It pretty much looks like another one of those bum market calls.

For the past month, Wall Street has been rife with forecasts of a pretty imminent rate cut. There have even been suggestions that the Fed was prepared to pare the Federal Funds rate, now at 5.25%, at each of this year’s two remaining Federal Open Market Committee meetings on October 24 and 25 and December 12.

Spurring such forecasts were an increasingly slumping housing market and a weakening economy.

But now, the Street seems to be having a decided change of heart, with a number of economists and money managers insisting, as one of them put it,”a rate reduction before year end is a dead issue.” Another also thinks any such cut is a no-no before the second quarter, at the earliest, if then.

“Forget it!,” says money manager Selwyn Ortz of Hong Kong-based HK investments, Ltd. “The idea of a rate reduction this year is one of those Wall Street myths,” he says, “because the American economy, while it may be slowing, is not going to hell!”

He also points to repeated expressions of inflationary concerns from Fed chief Ben Bernanke and various Fed governors.

Wachovia Securities economist Mark Vitner tells me he’s convinced “the Fed is now on hold to next year,” reasoning that there’s not enough economic weakness to throw in the towel. Also, he says, the Fed has to satisfy the bond market, which is worried about inflation. He also points to a couple of other factors that he believes rule out any rate cut, among them:

The housing market, though slowing much faster than expected, will likely bottom out and kick back up again.

Avoidance of a cut will provide the market with some insurance that economic growth can bounce back in 2007 and 2008 without any accompanying inflation risks.

Meanwhile, Mr. Vitner sees three consecutive quarters of sluggish GDP growth — 2.3% in the third quarter, 2% in the current quarter, and 2.1% in next year’s first quarter.

“Don’t expect the Fed to do a darn thing the rest of the year,” Raymond James Financial’s economist, Scott Brown, tells me.”Maybe we’ll see some changing words from the Fed, but no change in rates,” he adds. If anything, he expects the Fed to maintain a tightening bias, but not to take action on that possibility anytime soon.

He thinks the Fed is unlikely to make any interest rate moves until the second quarter of next year, and that it may, in fact, actually boost rates. His reasoning: inflation risks, pointing in particular to pretty tight labor conditions and lower energy prices, in turn boosting consumer spending.

In contrast, a managing partner of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, Lakshman Achuthan, notes that while inflation pressures remain elevated, the firm’s future inflation gauge — which looks at all the drivers of an inflation cycle — is slipping a bit. Noteworthy in this respect is a weakening job picture. As a result, he notes, rates are leaning to the downside.

Speaking of inflation, professor of economics at the University of Maryland, Peter Morici, also sees danger on that front, which is chiefly why he scoffs at the possibility of a rate cut before year end and expects core inflation (minus food and energy) to rise to between 2.4% and 2.8% next year. In fact, he thinks the inflation rate could run even higher as higher oil prices work their way through the system.Yet other inflation catalysts: Consumers still have a lot of untapped wealth in their homes and more disposable income.

Likewise, he sees economic growth — following his estimated GDP gain of 2.7% in the third quarter — rising, not falling, in the ensuing quarters.His outlook: growth of 3.1% in the fourth quarter and 3.2% in the first quarter.

Professor of economics at New York University, Nouriel Roubini, takes sharp issue with such an outlook. Sticking to a prior forecast that we’re on the verge of a recession and citing among other things a negative savings rate, the lack of growth in real wages, high debt-servicing ratios, sluggish business spending by Corporate America and the delayed effects of Fed tightening, Mr. Roubini expects GDP growth of only 1.5% in the third quarter and zero to 1% growth in the current quarter. For all of 2007, he expects negative growth of 1%.

Mr. Roubini acknowledges he’s way at odds with the consensus that calls for 2007 GDP growth of 2% to 2,5%, but argues that his outlook for “a hard landing” is what the real economic world is all about.

dandordan@aol.com