New York CNN —The US economy wasn’t supposed to expand this much — or even at all — after so many rate hikes. But against all odds, the economy grew at an annualized rate of almost 5% last quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. By making it more expensive for businesses and consumers to borrow money, those rate hikes were intended to get people to cut back on spending. For a while, many economists feared that the Fed’s rate hikes would climb too high too fast that it would give rise to a recession. That is to say that without more interest rate hikes, there could be a growing risk that inflation will accelerate even more.

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