A Little Understanding Goes a Long Way (Peter Schiff)

As the world confronts one of the most critical periods of economic upheaval that it has ever seen, it is clear that our most influential economic stewards have absolutely no idea what they are doing. But, like kids with a new chemistry set, they are nevertheless unwilling to let that stand in the way of their experimental fun. As they pour an ever-growing number of volatile ingredients into their test tubes, we can either hope that they magically stumble on the secret formula to cure the world's ills, or more pragmatically, we can try to prepare for the explosion that is likely to result.

Recent comments from current and former Federal Reserve Chairmen, and from the leaders of the European Central Bank, have starkly illustrated this stunning lack of understanding. In an extended interview on CNBC today, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, once considered the sagest of all economic gurus, admitted that he had no idea whether the Fed's current quantitative easing program will help or hurt the economy. The Maestro simply said that we must wait and see, and if positive economic indicators come, then we may begin considering the policy to be a success. That's some serious insight.

In other words, after dedicating his life to the study of macroeconomics, Greenspan is left with no deep understanding of how the injection of trillions of dollars of printed money affects an economy. The chicken who plays tic-tac-toe in Chinatown could likely offer the same level of critical analysis. To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi: according to Greenspan, we have to conclude the policy to know if it works. Although I have never been thought of as an economic expert by anyone with actual access to power, permit me to offer a thought on the subject: printing money creates inflation, which weakens an economy. Unfortunately, this kind of common-sense thinking never seems to penetrate academic circles.

Without fundamental understanding, all economists are left with is surface analysis of current data and an inclination to play probability and statistics. This is like a meteorologist opening the window, checking current conditions, and making predictions based on analysis of recent days. While this may be useful, it is no substitute for an understanding of atmospheric dynamics and climatology. In his interview, Greenspan essentially confirmed this bias for "open window" economics, saying that Ben Bernanke and Jean-Claude Trichet both follow the same models, but with different statistical sensitivities: Bernanke toward growth data and Trichet toward inflation data. In that sense, both are no better than Las Vegas odds-makers, with one putting his chips on inflation risk and the other betting on recession risk.

This gambler's approach helps explain why economists fail to understand the obvious benefits of a strong currency. According to people like Bernanke, a weak currency is like an ace up the sleeve, a clever way to undercut the competition. The problem is either everyone does it and the game ends up swimming in aces, or Bernanke gets caught and other countries decided they don't want to play anymore (sell Treasuries).

Conventional warfare in this arena used to involve central bank buying and selling currency reserves in the open. But in the aftermath of the financial crisis, these timid measures were abandoned. In the last few years, the United States has upped the ante and brought out unconventional weaponry. The trillions of dollars printed by the Fed are the economic equivalent of carpet bombing. Initially our enemies responded in kind, and sought to devalue their currencies in lock step. They fought fire with fire and showered liquidity on their own economies. However, as the collateral damage mounted in the form of surging food and energy prices, they have begun sounding the general retreat.

In an interview on CNBC this week, James Bullard, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, claimed that the Fed's easy money policies were not responsible for inflation overseas, arguing that foreign central banks had a choice. They could have allowed their currencies to rise, which would have kept prices from rising in their internal markets. Instead, they chose to prevent their currencies from rising - thereby importing our inflation. In other words, they had to choose between exchange rate stability and price stability. Apparently, they couldn't stand the heat, so they are getting out of the kitchen.

Bernanke's recent testimony before Congress, in which he argued that the Fed can't be blamed for rising commodity prices, will surely increase international unease. Yet still, as the issuer of the world's reserve currency, the Fed is blazing a trail that other central banks feel compelled to follow. It is no coincidence that inflation is highest in those nations that maintain a peg against the dollar. But making this fundamental connection is beyond the ability of our statistician-in-chief.

Bernanke makes another fundamental error by blaming higher commodity prices on faster global growth. Growing economies produce more stuff, which keeps prices in check. However, if money supply grows faster than production, prices rise. So, the increased demand to which Bernanke refers is merely a function of more money, not faster growth.

