"The market is concerned about not if, but how much over the course of the year the Fed will move," said Michael Gregory, a senior economist at Lehman Brothers in New York. "There's been a lot of discussion about more than one rate increase, which is what's concerning the markets." Comparisons of past Fed maneuverings have been all the rage of late on Wall Street -- a game market participants love to play. This is a repeat of 1994, some economists argue, when the Fed steered the economythrough what some describe as a "soft landing," raising interest rates in a series of moves to slow growth and keep consumer prices from rising substantially.

No, it's 1997, others say, when the Fed opted to lift short-term rates just once - just to show financial markets it had a grip on things. Well, as far as Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan is concerned, it's June 1999, and he and his colleagues are most interested in maintaining the now-longest peacetime economic expansion in US history by ensuring inflationary pressures stay away, Gregory said. "As far as the Fed goes, it really isn't inflation on the ground that's a concern, it's inflation down the road," Gregory said. "For a very long time, they've offset that with global concerns, but there doesn't appear to be any more world crises to worry about."