What's the big deal about rate hikes?
Setting the interest rates has always been a tool to manage the economy. Under Bill Clinton, the economy chugged right along with a 9% rate. It seems to me a rate of 6-9% is a healthy. People (elderly) who preferred liquidity could make a sizable gain (or at least break even) by putting their cash into a savings account.
Potential home owners benefitted from the "free money" banks were borrowing and the fuckers never passed along the bonanza to their credit card holders or cash savers.