It will be interesting to hear what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has to say at the central bank's annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., today.

Last year at the gathering, USA Today notes, Mr. Bernanke said that the Fed was not responsible for guarding lenders and investors from their bad decisions.

Yet in the past year, the Fed became involved in the sale of investment bank Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase, which included a $30 billion loan.

USA Today's Sue Kirchoff reminds that the Fed "has created special lending programs, providing hundreds of millions of dollars to reeling lenders and investment banks, and offered to act as a lending backstop to troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

The jury is still out on whether the Fed's actions are working since the market is still unstable. General questions have been raised about the effectiveness of financial regulation.

Peter Morici, business professor at the University of Maryland, said: "We are providing (banks) lots of cash to carry them through while they have these bad loans on their books, but yet they are not required to change their business models."

Others worry that the Fed is too involved, preventing the market from taking its course. And there are movements afoot to overhaul federal regulation of financial markets.

The theme of the three-day meeting is "Maintaining Stability in a Changing Financial System" — an appropriate topic.