Mike Pento Warns Global Central Banks Are Entering The Danger Zone

Investors are experiencing huge moves in commodities, currencies, equities and in sovereign debt across the globe. And now the fall has arrived. Expect the volatility currently witnessed in markets to only surge.

This is because global central banks have overwhelmingly turned hawkish in a vain attempt to gradually let the air out of the massive bubbles they have spent the last decade recreating. Unfortunately, that is not the nature of asset bubbles—they don’t end with a whimper--and they are about to burst in violent fashion.

First off, our central bank hiked rates for the 8th time since December 2015 at the September FOMC meeting. While the Fed did remove the word accommodative from its policy statement, it also raised the neutral rate to 3%, from 2.9% on the Fed Funds Rate. And, most importantly, predicted it would stay above that neutral rate for two years—keeping it at the 3.4% level. It also indicated that December would be the next rate hike and that three more hikes are on the agenda for 2019.

Nevertheless, the Fed is now caught in a hydraulic press of its own making; and is completely unaware of the predicament it is in. An inflation rate of 2% has been its goal for the past decade. And now inflation, when measured by core CPI, is up 2.2% y/y and is up 2.7% y/y on the headline rate. Even though the Fed emphasizes the Personal Consumption Expenditure inflation rate rather than Consumer Price Inflation, it is still aware that inflation is rising above its target.

Therefore, its own inflation models - however irrelevant and useless they may be - are compelling the Fed to keep on raising rates. But because inflation is a lagging indicator, the Fed will keep on hiking rates until the next economic downturn is well underway. However, since asset bubbles and debt levels have never been more disconnected from reality, the next economic downturn should quickly morph into a depression rather than just a normal recession.

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