The US Federal Reserve bank has confirmed one of its internal websites was broken into by hackers after the hacktivist group Anonymous was claimed to have stolen details of more than 4,000 bank executives.

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While leaders in Washington stare down the fiscal cliff, let's not forget the fiscal fact that brought us to the edge: The annual U.S. government deficit of more than a trillion dollars.

But through it all, one government-related entity has been hauling in record surpluses.

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The average American family lost 38.8 percent of its wealth from 2007 to 2010, with the biggest losses concentrated among households with the most assets tied to their homes, a Federal Reserve study shows.

Simon Johnson writes on the New York Times Economix blog that more than 32,000 people signed a petition he drafted calling for JPMorgan Chase's chief executive to step down from the board of the New York Fed.

Helicopter Ben Bernanke still trying to convince us that it was a good idea to use taxpayers' money to prop up an insolvent financial system.

Getting what should be public information about major Wall Street firms can be maddeningly difficult.

Bloomberg News journalist WIlliam D. Cohan discovered this in his efforts to get information on the $1.2 trillion in “secret loans” the Fed doled out during the financial crisis.

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This is what helicopter Ben Bernanke is doing at the Federal Reserve!

While many Americans may not realize it, the Fed has taken on a much larger regulatory role than at any time in history. Since the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul became law in July 2010, the Fed has held 47 separate votes on financial regulations, and scores more are coming. In the process it is reshaping the U.S. financial industry by directing banks on how much capital they must hold, what kind of trading they can engage in and what kind of fees they can charge retailers on debit-card transactions.

The Fed is making these sweeping changes--the most dramatic since the Great Depression--almost completely without public meetings.

John Allison is the former chairman and CEO of BB&T, the nation's 10th-largest financial holding company. He was named one of the 100 most successful CEOs by the Harvard Business Review and since 2009 has been on the Wake Forest University Schools of Business faculty as Distinguished Professor of Practice.

Allison spoke to the PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW about the Federal Reserve Board's detrimental effect on the nation's slow recovery from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

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Federal Reserve officials Wednesday said they expect short-term interest rates to stay close to zero through late 2014, longer than previously indicated, as they signaled dissatisfaction with the recovery and confidence that inflation is slowing.