be tied to student performance by walking off the job for the first time in 25 years?

To start, contract agreements in other cities have hardly come quickly or with ease. They were often signed grudgingly, at the direction of a court or following negotiations that took years. And mayors and school officials have also won over reluctant teachers by promising to first launch pilot projects aimed at proving a concept many believe is inherently unfair.

"It has been a very tough issue across the country," said Rob Weil, a director at the American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation's two largest teachers' unions. "Teachers in many places believe that they see administrations and state legislatures creating language and policies that's nothing more than a mousetrap."

Chicago's teachers have drawn the hardest line in recent memory against using student test scores to rate teacher performance. And Mayor Rahm Emanuel is pushing hard to implement the new evaluations. That clash is one of the main points of contention in a nasty contract dispute between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, which President Karen Lewis has called "a fight for the very soul of public education."

The strike, which has left approximately 350,000 students out of class as the city and the union also fight over pay and job security, entered its fourth day Thursday. After late-night talks Wednesday, both sides expressed optimism that students could be back in class as soon as Friday.

The push to judge teachers in part by their student's work stems from the reform efforts of the Obama administration, which has used its $4 billion Race to the Top competition and waivers to the federal No Child Left Behind law to encourage states to change how teachers are assessed.

Teachers unions argue that doing so ignores too many things that can affect a student's performance, such as poverty, the ability to speak English or even a school's lack of air conditioning. Or as said by an incredulous Dean Refakes, a physical education teacher in Chicago, "You are going to judge me on the results of the tests where there could be some extenuating circumstances that are beyond my control?"

Yet, tempted by the money offered by the federal government, lawmakers have made that directive in several states. In Florida, 50 percent of teacher appraisals must be based on student scores on standardized tests. In California, after the state legislature mandated the use of student progress benchmarks to rate teachers, an education reform group sued the Los Angeles Unified School District to force the issue.

The nation's second largest school system eventually found itself under a court order to come up with a plan to start using such evaluations by this December. Superintendent John Deasy announced this week the district had reached a one-year agreement to do so with the union that represents the district's 2,000 principal and assistant principals.

"It's a remarkable breakthrough," Deasy said.

But it's also a limited one, said Judith Perez, the president of Associated Administrators of Los Angeles. Student test scores won't be used to judge individual performance, but will rather be reviewed at the beginning and end of each school year ? along with additional measures, such as attendance and graduation rates ? to give principals feedback on how to improve a school's results. It's a one-year deal designed simply to comply with the court order, she said.

Meanwhile, the district faces thornier negotiations with the union representing its 36,000 teachers, which has already objected to a voluntary pilot project in 100 schools that uses test scores in evaluations.

Illinois lawmakers voted in 2010 to require that all public schools use student achievement as a component of teacher evaluations by the 2016-17 school year. In Chicago, Emanuel is living up to a promise made during his inauguration speech by demanding the Chicago union agree to make the change years ahead of that schedule.

"As some have noted, including (his wife) Amy, I am not a patient man," Emanuel said after he was sworn in as mayor a year ago. "When it comes to improving our schools, I will not be a patient mayor."

The issue of teacher evaluations has only been on the table in Chicago for a few months, and Emanuel acknowledged this week that his swift push for change could be a factor in why his relationship with the union has been so contentious. In other big cities, a more patient approach has led to success in finding agreement with reluctant teachers.

The deal reached Wednesday in Boston will allow administrators to rely more heavily on student achievement in teacher evaluations and remove from the classroom those receiving poor evaluations within 30 days. That contract came after 400 hours of contract negotiations that spanned more than 50 separate sessions over two years.

"Change is hard and is often hard-fought. But we should make special note that through all the tough negotiations, neither side let their frustrations spill onto the students of the Boston Public Schools," said Mayor Thomas Menino. "I tell you, this is a contract that's great for our students, works for our teachers and it's fair to our taxpayers."

Slowing down the timeline for implementing the evaluations has also led to success elsewhere.

Chicago's current offer to teachers includes not counting the new evaluations for a year as any kinks in the process are worked out. In Cleveland, the city's school district made its deal with teachers by agreeing to a loose framework for the new evaluations that would take four years to implement. The school system and the union spent a year constructing the evaluations, and then began a two-year pilot process that will not incorporate student test scores. That will come for the first time in the 2013-14 school year.

"This is complex work and it takes time to build it thoughtfully and carefully," said Cleveland schools CEO Eric Gordon. "It really has been a joint commitment in the beginning. We all believe that this is the right (approach)."

