Today's Fed rate cut and directive clearly reflects the fact that the Fed is coming to the end of its rainbow and therefore wants to ensure that it still can convince financial markets that it still has further flexibility to do more if it needs to.

This puts to rest any question of whether or not we're going to have an explosive recovery. We're clearly not.

Saying that higher oil prices have not increased the risk of recession or serious economic slowdown is clearly not the same thing as saying that they have not had an impact.

Clearly when you speak of an economic slowdown, you usually talk of an unemployment rate that is much, much higher. This environment is just not right for a recession,