Memories of the 1970s haunt the Fed, pushing its aggressive rate moves

President Jimmy Carter signs an emergency natural gas legislation in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., in 1977. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The Federal Reserve is being blamed for pouring a lot of cold water on the U.S. economy.

But the Fed is doing it in the hopes of dousing high inflation, before it ignites a long-smoldering dumpster fire. "The longer the current bout of high inflation continues, the greater the chance that expectations of higher inflation will become entrenched," Fed chairman Jerome Powell said last week.