letting it drift either too high or too low for too long could cause expectations to once again become unmoral. given that inflation has been objectivelow the fomc for several years now, such concerns reinforce the appropriateness of the federal reserve's current monetary policy which remains highly accommodative by historical standards and is directed towards helping return inflation to 2% over the medium-term. before turning to the implications of the situation model to the current outlook and monetary policy, i do think a cautionary note is in order. the phillips curve approach to forecasting inflation has a long and hasin economics usually informed monetary decision-making around the globe. but the theoretical underpinnings of the model are still subject of controversy among economists. moreover, inflation sometimes moves away from empirical versions of the model which necessarily are a simplified version of the complicated reality cannot adequately explain. for this reason, significant uncertainty attaches to phillips curve predictions and the validity of forecasts from this model do have