The record of the late-July meeting, released Wednesday, is about as clear as these documents get. Many participants judged that further tightening would likely be necessary if inflation did not come down. Some went further and said financial conditions might not currently be restrictive enough to bring inflation back to two percent.

Read that second sentence again. It is a committee telling itself that the policy stance may already be too loose.

The long bond went above 5.33% on Tuesday, the highest since 2007. The ten-year pushed toward 4.75%. Equities took the message poorly: the Dow shed 703.84 points on Thursday to close at 52,759.21, the S&P fell 0.87% to 7,641.16, the Nasdaq lost 1% to 26,067.17.

What makes this worth a second look is that it happened while expectations of a near-term Fed hike were softening, not hardening. The July jobs report came in weaker than forecast. Inflation cooled during the month. Pricing for a September increase fell from around fifty percent to around thirty. By the usual mechanics, that combination pulls yields down.

The duties took effect at one minute past midnight on Saturday, after three days of talks in Washington ended without a deal. Fifty percent, on roughly twenty billion dollars of Canadian goods, with no expiry date attached and no exemption for products that comply with the continental trade agreement the two countries signed and ratified.

Twenty billion sounds enormous until you put it against the denominator. Canada sent the United States something like three hundred and seventy billion dollars in goods last year. The tariffed slice is a bit over five percent of that. Nobody’s economy turns on it.