If Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, as economists surveyed by Bloomberg News expect, cuts interest rates at least twice this year, will the good times start to roll? Not quite.

As BusinessWeek points out, life after the rate cut might not be a bowl of cherries. "The nightmare scenario for the Fed is that it cuts interest rates and only manages to get the markets worried about higher inflation without reviving the economy," the magazine says. "That's a recipe for stagflation."

The impact of the rate cuts on the economy won't been apparent for about six months, Edward Jones Investment Strategist Alan Skrainka told USA Today, adding that the Fed's action won't bail out homeowners who are in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure nor will it make banks more willing to lend.

But the risks of a recession are too large to ignore.

More than 60% of economists in the latest survey of the National Association of Business Economists said recession was the major risk to the economy. Fed officials, though, remain divided on what needs to be done to help the economy.

Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher recently said the economy was "weathering the storm," while Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart backed away from comments he recently made that the housing slump was having a limited impact on the economy. Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin told another audience that the Fed will act "as needed" to prevent damage to the economy caused by slumping housing prices and tightening credit.

Fed watchers who are sure that a rate cut is coming should remember the words of former Vice Chair Alice Rivlin, who told Bloomberg, "Everybody on Wall Street wants a rate cut, but everybody on Wall Street always wants a rate cut. I don't think the Fed will necessarily pay attention to that."