Struggling to make sense of the surge in real yields

This week’s surge in the real yields of Treasuries is hard to square with the prospects for US monetary policy. (See here.) One suggestion is that the surge reflects a view that the Fed will have to tighten much more aggressively down the road if it keeps real interest rates very low in the next few years in line with its revised goals for inflation and employment. In apparent support of this hypothesis, the yield curve has steepened. Yet if this were the reason for the surge, why have real yields also risen significantly at the shorter end of the curve, even if by less than those at the longer end? And if investors really are worried that the Fed is going to let inflation run out of control, why have measures of inflation compensation dropped back?