Commentary  As expected, the Federal Reserve’s policymaking body, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), voted to raise the benchmark federal funds range along with the various monetary policy tools to accomplish this (IOER, RRP). Increasing each by one-quarter point, Chairman Jay Powell and the Fed’s other committee members are trying to send a message to the public that the nation’s nominal central bank is on the case. For an entire year now, consumers have been plagued by rising prices. In the most recent months, the pain of paying more has been concentrated in modern life’s basic essentials: food, fuel, and shelter. The last CPI estimation, released last week for the month of February 2022, showed the average consumer paying almost 8 percent more last month for all manner of goods than they had the prior February. This was the highest CPI increase in just over forty years. And more than …