> a lot of people assumed (high interest rates = slowing economy) A fair assumption. It is extremely likely that the economy is slower than it would have been

> a lot of people assumed (high interest rates = slowing economy) A fair assumption. It is extremely likely that the economy is slower than it would have been if interest rates remained low. Things were starting to get extremely hot – which is why we saw higher interest rates arrive in reaction. There was a lot of concern floating around that rates would overcorrect (which, to be fair, may still prove to be the case – it is still early days), leading to an economy slowing more than needed, but the so-called "soft landing" was always the goal. Explicitly so. The status quo is in quite in line with what we were hoping to see come out of the higher rates, slowing the economy just enough, but not too much.