How many rate hikes do you expect? They are of course severely limited or constrained to an extremely narrow range on the high side or it’s Game Over. The entire government debt rolls over maybe every 4 years. Nominal historical rates of 4 to 6 percent would be catastrophic, and higher rates would leave the entire revenue stream solely allocated to paying interest on existing debt.
That won’t happen, and regardless the “official” inflation rate is easily 10 percent, and that’s being charitable. They can save the dollar, or save the markets, but they can’t save both. I suppose they could default, which is kind of what inflation is anyway. Slowly at first, then all at once.
Politically, they always “print”, throughout history is very clear on this. Without a defined unit of account, it’s just too convenient.
Oh, but you're mistaken! It is defined!
As "whatever we want it to be!"
Regards,