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The Federal Reserve opted for a bigger rate cut to officially end its years-long tightening campaign. But to quell the potential for panic, the half-point slash came with an explicit message: "The US economy is basically fine."

Fed Chair Jerome Powell rephrased and repeated the sentiment like a mantra throughout the meeting, continually noting that "the US economy is in good shape."

An aggressive move can also be the more reasonable one, in the same way that timidity and hesitation can invite success to pass you by. After all, the Fed’s reluctance to change course when pricing pressures were accelerating is what allowed historic levels of inflation to take hold, the central bank’s critics have argued — both at the time and in the years since.

The Fed didn’t want to be behind the curve again.

"We don’t think we’re behind. We think this is timely, but I think you can take this as a sign of our commitment not to get behind," Powell said at the press conference Wednesday, swatting away criticisms of "playing catch-up" and policy tardiness.

Read more: The Fed rate cut: What it means for bank accounts, CDs, loans, and credit cards

The central bankers may have concluded that going big was the prudent move, but it left Powell obligated to calm worries that the boldness of the decision wasn't triggered by a batch of alarming data the rest of us hadn't seen — even as he defended a policy decision the market expected and desired.

"The labor market is actually in solid condition," he said. "And our intention with our policy move today is to keep it there." He touted solid economic growth and said that inflation is retreating.

The nuanced double-move makes sense in the context of the Fed's prior mishaps, of learning to embrace the kind of preemptive action that might have advanced the central bank's mission when it first confronted COVID-era inflation.

8/29/24

"There is thinking that the time to support the labor market is when it's strong and not when you begin to see the layoffs," Powell said.

Labor market conditions have cooled off, but the Fed isn't seeing rising unemployment claims, heightened layoffs, or warnings from companies about tough times ahead.

"We are not waiting for that," he said, nodding to an inclination to get ahead of economic trends before the data reveals they have already crystallized. If the US economy is like an oil tanker, the engines need to be reversed well in advance of the mooring to slow the approach — a lesson Powell learned the hard way after the costly "transitory inflation" debacle of 2022 saw sky-high price growth.