The storm intensified very significantly in midSeptember 2008, when some large failures of financial institutions led to a general loss of confidence and to a very severe reaction in financial markets. This transformed the turmoil into crisis, and the liquidity shortage became a massive threat to solvency for many financial institutions in a large set of countries.
This contrast has kept the Federal Reserve alert, but on the sidelines. But it would be unwise to ignore this risk factor. The growth risk is the risk that growth will be above or below trend. Higher trend growth is unquestionably desirable and should, of course, be accommodated by monetary policy. But above-trend growth implies rising utilization rates.