The recession indicators are there: tighter monetary policy from the Fed, a Treasury yield curve inversion, a stock market collapse to end 2018, weaker housing activity, soft consumer spending, a horrendous jobs report for February, when just 20,000 jobs were created, trade wars and a global economic slowdown.

On and on it goes as the warning signs continue piling up.

It’s possible the current softening is temporary, but that would only bring more Fed restraint. The central bank would like to raise rates as much as possible in order to slash them again when the next inevitable recession occurs. The current 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent range doesn’t give the Fed much leeway to fend off the next collapse.

Per Bloomberg’s A. Gary Shilling:

“Recession” conjures up specters of 2007-2009, the most severe business downturn since the 1930s in which the S&P 500 Index plunged 57 percent from its peak to its trough. The Fed raised its target rate from 1 percent in June 2004 to 5.25 percent in June 2006, but the main event was the financial crisis spawned by the collapse in the vastly-inflated subprime mortgage market.