At 2.00 pm US east coast time - or 6.00 am Australian Eastern Daylight Saving time - the US Federal Reserve confirmed it was going ahead with the most well-telegraphed rate rise in the history of central banking.A statement from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve included these statements in backing up its move to notch up official rates by a quarter of one per cent:"Overall, taking into account domestic and international developments, the Committee sees the risks to the outlook for both economic activity and the labour market as balanced. "Inflation is expected to rise to 2 percent over the medium term as the transitory effects of declines in energy and import prices dissipate and the labour market strengthens further. The Committee continues to monitor inflation developments closely."The Committee judges that there has been considerable improvement in labour market conditions this year, and it is reasonably confident that inflation will rise, over the medium term, to its 2 per cent objective. "Given the economic outlook, and recognising the time it takes for policy actions to affect future economic outcomes, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 0.25 to 0.5 per cent."The stance of monetary policy remains accommodative after this increase, thereby supporting further improvement in labour market conditions and a return to 2 per cent inflation."Many commentators will be picking over the decision for months, if not years to come, suggested Mohamed El-Erian, the former CEO of PIMCO, the world's largest manager of fixed income investments. In a tweet overnight he said: "End of an era of 0 interest rates, a period of extraordinary policy experimentation that has yielded mixed results".Or, as the Wall Street Journal put it: "Despite the Fed's aggressive efforts to spur the economy since the 2008 financial crisis, it's delivered neither the vigorous expansion it wanted nor the disasters its critics feared."And now the betting starts off afresh as to when the second 25 basis point rise will be introduced.