The Elusive Soft Landing Is Coming Into View – WSJ

The U.S. economy is approaching what most economists had thought either unlikely or impossible: inflation returning to its prepandemic norm without a recession or even much economic weakness, a so-called soft landing.

What we are expecting now is a soft landing, said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. We expect the economy to weaken quite a bit, but it does look like we ll avoid an outright contraction in gross domestic product.

Six months ago, the consensus among economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal was that the economy would enter a recession over the next 12 months. In October s survey, the average forecast of economists was for no recession. After Tuesday, the probability appears to have dropped further. That, at least, seems to be the verdict of investors who sent stocks up sharply and Treasury bond yields down on news that inflation was surprisingly docile in October. 

via www.wsj.com

If this happens, I will eat my hat, as used to be commonly said. But I will eat it with joy and relish.