The Fed was certainly behind the curve hiking rates. Jerome Powell admitted as much during his interview with 60 Minutes taped on February 1 and aired three days later.

“In hindsight, it would’ve been better to have tightened policy earlier,” Powell told Scott Pelley. “I’m happy to say that.”

Happy to say it is of course something different from being happy about it. Powell just meant he’s not trying to obscure the fact that the Fed should’ve acted sooner.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time the Fed’s been accused of driving with the rear view mirror, and it won’t be the last. Indeed, it’s possible they’re doing it again right now.

Fed critics everywhere and always want it both ways, and by virtue of being mostly unaccountable, they have that luxury. Consider the current environment. Some criticized the Fed late last year for allegedly politicizing monetary policy (i.e., for pivoting dovish into an election year when an incumbent president’s struggling in the polls). Others simply argued the Fed was prematurely placating the market despite the persistence of above-target core inflation.

While such criticism may well have merit, don’t let it be lost on you that if the Fed overstays at terminal and the economy suddenly falters or there’s another mini-crisis (e.g., a wave of CRE-driven losses at regional banks), the very same critics — and without so much as a hint of irony to account for the about-face in their own line of critique — will loudly insist the Fed should’ve known when to quit. “The writing was on the wall!” they’ll shout.

That’s the game, and the Fed understands it, which is why the Committee doesn’t generally entertain entertainers. And make no mistake: A lot of the personalities, celebrity economists, independent macro “strategists” and newsletter writers with ostensibly impressive CVs, are just that. Entertainers.

So, where’s the Fed right now? Powell says they’re in a good place. The data seems to agree. The labor market’s strong and inflation, while receding, is still too high, but thanks to robust jobs numbers, the Committee can apparently afford to be patient. The market doesn’t necessarily agree, though, and it’s not all about petulant investors demanding the return of the proverbial punchbowl.

Note that Fed critics and market skeptics (not mutually exclusive by any stretch) exhibit the same disingenuous doublespeak vis-à-vis market pricing for the Fed as they do towards the Fed itself. That is: When STIRs and the short-end get out ahead of the Fed in telegraphing rate cuts, critics typically say it’s an example of “spoiled” markets which need to be “disciplined” — right up until something bad happens to validate that pricing, at which point the very same people ask why the Fed didn’t read the writing on the wall.

With all of that in mind, the figure below, highlighted on Monday by Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson, suggests the Fed is indeed behind the curve, at least according to the short-end, and notwithstanding the post-payrolls selloff/bear flattener.

“The bond market went with [a] stronger read of [last week’s] data and pushed out the timing of the first Fed cut,” Wilson wrote. “Perhaps the market is starting to take the Fed at their word — they aren’t planning to cut rates in March despite the bond market’s signal that the Fed is behind the curve,” he went on, referencing the chart.

The Fed’s cognizant of that risk. The risk signaled by the inverted Fed funds/2s, I mean. That’s the whole rationale behind the trio of rate cuts tipped by the December dot plot. You generally want to be ahead of the curve, not behind it, and in this case, you can take “curve” figuratively or literally given that the yield curve’s recession warning is entering make-or-break territory in terms of lead time.

Of course, bears and skeptics (and do note that in this case, I’m not talking about Wilson or anyone else on the sell-side, rather I’m referring to the overcrowded peanut gallery) generally hope the Fed gets it wrong. Bears don’t do well in soft landings, and Fed critics don’t thrive on the rare occasions when policymakers get it right.