Or as Peter Schiff put it, a dove can't change its feathers.

The final FOMC meeting of the year wrapped up with rates still set at zero. But the Fed announced it will speed up tapering its asset purchase program. It will double the pace of the taper with the central bank buying $60 billion in bonds beginning in January. That would be down from $120 billion a month in bond purchases at the quantitative easing peak. At that pace, the taper should be complete by March 2022.

Once the Fed wraps up its asset purchase program, it will begin raising interest rates. The FOMC released a new "dot-plot" projecting three rates hikes of 25 basis points next year, three in 2023 and two more in 2024. That would push rates to around 2%.

The Fed bankers expressed concern about sizzling hot inflation. There was no mention of the word "transitory." But the committee members continue to skirt their own responsibility for rising prices, instead, blaming them on pandemic-related issues.

"Supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic and the reopening of the economy have contributed to elevated levels of inflation," the FOMC statement said.

During his post-meeting press conference, Powell said he expects inflation to begin coming down toward the back-end of next year, but conceded that's not a certainty.

We can't act as though that's a certainty, and we're not going to act as though that's a certainty. There's a real risk now, we believe, I believe, that inflation may be more persistent, and that may be putting inflation expectations under pressure, and that the risk of higher inflation becoming entrenched has increased. It's certainly increased."