Famed Fed watcher expects interest rates stay high for ‘much, much, much longer' after unsustainable ‘free money era'

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly warned that rates will need to remain "higher for longer" to truly tame inflation. But many Wall Street leaders, encouraged at inflation's steep fall from its June 2022 four-decade high, believe peak rates are already here.

Grant, however, takes a historical reading of monetary policy, and argues we're in for a generation of rising rates, with some volatility in between. "The phrase would be higher for much, much, much, much longer--but we have to underscore and italicize the conditional--if past is prologue," he told Fortune.

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"We seem to have hit some major point of demarcation with interest rates in 2020 and `21," he added. Based on history, he said, this new regime should last 40 years. Still, Grant clarified that the generation-long uptick likely won't be a straight line up. If a recession hits, there could be a "substantial," although temporary, pullback in interest rates.