You will always know a leader when you see one. That is because you never have to announce the coming of a leader.

Leaders, you see, announce themselves, just as naturally as they step forward the instant they perceive that something should be done in a certain situation when nothing is being done. So it is with Internet Marketing advertising today, it is, in a word, a “mess” waiting to be cleaned up.

It is not that anything so terribly illegal is going on (at least I hope not). Marketers are exercising their First Amendment right to freedom of speech when they offer their goods and services on the Internet, some a little more zealously than others, and a few are camped out in a circle reserved for the most devious among us.

Devious as in showing a skillful use of underhanded tactics to achieve their goals, such as lining their pockets at someone’s expense.

Virtually everything that appears to be a “mess” is under the protection of the First Amendment. You will recall the Constitutional Convention formally drafted the U. S. Constitution in 1787, in Philadelphia. The U. S. Constitution was adopted in 1789 after being ratified by nine states.

(Would you believe that Philadelphia in the 1750s was the largest city in America with a population of 23,000. When Benjamin Franklin went to London, London was the second largest city in the world with 750,000 inhabitants, second only to Beijing with 900,000.)

Two years later, 1791, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution (commonly known as the Bill of Rights) were ratified.

The first of those amendments said “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Some Internet readers have discerned what I have discerned, that while no laws are being broken (at least not yet), some marketers’ lack of judgment has left them with little regard for exaggeration, loose facts and personal credibility.

Everyone appears to be looking the other way, either because they are making money hand over fist and do not want to interrupt their good fortune, or because they are afraid to recognize what is happening and throw up a caution sign. Therefore, an Internet Police Patrol might be in order to identify the worst advertising with the least credibility.

And since leaders announce themselves, we need not worry about creating some overblown bureaucratic organization to do the job. A few of us may just step up to the task on our own.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday considerably raised its expectations for inflation this year and brought forward the time frame on when it will next raise interest rates.

However, the central bank gave no indication as to when it will begin cutting back on its aggressive bond-buying program, though Fed Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged that officials discussed the issue at the meeting.

“You can think of this meeting that we had as the ‘talking about talking about’ meeting,” Powell said in a phrase that recalled a statement he made a year ago that the Fed wasn’t “thinking about thinking about raising rates.”

As expected, the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee unanimously left its benchmark short-term borrowing rate anchored near zero. But officials indicated that rate hikes could come as soon as 2023, after saying in March that it saw no increases until at least 2024. The so-called dot plot of individual member expectations pointed to two hikes in 2023.

Though the Fed raised its headline inflation expectation to 3.4%, a full percentage point higher than the March projection, the post-meeting statement continued to say that inflation pressures are “transitory.” The raised expectations come amid the biggest rise in consumer prices in about 13 years.

“This is not what the market expected,” said James McCann, deputy chief economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments. “The Fed is now signaling that rates will need to rise sooner and faster, with their forecast suggesting two hikes in 2023. This change in stance jars a little with the Fed’s recent claims that the recent spike in inflation is temporary.”

Markets reacted to the Fed news, with stocks falling and government bond yields higher as investors anticipated tighter Fed policy ahead, including the likelihood that the bond purchases will slow as soon as this year.

“If you’re going to get two rate hikes in 2023, you have to start tapering fairly soon to reach that goal,” said Kathy Jones, head of fixed income at Charles Schwab. “It takes maybe 10 months to a year to taper at a moderate pace. Then you’re looking at we need to start tapering maybe later this year, and if the economy continues to run a little bit hot, rate hikes sooner rather than later.”

Even with the raised forecast for this year, the committee still sees inflation trending to its 2% goal over the long run.

“Our expectation is these high inflation readings now will abate,” Powell said at his post-meeting news conference.

Powell also cautioned about reading too much into the dot-plot, saying it is “not a great forecaster of future rate moves. “Lift-off is well into the future,” he said.