Ombow, Yes, there are plenty of reasons to be wary right now, especially the ominous trade war situation with China, where neither side will back down anytime soon.
Rickards says the Fed is trying to normalize rates mainly so they'll have the ability to cut them again when the next recession or financial crisis hits. Likewise with the Fed's bloated balance sheet (around $4 tril, up from 800 bil pre-2008). Without normalization, their toolkit is empty.
Rickards says the Fed is desperate to normalize, it's job #1, but in getting there they risk inducing a recession. I think they had a decent chance of succeeding until this trade war craziness started.
Taking a broader view, it's possible that the 'powers that be' have finally decided to go ahead with the transition to the SDR, which will require a financial crisis to get the ball rolling. Trouble in China could be used as the trigger, in which case the Fedsters are OK with Trump's aggressive trade war since it will get things rolling toward the SDR, and Trump will get the blame for the ensuing crisis.
Just guessing though, and I doubt that's the actual plan right now (to bring in the SDR). It would be nice to have some solid 'inside info' on what is really going on, but absent that we can only guess. Like this Q-anon business, I haven't been able to dig out enough useful info from the usual sources on the internet.
