Zerohedge attempts to read the entrails:
The Fed’s Jackson Hole, Wyoming symposium is one of the most sacred of annual Fed meetings: it is here that the Fed has historically hinted at any and all upcoming episodes of major monetary experimentation. As such, presence by the high priests of global monetarism is not only compulsory, it is a circular stamp of approval of the Fed’s ongoing status quo-preservation capabilities. Which is why the fact that the man at the top himself, Ben Bernanke, whose term is due to expire just five months after this year’s Jackson Hole gathering, will be absent “due to a scheduling conflict”, is set to spark a fire of questions, first and foremost of which: is this the sign Bernanke is handing over the suitcase with the printer launch codes to some yet unspecified, second in command? Or, even worse for those addicted to monetary heroin, will Bernanke simply try to put as much distance as possible between himself and the place where (and when) the Fed announces the grand “open-ended” QE experiment is set to begin tapering?
I tend to doubt Bernanke’s absence is meaningful here, although it might offer some guide to who will be the next Fed Chairman. The interesting thing will be what happens after Bernanke’s term expires; if things are going to blow up, I assume they’ll probably do so once the handover has taken place.