When Will Fed's Tapering Begin?

This is a trillion dollar question. When will the Federal Reserve in the US, actually start reducing the supply of cash that it has been flooding the US since the Lehman Crisis in 2008. This excess cash has, as we all know, found its way across the world and sustained economies and asset markets be it stockmarkets, commodities like gold or oil. Slowly turning the tap off, will naturally make a huge difference to a whole range of factors across the globe. In India, there would obviously be impact on stocks, value of the rupee and the overall economic growth since a lot of the high growth in the last one decade has been financed by incoming foreign funds.  A taste of what could happen if the tapering starts was visible earlier this year when the Fed chairman gave indications and our stockmarkets and currency went for a tail-spin. But since then, thanks to the US govt shutdown in October and other factors, the tapering seems to have got postponed. But then, as RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said that, "it has been postponed". Or the tapering is inevitable. So what signal is Fed looking at?

 Earlier this week I came across this article in Business Insider that gives interesting indications    (http://www.businessinsider.com/hatzius-fed-will-lower-unemployment-threshold-to-6-percent-2013-11). It seems the Fed is looking at two US economic indicators of unemployment falling to 6.5 per cent-6.0 per cent and inflation rising to 2.5 per cent. Well, while all this hardly gives you a sense of certainty but it does give you an idea of possible milestones for one of the most economic events of recent times to get kicked off.