"The term soft landing actually came from 1970s space race when the Soviet Union and the US were competing to land unmanned probes on Venus and Mars. Some of those aircrafts made sucessful soft landings but the economy never had, in fact the expression wasnt even used at the Fed but in 1995 a soft landing was exactly what took place. Economic growth slowed throughout the year to an annualized rate of less than 1%" - The Age of Turbulence Get it, in 95 during the internet boom and low inflation the fed got lucky and the US had a soft landing but how often throughout US history you've seen imbalances of this kind and size(involving banking and real estate) end up in a soft landing?the answer is pretty close to never, those who are bullish think this time is different