MKTS - FOMC Pre-emtive strike

["John Stevenson" <johnstev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have a hunch...just a hunch... that given the FOMC's letter to banks
about tightening credit conditions, their clear discomfort with the level
of the DJIA, their apparent efforts to help the MKTs find a "soft landing",
and AG's earlier comments about a "pre-emtive strike" against inflation,
that there is a small, but non-negligible probability (Greenspeak!) that
the FOMC just might use one of the other mechanisms available to them to
rein in the Bull that refuses to die, namely contraction of the money
supply by either: selling off securities; or increasing the level of the
required reserve. Perhaps not today given that inflation figures are in
line with estimates and, as yet, increasing only slowly, but a pre-emtive
strike would be, by definition, a surprise attack.

But, not being an economist, I wonder if the above options would be
effective, or would just end in the same result: ie: rates would increase
in response, and the "cure" would kill the patient.

Any thoughts?

John Stevenson