In the end, we will overwhelm our competitors with a show of extreme force. By the time the Fed rolls out QE IV or QE V, the US will emerge as the undisputed winner of the currency war. To the victor goes the spoils, which, in this case, will be higher consumer prices and interest rates and lower standards of living. On the other hand, the losers will enjoy rising living standards, as their stronger currencies serve to lower prices and increase consumption. If that doesn't make perfect sense, maybe we should run it by the chicken.

The Peter Schiff/Austrian Economics ping. (Washington Bankrupting our Nation by Spending your past, present and future money!)

If you realize both parties in Washington think that our money is theirs and you trust them to do the wrong thing, this list is for you.

If you think there is a Santa Claus who is going to get elected in Washington and cut your taxes, spend a few trillion and that will jump-start the economy, this list is not for you.

You can read past posts by clicking on : schifflist , I try to tag all relevant threads with the keyword : schifflist.

Ping list pinged by sickoflibs.

To join the ping list: FReepmail sickoflibs with the subject line add Schifflist.

(Stop getting pings by sending the subject line drop Schifflist.)

The Austrian School’s Commandments plus :From : link

1) You cannot spend your way out of a recession
2) You cannot regulate the economy into oblivion and expect it to function
3) You cannot tax people and businesses to the point of near slavery and expect them to keep producing
4) You cannot create an abundance of money out of thin air without making all that paper worthless
5) The government cannot make up for rising unemployment by just hiring all the out of work people to be bureaucrats or send them unemployment checks forever
6) You cannot live beyond your means indefinitely
7) The economy must actually produce something others are willing to buy
8) Every government bureaucrat should keep the following motto in mind when attempting to influence the economy: “First, do no harm!”
9) Central bank-supported fractional reserve banking is an economically distorting, ethically questionable activity. In particular, no government should ever do anything to save any bank from the full consequences of a bank run, no matter what the short-term consequences.
10) Gold is God’s money.

Add mine:

1) Businesses don't hire workers just because of demand for products or services, they hire because it makes them money. Sorry to have to state the obvious.
2) Government spending without taxing is still redistribution
3) Taking one man's money and giving it to another is not a job.
4) Paul Krugman and Bernake have been wrong about everything, as well as the other best and brightest Keynesian's who have been fixing our economy for over a decade.
5) Republicans in the minority (esp out of the White House) act like Republicans, in the majority they act like Democrats .

Peter Schiff is NO ECONOMIC GENIUS as he claims, and many of his predictions are totally bogus!

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/01/peter-schiff-was-wrong.html ,
“ For one, Mike Shedlock of Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis gave an incredibly detailed review of Schiff’s track record in an article titled, “Peter Schiff was Wrong.” To get a little flavor of the piece, here is an excerpt:

12 Ways Schiff Was Wrong in 2008

•Wrong about hyperinflation
•Wrong about the dollar
•Wrong about commodities except for gold
•Wrong about foreign currencies except for the Yen
•Wrong about foreign equities
•Wrong in timing
•Wrong in risk management
•Wrong in buy and hold thesis
•Wrong on decoupling
•Wrong on China
•Wrong on US treasuries
•Wrong on interest rates, both foreign and domestic”

http://investingcaffeine.com/2009/09/07/the-emperor-schiff-has-no-clothes/

http://seekingalpha.com/article/106824-being-wrong-for-five-years-makes-peter-schiff-right-now

” Now, had you listened to Peter in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 or even 3/4 of 2007, you lost your shirt. Had you placed bets based on Schiff’s market calls, you lost everything you wagered.

The S&P (.INX) went from 1054 in May of 2002 (the date of the interview) to 1561 in Oct. 2007, a 48% gain and the Dow (.DJI) rose 40%.

Banking stocks, the primary victim of the housing bust, went up (JP Morgan (JPM) 36%, Bank of America (BAC) 41%, Wells Fargo (WFC) 39% , Wachovia (WB) 31% and American Express (AXP) 51%) during that time frame (dividends excluded which would dramatically add to results). “”

SCHIFF invests in America’s economic competitors ONLY
NOT A DIME in the USA
how is that smart??

