They were not, though, in a panic or worried about an imminent recession. Instead, they were thinking that the old interest rate would not be appropriate going forward.

A Federal Reserve official predicted quarter point rate cuts if data looked ‘fine’. But he also set out a scenario for a pause — or faster reductions.

The only Federal Reserve official to dissent from the central bank’s aggressive half-point interest-rate cut earlier this week said she thought it would send the wrong message to markets that inflation was dead.