Soft Landing

See: U-Shaped Recovery.

The economy grows in fits and starts, booms and busts, cycles and, well...cycles. So when the economy takes off, it "rockets," and when it then cycles back from a big growth spurt, it lands. Sometimes those landings are hard, and we'll see recession, maybe even depression.

Other times, the landings are soft. That is, the economy goes from growing 3.8% to growing just 0.4% for 2-3 quarters before it takes off again in growth mode. Soft landings are just generally easier to digest for the world, so we encourage them with our fiscal policies. And we pray.