for the length of our current forecasts. Beyond that, the outlook is too distant for us to forecast. We are conscious that the reason we have done so much better this time than in previous expansions is that we did not let the usual late-cycle imbalances develop. The most common of these, of course, is inflation.
If not reversed, these developments, together with a pace of growth that is likely to fall short of potential for a time, should lead inflation to moderate later this year and next year. Nevertheless, the inflation outlook remains highly uncertain. Indeed, the fluctuations in oil prices in the past few days illustrate the difficulty of predicting the future course of commodity prices.