Now you get it. Now everyone gets it. If only it weren’t too late.

Above-the-fold news coverage on Wednesday in the US was absolutely dominated by harried Fed headlines and anxious editorials bearing titles like this one, from The Wall Street Journal: “What if Trump Runs the Federal Reserve?”

If your question’s whether I’m apprised of how many successive articles I’ve penned on the implications of Lisa Cook’s ouster from the Fed Board, the answer’s obviously “yes.” I wrote them, after all.

But more to the point, the answer’s, “Yes, and the reason for the obsessive coverage is that my raison d’être as a politico-market documentarian and the circumstances surrounding this potentially epoch-making moment for US monetary policy, are cognate subjects.”

Simply put: This is what I do. And this is what I set out to do a decade ago when I decided I should dedicate my life to daily color commentary on matters geopolitical, macro and markets.

So there’s that. And here’s this:

The two-session steepening impetus in the 2s30s, at ~15bps through noon Wednesday, was the most pronounced of 2025 if you strip away the volatility around “Liberation Day” and the brief fireworks around the July jobs report.

Although the US rates complex has been relatively well-behaved this week under the circumstances, the bond market’s apprised of what Donald Trump’s plan ultimately is. At the very least, the contours of his Fed scheme are now visible.

As discussed here first thing Wednesday morning, Trump probably intends to leverage what’ll be a 4-3 majority on the Fed Board to influence the decision-making process for regional Fed bank president nominees. Long story short, if regional Fed banks know the Board won’t approve anyone not deemed sufficiently amenable to Trump’s agenda, they probably won’t even try, which is to say they’ll just submit candidates they know are White House-“approved.”

At that point, the FOMC’s lost, and so is monetary policy independence. That’s what the Treasury curve’s reflecting, albeit in a subdued way for now. “Trump hasn’t yet shown any intention to back down from his move to reshape the Fed and we’re left with the impression there’s further scope to price in higher risk premia in the long-end and a steeper yield curve,” BMO’s Ian Lyngen remarked.

It’s gratifying, but also frustrating sometimes, to read mainstream financial media coverage which essentially recaps what I’ve written here, in these pages, previously. Less than two weeks ago, on a sleepy Friday afternoon, I emphasized that Trump risked pushing longer-end US yields higher with his flagrant encroachments on monetary policy. As such, I wrote, it’s likely the next Fed Chair will resort to some manner of yield-curve control.

In that linked article, I cited the August vintage of BofA’s monthly fund manager poll, in which more than half of respondents said they believe YCC’s coming to America once Powell’s gone. On Wednesday, Bloomberg published a piece called “Behind Trump’s Bid for Fed Dominance Lies a Dangerous Debt Idea,” which mentions the same BofA poll and discusses fiscal dominance under Trump in precisely the same terms I’ve been using here for years.

Trump’s blueprint, Maria Eloisa Capurro wrote, is “typically associated with emerging market nations.” Trump’s actions, she said, are prompting “many analysts” to ask if the US is “sliding in a similar direction.”

The answer’s “yes,” folks. Yes, the US is indeed headed in that “direction.” And not because Trump’s a Liz Truss. Rather because he’s a tinpot dictator.

And look: To the extent it’s possible to say something like that in a non-pejorative way, that’s how I’m saying it. Feel free to laugh. That’s supposed to be funny. But it’s true. As regular readers can attest, I actually don’t care that much about what Trump does. I don’t harbor any kind of grudge against the man because life’s just too damn short for that. And for a lot of other things besides.

So when I tell you Trump’s a tinpot dictator, that’s not my “TDS” acting up, it’s me telling you what Trevor Noah told you 10 years ago. Enjoy this little reminder:

Trevor told you so in the political context. And I told you so in the macro-market context.

Now — and this brings us full circle — everyone’s suddenly awake to what’s been painfully obvious for over a decade.

“We know from history what happens to central banks that become arms of politicians — see inflation in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” the Journal‘s Editorial Board said Wednesday. Trump’s decision to fire Cook “shows he wants to put monetary policy under his personal control,” the above-linked Op-Ed went on. “He may succeed, but the country will live to regret it.”

I’m glad everyone finally gets it. Really I am. But, to reiterate, it’s too late now.