WASHINGTON (AP) — After scaling 40-year highs, inflation in the United States has been slowly easing since summer. Yet the Federal Reserve seems decidedly unimpressed — and unconvinced that its fight against accelerating prices is anywhere near over. On Thursday, stock investors were spooked by the growing understanding of how much further the Fed seems willing to go to defeat high inflation. A statement the Fed issued Wednesday and the message that Chair Jerome Powell sent in a news conference appeared to suggest that the Fed’s policymakers expect — or at least would accept — an economic downturn as the price of taming inflation.