NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The bond market vigilantes are on the march at last – pushing yields higher at the long end with a vengeance.

Yesterday Treasury prices fell for the third straight session, lifting the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to a seven-month high at 4.59 percent.

All kinds of reasons can be found from rising bond yields in Europe in Japan to the possibility that top Bush administration officials may be indicted. But the biggest reason of all is the most obvious: the Federal Reserve has made it clear that the key short-term rate will be pushed higher and higher until some point where officials feel it's high enough.

And more than one has said with a laugh that the Fed often over does it when it's moving rates, the implication being that once again they are willing to push the rate a little too high and risk a slowdown rather than stop short and perhaps risk a little more inflation.

With that in mind, bond investors are shifting gears and figuring bonds will be in a new higher range with the 10-year moving closer to 5 percent than 4 percent.

What does it mean for consumers? Higher mortgage rates for sure, but not punishingly so.

Will it slow the economy? Perhaps a bit and perhaps not so much that anyone but people who thought yields would stay low forever will suffer.

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Kathleen Hays is economics correspondent for CNN. Read more of her columns here.