ECON 101
When you invest in the firm that is the economic competitor to your own family, and your family does poorly, and their competitor does well, and you KEEP investing in your family’s competitor, YOU ARE PUTTING YOUR FAMILY OUT OF WORK!

Schiff doesn’t invest a SINGLE PENNY in AMERICA!!!

pro-immigration and said that there are too many jobs in the US we NEED to let in immigrants???

Peter Schiff admits on camera that he has ZERO money investigated in American corporations or industry. If Peter Schiff refuses to invest in American companies, how can Peter Schiff say he is helping Americans keep their jobs?

http://ameriborn.com/shifty/

This is SCHIFF in his own words!

PETER SCHIFF IS ACTIVELY INVESTING IN FOREIGN COMPETITOR NATIONS THAT ARE PUTTING AMERICANS OUT OF WORK!!!

Here is a link to his investment company and their business dealings from Google
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4RNTN_enUS381US381&q=Schiff+%2b+pacific

Schiff is pro-gay marriage, pro-drug legalization and against the war in Afghanistan

http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/2009/10/peter-schiff-arrives-give-me-m.html

Why do the Ron Paul guys support gay marriage?
http://www.queerty.com/ron-paul-on-gay-marriage-20071210/

http://www.schiffforsenate.com/index.php?q=news/constitutional-candidates-congress

Schiff’s own website endorses Adam Kokesh

All the Schiff bots are supporting a PRO-CHOICE candidate, too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDttx64zk4I

SCHIFF himself admits he believes the Iraq War is a QUAGMIRE in 2009!!
http://www.freespeechmonster.com/?p=103

Schiff has said this many times
http://peterschiffsays.com/defense.htm

Aug 7, 2009, Iraq is a quagmire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9t741ewbGA

Schiff blamed Iraq on bankers? Not on Saddam?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo81QDSuixk

What the Tea Parties are not telling you about Peter Schiff:

Libertarians need to infiltrate the GOP

VIDEO of Schiff saying just that!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ncLTFoTFa8

http://belowthebeltway.com/2009/06/02/peter-schiff-libertarians-need-to-infliltrate-the-gop/
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=110955225375
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=19285
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message808505/pg1
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090707200009AAzSQfB

http://ameriborn.com/shifty/

Peter Schiff repeating talking points of the lunatic left, listen yourself. He says in 2009 that Iraq is a QUAGMIRE when we already won!! He blames the war on bankers and whoever, and not a word about blaming it on terrorists! listen yourself, Schiff repeats left wing talking points to his radio audience about the Iraq war!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo81QDSuixk

Peter Schiff has made open statements that are quite like the statements of the anti-war leftists, to include the OTHER Ron Paul endorsed candidates Rand Paul and Adam Kokesh

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=schiff+%2B+isolationist&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIC_enUS220US220&q=peter+schiff+isolationist

Peter Schiff is pro-choice on abortion

http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&newwindow=1&rlz=1T4GGIC_enUS220US220&q=Peter+schiff+%2B+abortion&aq=f&aqi=g-c1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

SCHIFF’S OWN WEBSITE CONTAINS AN ENDORSEMENT FOR KOKESH WHERE KOKESH IS NAMED AS AN ANTI-WAR PROTESTER
http://schiffforsenate.com/index.php?q=news/constitutional-candidates-congress
Adam Kokesh
Adam Kokesh is best known as an Iraq War veteran who returned opposed to the war and was a keynote speaker at Ron Paul’s “Rally for the Republic” that competed with the Republican National Convention in the summer of 2008.

