>> It seems like the market has become addicted to low interest rates.
Yeah, I laughed at this: "But they have expressed concern that the recent stock market downturn may be a sign of weakness in the domestic economy."
The market is down because of the impending rate hike. They have to just bite the bullet and do it.
It has to be slow of course, or they'll trigger housing collapse part II. See what the chart in TFA shows? After the dot-com bust and 9/11 they dropped rates drastically to stimulate things. Then after a couple years near zero they jacked them up. What happened is a bunch of people refinanced with low rates pumping up house prices and then they pulled the rug out from under them. Now after a prolonged time of near zero rates we're in a similar position with inflated home prices.