Almost alone among powerful people, central bankers crave tedium. Let politicians wrestle for the spotlight of public attention. Let business leaders cavort in the glare of financial market excitement. The grey men - and a few women - of monetary policy, whose merest word can cause havoc for the global economy, are never happier than when plodding their way through periods of mind-numbing boredom, doing their crucial jobs in the obscurity of economic and financial calm.

But tedium and obscurity have been elusive of late. Since last summer, alternating financial and economic crises have kept them permanently in the news, under the cosh of critics, buffeted by forces that have seemed alarmingly beyond their control.

So when the US Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee gathers today for a two-day meeting, expect an atmosphere of quiet contentment around the table, as the world's most powerful central bankers prepare for the first time in almost a year to do - absolutely nothing. After cutting interest rates at their past seven meetings, the Fed's policymakers, under Ben Bernanke, the Chairman, are almost guaranteed to leave rates unchanged when they announce their decision tomorrow.

Much fun will be had in financial markets, poring over the details of the accompanying statement. But that won't disguise the satisfying truth for the Fed that, at last, amid the raging seas of financial turmoil, the central bank is once again a point of calm.

If market expectations are right, though, the respite will not last long. In the second half of the year investors expect the Fed to start tightening policy again, as inflation risks start to outweigh recession fears.

But if I were a betting man I would guess that this is wrong. And, at least as measured by interest rates, the immediate future for the Fed is a boring one. Until the end of the year at least there is a high probability that the central bank is in for a period of watchful, if not exactly contented, inaction.

On the face of it, a quick reversal of the interest rate cuts of the past year is needed soon. The Fed has cut rates to an unsustainably low level, if the inflation risk is as grave as some people think.

By most commonly accepted measures the current Fed Funds rate (the key US policy rate) of 2percent, is extremely stimulative. There are various ways of estimating a neutral rate of interest, one that would be neither expansionary nor contractionary.

A favourite of central bankers is the equilibrium real rate devised by Knut Wicksell, the 19th-century Swedish economist. This, very roughly, says that the neutral policy rate is roughly equivalent to the long-term potential growth rate of the economy, which in turn is the sum of productivity growth and labour force growth. The key is productivity.

A higher productivity growth rate will lift the marginal return on capital, which will increase demand for investment and therefore raise the real interest rate that balances investment and savings.

The current trend rate of growth in the US is about 2.5 per cent. Now, if core inflation is, as most measures say it is, between about 2.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent, then the equilibrium interest rate - the rate after subtracting inflation that is neither stimulating nor contracting - should be between 5per cent and 6 per cent.

Since the Fed Funds rate, at 2 per cent, is at least three and as many as four percentage points below that, it's obvious that it is aggressively stimulating the economy. If the Fed seriously believes the economy is out of the immediate danger of a collapse (the reason for the low interest rate in the first place) and if there is even a small danger that inflation will accelerate, then it should be raising rates quickly to narrow the gap between the actual and neutral interest rates. However, it is unlikely that the Fed sees it quite like that.

First, policy is not quite as accommodating as this approach suggests. The Fed Funds rate may be low but other factors in the economy are combining to keep overall financial conditions quite tight. No one, for a start, is lending money at anywhere near the official policy rate. Long-term rates have risen sharply. The equity market is in the doldrums, further raising the cost of capital for businesses.

Secondly, the economy is not completely out of danger yet. The resilience of the US in the past year has been a remarkable thing to behold but it would be bordering on hubris to sound the all-clear, with lingering risks in financial markets and an uncertain outlook for the labour market and consumer demand.

Thirdly, as we have noted before, inflation is less of a problem than the headline numbers suggest. It's almost all energy and food costs. When they stop rising, inflation will fall fast.

Fourthly, there are special reasons in the immediate future why the central bank may be reluctant to raise rates. The Fed has never begun a tightening cycle when unemployment was rising as sharply as it has been this year. An election less than five months out also crimps its freedom for manoeuvre. So expect a period of inaction from the Fed. Some may find it boring. But from central bankers around the world it will elicit a deep sigh of envy.

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