If you think monetary policy is getting boring, think again. True, Fed chair Janet Yellen had no surprises for us earlier this week. To contain the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed printed more than one trillion new dollars to finance its purchase of the assets that it now plans to sell. That took its balance sheet to $4.5 trillion, previously unknown territory. The Fed will very slowly whittle that down, initially by not replacing $10 billion of expiring assets such as mortgages and government bonds every month, with that figure to increase by $10 billion each quarter to a ceiling of $50 billion per month. Slow and steady wins the race to keep markets from over-reacting.

No worry. Markets discounted that winding-down process long ago. They are also unperturbed by the Fed’s plan to increase interest rates in very tiny steps, perhaps one quarter of a percentage point two or three times per year, to settle at 2.75 percent (a revision of the original target of 3 percent), compared with the current rate of 1.25 percent. James McCann of Aberdeen Asset Management sees Yellen & Co.’s plans as a good sign: “This step reflects rising confidence that the recovery is sufficiently durable to withstand a slow withdrawal of emergency policy measures …”