Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO and Chief Strategist at QI Research, joins Julia La Roche to break down the FOMC minutes. Danielle discusses the deep divisions within the Federal Reserve and their controversial decision-making heading into December. She argues the Fed is willfully ignoring abundant alternative data sources like ADP's weekly reports while claiming to fly blind without official jobs data—data that won't be released until after their December meeting due to administrative delays. Booth warns that if the Fed doesn't cut rates in December, they risk triggering a liquidity crisis similar to December 2018, when Powell's hawkish stance caused a market bloodbath on Christmas Eve and forced him to reverse course.
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Links:
Danielle's Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/dimartinobooth
Substack: https://dimartinobooth.substack.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DanielleDiMartinoBoothQI
Fed Up: https://www.amazon.com/Fed-Up-Insiders-Federal-Reserve/dp/0735211655
Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction & post-FOMC reaction
0:27 - Deep divisions within the Federal Reserve
1:47 - Fed's tone deafness on inflation concerns
2:05 - Politics at the Federal Open Market Committee
3:32 - Alternative data sources: ADP & jobless claims
5:38 - The irony: administration's self-inflicted rate cut problem
6:51 - ADP data: what Powell said vs. what the Fed does
7:32 - Market reaction & Nvidia's impact
8:13 - Should the Fed cut rates in December?
9:39 - Powell's contacts: the willful blindness problem
10:12 - Fed independence vs. politicization
11:28 - The damage of playing politics with monetary policy
13:51 - Treasury yields & market concerns
17:38 - Debt servicing crisis & political implications
26:54 - Private credit & private equity discussions
27:30 - Liquidity crisis warning: emergency rate cut risk
28:44 - Question for Powell?
29:27 - Why an emergency cut may be necessary
31:52 - Closing thoughts