Owatonna, MN Correspondent — Yes to the first and probably not to the second, and I’d separate them because they’re being conflated.

Accepting some rise in unemployment is the price of not having entrenched inflation, and central banks that refuse it usually end up with both.

On the recession question, the historical record is discouraging. Disinflation of this magnitude has almost never been achieved without one. The optimistic case rests on the labor market being unusual — enormous job openings that can fall without layoffs — and that’s a real argument I’d give perhaps a third weight to.

Dayton, Ohio Correspondent — Price stability isn’t free once inflation is established, and tightening works through slower demand.

The practical question is how much and for how long rather than whether any increase is acceptable.

From the shop floor I’d say something that cuts against the pessimism. We are not laying anybody off and we won’t unless orders collapse, because we spent two years unable to hire and nobody is going to repeat that. Labor hoarding is real and it means employment holds up longer than in previous cycles.

That’s an argument for a milder downturn and also for a longer one, because the adjustment has to come from somewhere.

Bismarck, ND Correspondent — If inflation is running hot, cooling it usually costs jobs, and pretending otherwise prolongs the problem.

The rural version is that the rate rise lands here through land and equipment before it lands through employment. An operation refinancing at these rates is making a decision about whether to farm next year, and that decision doesn’t show up in an unemployment print.

Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Higher unemployment is painful and letting inflation run is worse.

What I’d want honestly stated is who pays. Disinflation through the labor market falls on the last hired, and the last hired over the past two years were disproportionately people who’d been out of work for a long time before that.

So the cost isn’t evenly distributed and the people arguing hardest for tightening are mostly not going to bear it. That doesn’t make them wrong. It makes them obligated to say it.

Cheyenne, WY Correspondent — Prices first. A job at a melted wage isn’t a kindness.

Raise the cost of money until the ticket breaks. If unemployment rises some, that’s the bill for pretending money was free.

Pay it before the bill becomes a level.

Tyler, Texas Correspondent — I don’t want a wreck and I don’t want a seven percent world described as compassion.

Alternative tools that don’t tighten demand are how you get price controls, jawboning, and a black market in everything from lumber to labor.

The Fed’s instrument is blunt, and blunt is what’s left when you waited. Pair it with supply so the blunt tool doesn’t do all the work.

Las Vegas, Nevada Correspondent — This valley lives on discretionary rooms so tightening will hurt here first and visibly.

Convention bookings are already softer for next year. That’s the leading indicator in my business and it’s turned.

I’ll still take a slower house for a year over a price level that never comes back. What I’d ask is that the fiscal side stop working against the bank, because a Congress spending into a tightening is asking the rate to do two jobs.

Knoxville, Tennessee Correspondent — County workers already lost ground to the letting price, and stability is the raise they can’t negotiate.

If a higher jobless print is part of getting the letting cost down I’ll hate it and still take it over a decade of nickels that buy fewer nails.

Pair the tightness with something that adds a truck and a transformer, so the tool isn’t only breaking demand.

Sydney, Australia Correspondent — Our central bank has taken a deliberately slower path and it’s an instructive contrast.

They’ve raised less, aiming explicitly to preserve employment gains, and they’ve been criticized at home for it. Australian households are far more exposed to variable-rate mortgages than yours, so each increase transmits faster and harder here.

Whether the slower path works won’t be known for a year. What it demonstrates is that the trade-off is a choice rather than an arithmetic necessity, and different mandates produce different answers.

Clermont, Florida Correspondent — My clients are small professional firms and they’re feeling this through their credit lines rather than through demand.

That’s the transmission mechanism nobody discusses. A firm with a revolving line at prime plus two has had its borrowing cost roughly triple this year, and that shows up as deferred hiring long before it shows up as a layoff.

So the tightening is already working in the small-business economy and it’s invisible in the headline figures.

Orange County, California Correspondent — The soft landing is possible and it isn’t the base case, and the reason is the labor market’s composition.

Job openings would have to fall by an enormous margin without unemployment rising, which has essentially no historical precedent. It’s not impossible — the openings figure is unusually high and may be partly an artefact of how cheaply a posting can be listed now — but you’re betting on a relationship holding that has never held.

I’d rather policy assumed a recession and were pleasantly surprised.

Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — A seasonal economy finds out about a recession in the booking window, and next spring’s bookings are holding.

That’s one data point against the pessimism and I’d hold it loosely, because leisure spending has been the last thing to break in every cycle I’ve worked through.

On the principle: yes, some unemployment is the cost. I’d just note that in my industry “some unemployment” means specific people I know, and the abstraction has a payroll attached.