When America comes to earth

摘要

As the Fed's open-markets committee met this week, almost all those shouting advice from the sidelines agreed on what its aims should be. Clearly, if a rise in inflation is to be averted, the American economy has to slow from the breakneck pace it has kept up over the past couple of years. But that is where agreement ends. There is fierce debate over what form a slowdown might take: a soft landing—as the stockmarket is now betting—or a hard one. Foreign policymakers as well as investors have their fingers crossed, hoping it will turn out to be the first.