before the joint economic committee. that starts at 10:00 eastern time, and obviously, investors will be looking for hints of a policy shift, although none is expected. if you go with conventional wisdom, this will be more dovish talk. also we get the minutes from last month s fomc meeting, released at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. in other news on the fed, politico is reporting that chairman bernanke met privately last week with house oversight and government reform committee chairman darrell issa, along with other lawmakers. they are said to have talked about the central bank s efforts to try and stimulate the economy and possible exit strategies as well. now, issa sent a letter to bernanke last month expressing display that the fed was not providing lawmakers with more information about how it plans to wind down its bond portfolio. maybe he hasn t wanted those things to leak. the news of this meeting leaked, but the details did not. among some of the other items on today s u.s