The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday, Dec. 12, edition that with inflation having dramatically fallen from multi-decade highs last year, rate reductions in 2024 look increasingly likely. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post reports that after holding policy steady for the third straight meeting this week, Fed chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues are expected to use their dot plot to forecast rate cuts in 2024, though probably not nearly as many as investors and economists are expecting. If the Fed is bringing rates down in tandem with cooling inflation, that is good news for the economy and investors. It will mean the Fed is on the cusp of achieving an elusive soft landing in which inflation falls toward prepandemic levels without the economy suffering a downturn. However, if the Fed is reducing rates because the economy is dramatically deteriorating, at risk of or in a recession, that is a different story. That would signal unemployment is headed markedly higher and that corporate profits would take a hit as demand decays. KPMG economist Diane Swonk says, "You want rate cuts because the economy has cooled and inflation has cooled, not because the economy is in recession."