Via Greg Hunter's USA Watchdog blog,
Former Federal Reserve insider Danielle DiMartino Booth says the record high stock and bond prices make the Fed nervous because it’s fearful of popping this record high credit bubble. DiMartino Booth says,
“The Fed’s biggest fear is they know darn well this much credit has built up in the background, and the ramifications of the un-wind for what has happened since the great financial crisis is even greater than what happened in 2008 and 2009.
It’s global and pretty viral. So, the Fed has good reason to be fearful of what’s going to happen when the baby boomer generation and the pension funds in this country take a third body blow since 2000, and that’s why they are so very, very intimidated by the financial markets and so fearful of a correction.”
[ZH:As a reminder, The Fed is normalizing the balance sheet - and as Yellen said last night - "so far so good"...
So far The Fed (since the end of September) has shrunk the balance sheet by 0.17%... or $7.3 Billion of a $4.5 trillion balance sheet]
Why will the Fed not allow even a small correction in the markets? DiMartino Booth says,
“Look back to last year when Deutsche Bank took the markets to DEFCON 1. Maybe you were paying attention and maybe you weren’t, but it certainly got the German government’s attention. They said the checkbook is open, and we will do whatever we need to do because we can’t quantify what will happen when a major bank gets into a distressed situation.
I think what central banks worldwide fear is that there has been such a magnificent re-blowing of the credit bubble since 2007 and 2008 that they can’t tell you where the contagion is going to be.
So, they have this great fear of a 2% or 3% or 10 % (correction) and do not know what the daisy chain is going to look like and where the contagion is going to land. It could be the Chinese bond market. It could be Italian insolvent banks or it might be Deutsche Bank, or whether it might be small or midsize U.S. commercial lenders. They can’t tell you where the systemic risk lies, and that’s where their fear is. This credit bubble is of their making.”
In short, the Fed does not know what is going to happen, and according to DiMartino Booth, nobody does. DiMartino Booth contends,
“I don’t think any of us know what the implications are for a $50 trillion debt build since the great financial crisis (of 2008).
It is impossible to say. We have never dealt with anything of this magnitude.”
On Bitcoin’s rapid rise in value, DiMartino Booth warns,
“To me, Bitcoin is a reflection of panic. It’s a reflection of people trying to get money into a safe place knowing the major governments of the developed world have got their printing presses running 24/7.
It is a reflection of anxiety in fiat currencies and the fact it’s not practical to go back to a gold standard. What scares me about Bitcoin is the central bankers are studying it to figure out how the blockchain works...
They are going to be controlling our spending with blockchain technology that is being perfected in the crypto currency universe.”
On gold and silver, DiMartino Booth says,
“2017 is the record for quantitative easing (money printing) globally. We have never, not even in the darkest days of the financial crisis, central banks have never injected as much money as they have into the markets...
I am not a gold bug, but we do know that in times of corrections that there is no place to hide in traditional asset classes that you can get at your Merrill Lynch brokerage.
Gold and silver in the precious metals complex are the only places to hide and get true diversification and safety.”
Full interview below:
Danielle DiMartino Booth has free information on her website DiMartinoBooth.com. She also offers a subscription service called “Money Strong.” For a one month free subscription click here.