Lok at the big rate cuts in 2020 because virus. Out of nowhere seemingly, actually a few weeks after Ukraine fighting started, the Fed hiked rates. The Fed knows war is inflationary and jumped into rate hiking.
By the time the war in Ukraine began, people had been arguing for months that the Fed was waiting too long to increase rates, that inflation expectations were becoming unmoored, that the Fed's conclusion that inflation was "transitory" was incorrect.
Here's Larry Summers from November 2021[0]. Note that his argument there is that the "transitory" inflation argument had already been shown to be incorrect, because by three months prior to the beginning of the war in Ukraine, inflation had already been progressing for months, along with the will-they-or-won't-they debate over rate increases.
Here is a Fed statement from April 2021[1], which I think is the first one that uses the word "transitory".
Point being that no, the rate hikes that happened a few weeks after the war started in absolutely no way came "out of nowhere seemingly". Everyone had been talking about it for a year.
People have been talking about the need for higher interest rates for a decade. 2020 happened and they dropped them, again. That caused the people saying we needed higher rates to continue to say we need higher rates. The fact they were so low for so long is the anomaly.
Here's Larry Summers from November 2021[0]. Note that his argument there is that the "transitory" inflation argument had already been shown to be incorrect, because by three months prior to the beginning of the war in Ukraine, inflation had already been progressing for months, along with the will-they-or-won't-they debate over rate increases.
Here is a Fed statement from April 2021[1], which I think is the first one that uses the word "transitory".
Point being that no, the rate hikes that happened a few weeks after the war started in absolutely no way came "out of nowhere seemingly". Everyone had been talking about it for a year.
0: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/15/inflation...
1: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/mone...