In economics, second-guessing can become as natural as the natural, also called neutral, interest rate. And are people ever being Monday-morning quarterbacks when it comes to the Federal Reserve's monetary policy and the September jobs numbers?

Two reminders. One, going into the September meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, many people were absolutely convinced that the Fed needed a big cut. Jeremy Siegel, a professor emeritus of finance at Wharton and chief economist at WisdomTree Investments, called for an emergency 75-basis-point emergency reduction in early August because of previous statements by the central bank, such as the "long run fed funds rate when inflation reached 2% and unemployment has come up to 4.2% should be 2.8%," which would be "normal." He then said that inflation at 2.5% was more than 90% of the way to the first Fed target and the 4.3% unemployment rate was already past the second but with no rate cut.

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman posted that he has been arguing for a 50-basis point cut in September, not an inter-meeting cut to avoid generating panic. And then inflation came under expectations at 2.5% in September. Things were calming. The Fed made its half-percent rate cut.