Peter Schiff is pro-choice on abortion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDttx64zk4I

with respect to his personal feelings, he would not make it illegal, women have a right to abort, he is against 3rd trimester,

BUT FIRST TRIMESTR OR SECOND ONE ITS OKAY

Hear it in his own words

http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&newwindow=1&rlz=1T4GGIC_enUS220US220&q=Peter+schiff+%2B+abortion&aq=f&aqi=g-c1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

pro-immigration and said that there are too many jobs in the US we NEED to let in immigrants???

http://ameriborn.com/shifty/

This is SCHIFF in his own words!

video of Peter Schiff saying that LIBERTARIANS must infiltrate the Republican Party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ncLTFoTFa8&playnext_from=TL&videos=gKm7t4j9Wgc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ncLTFoTFa8

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1583738

This second link is the full 2 hours. You cant download it directly, I tried, but hey, you can record it! :)

Peter Schiff appears at a Rand Paul/Adam Kokesh/Peter Schiff fundraiser

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYwb_P-ssK0

Rand Paul, Adam Kokesh, Peter Schiff, and others holding a fundraiser at Webster Hall in New York.

http://www.randpaul2010.com/2009/08/rand-paul-at-webster-hall/

http://www.wallstreetstocks.net/rand-paul-adam-kokesh-peter-schiff-fundraiser

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYwb_P-ssK0&feature=player_embedded

http://www.randpaul2010.com
http://www.schiffforsenate.com
http://www.kokeshforcongress.com

Read it for yourself, folks, all three of these candidates are the type of people that this organization supports and even wants to send money to!

Peter Schiff for Senate Video Blog July 14 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlXqlz31SXk

Ron Paul, Adam Kokesh at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas July 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9oiTQD7Cms
Schiff attended this same conference hosted by Ron Paul and is in this video in the early part

Rand Paul amp Adam Kokesh Take Over The Interwebs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE9gVeykPAU

GOE Site for Adam Kokesh
http://americanpatriotsagainstkokesh.ning.com/

Adam Kokesh for Congress
http://www.kokeshforcongress.com/posts/whisper-campaigns

Ron Paul Supports Adam Kokesh
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=20098

This Aint Hell..re Oathkeepers..Adam Kokesh.
Note the connection between Oathkeepers & Ron Paul.
http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=14586

wow, what a totally bogus thing to say, especially when the person you just defended is a treason supporting LYING and PHONY republican who tells OTHERS to LIE about their affiliation, too!

And that make you a Patriot??

True Liberty is not license. Those who think as you, sir, pervert liberty, and destroy the fundamental principles that allow a culture to thrive economically. This is the error of libertarian philosophy.

What libertarianism proposes is moral relativism under the pretense of “non-interference.” However, in the final measure, the result is that guaranteed outcome of any morally ambiguous system, which denies human nature and the transcendent truths that govern all cause and effect relationships. In practice the imagined utopia of the libertarian is identical in its altruistic deception to that of atheistic communism; and the outcome is predictable: the destruction of the individual and the corporate body of humanity we call society.

Libertarians think they may advance the cause of “social liberalism” simultaneously with “fiscal conservatism;” but this duality of purpose is folly, and works diametrically and insidiously against itself. The social plagues induced by such novel philosophies invariably drain the public treasury, render the distinctions of absolute right and wrong to ambiguity, destroy public confidence in justice, and dissolve private wealth.

Human society does not and cannot exist in a moral vacuum. A society that having no absolute standards of conduct defers all decisions to the individual, exercising little or no restraint on behavior, abdicates the single most legitimate purpose of the state: to increase the common good and uphold the moral order. To quote Edmond Burke:

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

-— Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)

A corrupt society, filled with men of licentious inclinations, cannot maintain its economic stability; or do you suppose the folly of the Roman Republic is worth revisiting in our times? “Give us bread and circuses!”

Economics does not transcend moral absolutes. Economics does not trump the Natural Law. History proves conclusively that no immoral or amoral culture can long prosper, nor survive its growing litany of perversions against the Natural Law; for such a corrupt body becomes its own undoing. Unfettered liberty generates unfettered vice.

Vice is not virtue; even if for a time libertarianism may advance a nation’s economic standing, it remains a foundation of sand because it denies the absolute transcendent truth indelibly stamped on the consciousness of every man by He who created all things. God is not mocked.

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