PIMCO could be wrong. Inflation could cool on its own. Energy prices could ease. Supply problems could fade. The Fed could look patient instead of late.
But if PIMCO is right, the Fed is not just off by a number. It is off by the amount that changes what people can afford before anyone admits the mistake.
The rate sheet will refresh again tomorrow. The grocery shelf will be restocked. The rent email will arrive. The credit-card statement will close. The family at the center of all those bills may be doing exactly what it did the month before, only now the economy has given them less room to do it.
That is how a Fed mistake, if this is one, becomes visible: not as a speech, but as small yeses turning into no.
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