This issue marks the end of an era, maybe: on Dec. 16 the Federal Reserve is widely expected to hike its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point to 0.25%. The increase would come seven years to the day after the Fed slashed the fed funds rate to zero in the midst of the global financial crisis.

Income investors and investments are notoriously sensitive to tightening monetary policy; recall the market’s “Taper Tantrum” in 2013 when the Fed chairman at the time, Ben Bernanke, merely suggested that the Fed might ease up a bit on asset purchases.

The practical effect of this week’s prospective hike would be close to nil; it’s already priced into the financial markets, and the interbank lending market that would be most directly affected by the new Fed target has lost relevance as well as trading volume in recent years.

But the sheer symbolism of the move has been roiling the financial arena for months. MLP investors have been understandably preoccupied with the price of oil, but that’s hardly the only cause of the sector’s malaise.

Other yield-bearing investments, both equity and debt, have been inordinately weak. Mortgage investment trusts and high-yield bonds have suffered heavy losses. The fear out there is that the credit cycle has turned, and that the related ebbing of liquidity will continue to expose the investment mistakes made while financial conditions were lax.

The reality is that global economic realities are likely to constrain the Federal Reserve from tightening much further. Many European government bonds continue to trade at negative yields, oil exporters are down on the luck and China is devaluing its currency in response to a serious economic slowdown. These factors have pushed up the U.S. dollar nearly 20% against a trade-weighted basket of foreign currencies over the last two years. And currency appreciation on this scale has in the past significantly slowed U.S. economic growth, often with a considerable time lag. Additional rate hikes by the Fed while monetary policy is eased abroad would only tend to make the dollar even stronger, and domestic economic growth prospects weaker.

In fact, MLP investors ought to root for multiple Fed rate hikes next year: that would require the accelerating economic growth – and, likely, firmer energy prices – that would directly benefit the midstream sector. The Alerian MLP index now has an indicative yield above 9%, so it’s not as if higher-yielding Treasuries would offer much competition on that front even if there was a significant overlap in the investor bases, which there isn’t.

If, on the other hand, this proves to be the shortest rate-raising campaign in history as a result of deflationary threats foreign and domestic that probably won’t be good news. Energy prices would, all other things being equal, tend to stay weaker in this scenario. The risk of further economic weakness on the one hand and additional rate hikes on the other might very well keep investors on edge. This would be likely a more risk-averse environment than one in which the Fed felt confident enough to keep ratcheting up its lending benchmark.

Right now the energy industry has much bigger challenges than a quarter-point rate hike.