7 I hasten to add that no one expects that bringing about a soft landing will be straightforward in the current context—very little is straightforward in the current context. And monetary policy is often said to be a blunt instrument, not capable of surgical precision. My colleagues and I will do our very best to succeed in this challenging task.
It is worth noting that today the economy is very strong and is well positioned to handle tighter monetary policy. See Alan Blinder (2022), “Landings Hard and Soft: The Fed, 1965–2020,” slides from a presentation delivered at Markus’ Academy, Bendheim Center for Finance, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., February 11, https://bcf.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Combined-Slides.pdf.