As we approach the December FOMC meeting with Federal Reserve Chair Powell, who will provide an update on interest rate adjustments and liquidity measures, it is worth recalling a poignant scene from the film "The Matrix Reloaded." Amidst the action and explosions, there exists a quiet moment that holds greater significance than any intense battle.

Neo sits on a bench with the Oracle. He's finally asking the only question that matters: Why are you helping? She basically tells him:

You'll never get perfect proof. There's no way to know, in advance, whether she's here to help or to guide him back into another kind of control. At some point he has to choose. And then she drops the real twist: Neo didn't come to make the choice. He already made it. He came to understand why.

That's exactly where you, the reader, is sitting right now.

You already sense something is wrong in the financial matrix. You saw the charts in the last piece "The Big One" – the discount window climbing back to pre-Silicon Valley Bank collapse levels of 2022 $7 -$10 billon (shown below)

MBS repos — dormant for years — are spiking like they did in late 2019,

Liquidity risk is once again manifesting within the fabric of the financial system, and your presence here is a testament to your ability to discern its presence. As evidenced by recent economic indicators, American consumers perceive the current economic climate as reaching unprecedented lows (as depicted in the graph below).