0 >> just keep postponing it. no, actually february. september. >> i'm glad he apologized at the very least. >> okay. that will do it. >> thanks for watching around the world". "cnn newsroom" starts right now. "cnn newsroom" starts right now. have a good afternoon. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com right now, wall street is watching and waiting. next hour, we expect some big news from the fed, news that could impact the booming stock market and your investments. right now, outrage over the arrest and strip search of an indian diplomat independent new york city. the feud and the effort to keep it from escalating. and right now, president obama is showing russia just what he thinks of the country's anti-gay laws through his picks for the u.s. delegation at next year's olympic games. how strong of a message does it send? hello, i'm wolf blitzer in washington. we're only an hour away from a potential game changing decision by the federal reserve, a decision that could impact mortgage rates, the record-breaking stock market and a whole lot more. at issue, the $85 billion a month the fed pumps into the economy. will the fed governors end that and let the economy go it alone? to help us explain what's at stake, global business analyst and time magazine assistant managing editor, also our o yor bell aber. mayor bell, tell us first of all about the $85 billion a month of bond buying from the fed and why that potentially could end fairly soon. >> hi, wolf. the fed has been pumping stimulus money into the economy since late 2008. with that $85 billion figure per month that you've been talking about since september of last year when it started it was part of an effort to help stimulate the economy. remember, we were in the middle of recession. people didn't have jobs. they weren't spending money. things have improved since the start of this year. major averages up 20 to 30%. you've likely made a ton of money in your 401(k). and the jobs have been making their way back, too. we can debate what jobs are coming back but the jobs number has been improving. many think this might be a good time for the fed to pull back a little bit on all this easy money, see whether the economy and the market can stand on its own. of course, there are fears that they won't be able to, but the economic data has been pretty good lately, wolf. >> so how is the market reacting so far? and what could we expect to happen after the decision is announced in the next hour? >> sure. right now, looking at stobs stocks trading around the flat line all day. and the past couple weeks haven't been so great either. mainly because of all this uncertainty surrounding the decision. remember, the markets is like certainty. the dow has lost 1.3% since the start of december. this is normally the month where we get a santa claus rally when investors are waiting to see, but what the fed decides before making any big moves. the decision we get in the an hour will likely be a main driver of where stocks head for the rest of the year. market can be fickle so hard to say what type of reaction we might see, but if the fed pulls back, it might be a modest taper, then gains could hold. if it's a bigger stimulus slowdown, we could see red arrows. the fed will need to tread carefully to not spook wall street too much. >> stand by for a moment. rana, "time" magazine, rana, you listed three things we need to know what the fed's decision could mean. let's go through them. you point out it could mean a market correction. we'll see a flight from risk and electrical rates will eventually rise, but not immediately. let's start out with that third one. why the won't interest rates go up right away? when would they go up? how high could they go? >> well, the fed has been very clear about the fact that tapering doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to raise rates immediately. in fact, we could ceelo rates into 2015, even 2016. i think the fed is still uncertain about the robustness of this recovery. and if we do see a taper t next few months are going to be very indicative, can this market and this economy stand on its own without that extra mey flowing in? or or is the recovery still very fragile? if it is fragile, you're not going to see rates going up soon because that would increase costs on houses, cars and student loans. that would create burden in the economy. >> for people who have money in the market right now, what does this neen potentially for them? >> if you look back to last summer when the fed started hinting at the fact it was going to pull back on the money spigots, you did see a correction in risky markets like emerging markets, in commodities and areas where investors tend to try and put money into risky assets in the hopes of getting a higher yield. "uss stocks, blue chip stocks actually did okay. so i think unless we see a very surprising announcement, we're not going to see a major correction in the u.s. markets right now. what we do need to see once tapering begins is that recovery continuing because if corporate earnings don't stay high, that's when you need to worry where stocks are headed. >> rana, thanks very, very much. we'll see what happens at the top of the next hour. this is going to be a potentially significant decision by the federal reserve. maribel, thanks to you, as well. a lucky few don't need to worry about the fed's impact on their wallet because they're holding the winning tickets for the megajackpot. $636 million, the second largest prize in u.s. history. two tickets matched all six numbers. those numbers are, 8, 14, 17 is, 20, 39, and the mega ball number 7. one ticket was sold in san jose, california. the other one sold in atlanta, georgia. 20 tickets matched five nonmega ball numbers, each winning a cool $1 million. right now, flames are ripping through a recycling plant in lils, tennessee, huge billows of dark smoke can be seen miles away from the two-alarm fire. wtvf is reporting everyone within a four-mile radius is being vee vacuated because of alcohol on the site. that area includes homes and schools. firefighters are on the scene right now. an indian diplomat is arrested and sfrip searched in new york city. now in new delhi is not pleased. the latest in the escalating feud between the united states and intia and what's being done to try to temper it. that's next. people don't have to think about

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