___

Associated Press writers Christina Hoag in Los Angeles and Rodrique Ngowi in Boston contributed to this report.

___

Follow Sophia Tareen at http://twitter.com/sophiatareen .

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-09-13-Chicago%20Schools-Evaluations/id-5d9dc7c09dde485c99e35a5843ba265d

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Immune system compensates for 'leaky gut' in inflammatory bowel disease susceptibility

ScienceDaily (Sep. 13, 2012) ? New research could clarify how inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), conditions that include ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, are triggered and develop.

Scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have shown how the immune system can compensate for a "leaky gut" and prevent disease in mice that are susceptible to intestinal inflammation. These findings could explain why some individuals who are susceptible to developing IBD do or do not get the disease.

The results will be published online Sept. 13 in the journal Immunity.

"Our results suggest that when there is a chronically leaky intestine, defects in the immune system need to be present for the development of IBD," says senior author Charles Parkos, MD, PhD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.

"Breakdown of the intestinal barrier can occur as a result of intestinal infections or stress. The normal response involves several components of the immune system that help to heal the injury while controlling invading bacteria. When this normal response is defective and there is a leaky barrier, the risk of developing IBD is increased."

Parkos and co-senior author Tim Denning, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics, and their colleagues have been studying mice that are deficient in a protein called JAM-A (junctional adhesion molecule A). JAM-A is an important regulator of the epithelial barrier in the intestine. Denning describes JAM-A and other "tight junction" molecules as forming a seal between epithelial cells like a zipper, which keeps bacteria away from the rest of the body.

JAM-A deficient mice have a "leaky gut," meaning that chemicals and bacteria can cross more easily from the insides of the intestines to the rest of the body. Passage of bacteria across the intestinal wall and into the body can cause inflammation and disease. JAM-A deficient mice have more bacteria in the liver and lymph nodes, and they are more susceptible than regular mice to a chemical treatment (DSS) that induces colitis (intestinal inflammation). Surprisingly, despite these defects, JAM-A deficient mice do not develop spontaneous colitis.

"This is a situation that may be analogous to first degree relatives of people with Crohn's disease," Parkos says. "Some of these people have increased intestinal permeability, which suggests that they are more susceptible to developing disease, but they don't get sick. Gut permeability also transiently increases in normal people based on what we eat and drink, yet disease doesn't occur. We think that immune compensation is what protects the body under these conditions."

The researchers wanted to dissect which types of immune cells were responsible for this compensatory effect. To this end, they treated JAM-A deficient mice with antibodies that depleted certain types of immune cells or, in some cases, examined mice with additional genetic changes in combination with the JAM-A deficiency. They found that a type of immune cell, CD4+ T cells, is needed to produce signals that encourage production of a type of antibody, IgA. IgA is especially important for limiting incursions by bacteria in the intestine.

"In normal mice, immune cells such as CD4+ T cells and IgA-producing B cells do not play a big role in DSS-triggered colitis," Denning says. "But if the mice have a preexisting leak, the immune system plays an important role."

Under normal conditions, B cells are needed to produce IgA, which helps to keep bacteria from invading through the intestinal wall. While defects in the production of IgA alone do not result in colitis, the presence of a chronically leaky gut in concert with IgA deficiency results in increased susceptibility to abnormal intestinal inflammation that involves other types of immune cells. During intestinal inflammation, the amount of JAM-A in the epithelium can decrease, thus further weakening the intestinal barrier.

"There is a 'chicken or the egg' question with respect to whether inflammation or alterations in the intestinal barrier come first," Parkos says. "Many people with IBD report that their first severe episode was brought on by a stressful event or an intestinal illness, and it is possible that these events serve as a trigger that starts a vicious cycle of altered barrier and inflammation."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Emory University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Manirath Khounlotham, Wooki Kim, Eric Peatman, Porfirio Nava, Oscar Medina-Contreras, Caroline Addis, Stefan Koch, Benedicte Fournier, Asma Nusrat, Timothy?L. Denning, Charles?A. Parkos. Compromised Intestinal Epithelial Barrier Induces Adaptive Immune Compensation that Protects from Colitis. Immunity, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2012.06.017

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/GJDE-ZmYOtc/120913123512.htm

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Central bank to buy up $40B of mortgage debt a month

The Federal Reserve will purchase additional agency MBS at a pace of $40 billion a month, reports CNBC's Steve Liesman. Pimco's Bill Gross and Barry Knapp, of Barclays, weigh in.

