The Fed knew a banking crisis was on the way
twitter.com
twitter.com
I don’t believe at all that hiking interest rates this fast was something the Fed thought would not put banks in bad positions that would need risk mitigation and capital raises. If they didn’t know that, they must be abhorrently oblivious. So let’s assume they realized that rapid rate increases would affect certain “safe” investment vehicles and those would be a loss, and some banks would have over exposure. What would the Fed do? Not raise rates? Or take the risk, see what banks were vulnerable, and deal with it then. I feel like the latter is the simplest answer, unfortunately.