A year ago, U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell held a "remarkably positive outlook" for an economy enjoying a "historically rare" combination of good news including low unemployment, steady inflation and strong growth that were all expected to continue.
When the Fed meets this week, the discussion will be about just how badly that outlook has eroded, and whether officials should still describe themselves as simply tinkering with policies that are about right, or embarked on a more aggressive fight to keep the U.S. recovery on track.
A headline decision to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point is widely expected. More importantly, the Fed's language and new economic projections will show how deeply a summer of trouble has been felt — from an intensifying U.S.-China trade war and the relaunch of crisis-style stimulus by the European Central Bank to a stream of weak manufacturing data that may hint at larger problems for the United States.