“U.S. Officials Meet in Secret Over Junk-Loan Frenzy as Recession Alarms Flash”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday led a secret meeting of top U.S. financial regulators on the risks to global markets from the recent surge in corporate borrowing…”No details were provided on the gist of the discussion, though according to the statement the panel heard an ‘update from Craig Phillips, a counselor to Mnuchin, on recent market developments involving corporate credit and leveraged lending'”. – Article link

Something(s) is(are) starting to melt-down “behind the scenes” in the global financial system.  The meeting referenced above is the “tell.”  Craig Phillips, “counselor to Mnuchin,” was formerly a managing director and member of the Global Operating Committee of BlackRock.   It’s quite likely that Phillips’ former colleagues have put Phillips on high alert about problems developing in the credit markets, both domestically and globally.

Even more interesting is that fact that Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell, gave a speech recently in which he denied that credits risks are mounting in the system:  “Business debt does not present the kind of elevated risks to the stability of the financial system that would lead to broad harm to households and businesses should conditions deteriorate.”

Powell’s assertion eerily echoes a similar comment made by then-Fed Head, Helicopter Ben Bernanke in mid-2007 about subprime mortgage risk being “contained.”  But Powells’ statement followed by a meeting convened by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin under the advisement of a former BlackRock hatchet-man is the silent scream of insiders who see the probability of another financial system tsunami forming…

Of course, the yield curve has been sending these warnings for about a year.  But they keep telling us it’s different this time…