Fed pause could ignite rally like we haven’t seen in decades

Do you know that until three weeks ago the U.S. economy was still doing pretty well despite still-sticky inflation and the fastest set Federal Reserve interest rate increases we’ve ever seen? In its year-long battle against elevated inflation — from consumer prices to input costs to wages — the Fed hiked nine times since starting last March from near zero to the current 4.75% to 5% range on the fed funds overnight bank-to-bank lending rate. We told ourselves there wouldn’t be much of a problem in the economy because the Fed started raising rates from such a low base, and…