Warning - this is a wonkish post! 

A half-point decrease is anticipated in the Fed Funds rate Jan. 30-1 when the FOMC meets next!  Usually the committee waits until the last day of the meeting to announce the target.  Often the fed funds rate has already dropped to the target by the meeting!  See the link for more information.

I really enjoyed finding the graph below of the "target fed funds rate."  For my students: the federal funds rate (remember from the midterm exam) is the bank to bank borrowing interest rate on required and excess reserves held at the Federal Reserve Banks.  The fed funds rate is the rate that the Fed "controls" by buying and selling U.S. Treasury Bills (Notes and Bonds).  Buying and selling these bonds is also called Open Market Operations and therefore the name for the Federal Reserve's policy making board is the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which meets every 6 to 8 weeks to determine whether to alter their target for the fed funds rate.
    
             

You'll notice the four recessions: the "double dip" or two recessions of the early 1980s, the 1991 recession and the most recent one in 2001.  The recessions are determined (as stated above) by the National Bureau of Economic Research, not a policy making body but a group of economists.  Also note that the NBER usually makes the determination of a recession AFTER the recession has begun (happened).  The definition of a recession is two negative quarters of real Gross Domestic Product.  However, after the "year later" recalculations of real GDP, the last recession did NOT have two negative quarters - technically!

I find the look back especially amazing as the fed funds rate was over 10% in the early 1980s!!!  Now Wall Street is complaining because the "cost of money" is still above 4%!!!  How times change!