The superficial question about today's meeting of the United States Federal Reserve is whether chairman Alan Greenspan and his fellow governors will cut rates by 50 or 75 basis points.
However, the question, which will be key for the longer term health of sickly global stock markets, is whether Mr Greenspan's rate-cut medicine will actually work and bring corporate America out of its earnings slump.
Thirteen of 25 US government bond dealers bet on a 50-basis-point cut and the other 12 on 75 basis points in a poll conducted by Reuters on Friday. A cut of 50 basis points would take the fed funds rate to 5 per cent.
'Clearly there is a risk that people will be disappointed if the Fed does not do 75 basis points,' said David Bowers, chief investment strategist at Merrill Lynch.
Optimists like Mr Bowers believe that in the longer run it will not matter how big the cut is as the Fed will do enough to sort out the problems besetting the global economic powerhouse.
'We still think this is a cyclical slowdown rather than a structural one,' he said.