By NBC News staff and wire reports

The bond buying will continue until employment improves.

That's the message the Federal Reserve delivered when it announced it will take new steps to boost the sluggish recovery including buying an additional $40 billion of mortgage debt every month for the foreseeable future.

"The employment situation remains a grave concern," Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said?at an afternoon news conference to explain the central bank's decisions.

The Fed said the fresh security purchases, which it will start on Friday, would come on top of its so-called Operation Twist program, in which it is selling short-term bonds to buy longer-term Treasury debt.

"These actions, which together will increase the committee's holdings of longer-term securities by about $85 billion each month through the end of the year, should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, support mortgage markets, and to help make broader financial conditions more accommodative,"?the Fed?said in a statement.

As if to punctuate its concern about the unemployment rate, which policymakers said?"remains elevated," the Fed also asserted it would extend its current monetary policy by?keeping interest rates at historic lows until at least mid-2015 from late-2014 previously.

The latest purchases build on the $2.3 trillion in U.S. government and housing-related debt the Fed has already bought.

Investors cheered the Fed's announcement. The?Dow Jones industrial average, already at its highest level in nearly five years, jumped after the announcement and was up 184 points in afternoon trading.

"They are definitely stepping up," William Larkin, fixed income portfolio manager at Cabot Money Management in Salem, Massachusetts, said of the central bank's decision.

Some politicians were less than happy, however. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a member of the Senate Banking Committee accused Bernanke of politicizing the Fed.

"I'm disappointed in the Federal Reserve's actions today and truly believe Chairman Bernanke is beginning to do serious damage to the Fed as an institution. Open-ended purchases of mortgage-backed securities will politicize the Fed and add substantially to its balance sheet risks, but it will not help our economy's long-term growth prospects," said Corker.

Bernanke addressed some of his critics during his news conference, especially the argument that the Fed's moves are akin to fiscal spending, that the low interest rates hurt savers and that it will spur inflation.

Bernanke said?the Fed's spending is not the same as government spending because the Fed buys financial assets and not goods and?services. He said that earnings from the securities it buys are remitted to the Treasury and ultimately will help reduce rather than increase the deficit.

He argued that while low interest rates indeed hurt savers, they also support other assets such as homes and businesses. Low rates impose some costs, but Americans will benefit by the jobs that easier monetary policy will create, he said.

Bernanke said the Fed is committed to both sides of its mandate, to achieve maximum employment?and to keep?inflation in check. He said the Fed has the tools and will to act if inflation begins to rise outside of its average target range of about 2 percent.?

He added that while he doesn't think the Fed's moves are a panacea, they could nudge the economy in the right direction. He reiterated that he hoped lawmakers would address the so-called "fiscal cliff" of tax increases and spending cuts that could come in the new year because the Fed doesn't have the tools to address?the fiscal shock that could occur if Washington fails. ?

The Fed's?moves come amid signs that hiring has slowed, which could hurt President Barack Obama's chances of re-election in November against his GOP rival, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney.

The economy created a?tepid 96,000 jobs in August, well below the 250,000 jobs economists?think are needed to show robust growth. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent but mainly because so many Americans?found it futile to continue to look for work.

On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that weekly jobless claims rose by a higher-than-expected 15,000 to 382,000. While the department attributed about 9,000 of those seasonally adjusted new claims to Tropical Storm Isaac, the increase in claims showed a labor market heading in the wrong direction.

"I hate to react negatively to one week's data, but the labor situation in the country is ugly," said Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst at John Thomas Financial.

U.S. economic growth cooled in the second quarter, coming in at a tepid 1.7 percent annual rate, and forecasters do not believe it is doing much better now.

The Fed's move to purchase more mortgage debt may be partly aimed at aiding the housing sector, which has shown signs recently of renewed health. "The housing sector has shown some further signs of improvement, albeit from a depressed level," the Fed said.

The pace of foreclosures has slowed, according to data released Thursday by RealtyTrac, which tracks home seizures. But banks have turned to short sales, in which a lender agrees to accept less than the full mortgage balance when a home is sold, to avoid the expense of maintaining and then selling a foreclosed home.

The Fed also said inflation remains subdued, although the prices of some key commodities have increased recently. Two of those, food and fuel, helped drive wholesale prices higher last month by the most in three years.

Patrick Rizzo of NBC News and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Source: http://economywatch.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/13/13845675-fed-announces-new-steps-to-boost-economy?lite

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