Peter David Schiff / b. 1963 / Connecticut, USA / Stock Broker, Financial Commentator, Author
China
The real bubble in China is in US Treasuries, in US dollars.
Schiff, hosting Wall Street Unspun, March 3, 2010.
. . . it is precisely because it is not a democracy that China will likely be so successful…What is of vital importance for economic success is economic freedom, meaning the protection of private property, the rule of law, and minimal regulation and taxation, not the right to vote.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
Consumer Credit
. . . consumer credit does little to increase consumption. All it accomplishes is to pull forward future consumption into the present (while generating a fee for the banker). This is like giving yourself a blood transfusion from your left arm to your right. Nothing is accomplished, except the possibility of spilling blood on the floor. But it’s not even that benign.
Schiff, “Debt is No Salvation,” BusinessInsider.com, August 4, 2014.
Currency Debasement
While we’ve been buying time, things have gone from bad to worse. We have debased our currency so much it is already beyond control. We just haven’t felt the full impact yet because we have had massive artificial support from abroad.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
Inflation is the unhappy result of our monetary mismanagement and the ultimate cause of the coming economic collapse.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
. . . the reason the federal government wasn’t given that power [to create paper money or issue bills of credit] was because the framers didn’t want it to have the power to create inflation. They had just experienced it firsthand with the Continental dollar, which ended up being worth around 10 cents and gave rise to the expression “not worth a Continental.”
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
Economics
Nobody is entitled to someone else’s money, that is the bottom line. People think they are entitled to it because they think they paid into it, nobody paid into anything, it was a fraud. Every single dollar that the gov collected in social security taxes, has already been spent, there is nothing there, there is no money, so the only money the government gets to make current payment is the money it can take from people who are still working. It’s a transfer from the working poor in many cases to the retired rich. We don’t have the money, I feel bad for the fact people made promises we can’t keep, I feel bad for the people that invested with Bernie Madoff and lost their money, but it’s the same principle, it’s the same Ponzi scheme. We have to put an end to it, we have to find real solution to these problems because if we keep on denying that they exist and keep on spending money, we’re going to destroy the value of everyone’s benefits.
Schiff’s remarks, Republican Town Committee (RTC), Avon, Connecticut, May 10, 2010.
What America has succeeded in creating is not an economy impervious to shocks, but merely one which enables their consequences to be postponed to a later date.
Reported in “US shoppers spend as savings fall,” BBC News website, September 1, 2005.
. . . it is the natural tendency of market economies to lower prices that makes them so successful.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
Real economic growth emanates from increased productivity, which tends to hold prices down.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
Legitimate economic expansions, financed by actual savings, do not need busts. It is only the inflation-induced varieties that sow the seeds of their own destruction.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
It is a common misconception that low wages are the main factor influencing prices. The reality is that low capital costs, and the absence of taxation and regulation, are far more important.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
Forecasting the 2008 Financial Collapse
By historical standards and given the gloomy corporate profits outlook in an environment of high corporate debt and rising interest rates, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is considerably overvalued at late-2006 levels and should be avoided. I say that, even setting aside the imminent prospect of a collapsed dollar and the recession and hyperinflation that would accompany it.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
In the perspective of previous bear markets, notably those of the 1930s and the 1970s, the prospects look even worse. Economic conditions now are as bad as or worse than what existed then.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
Government
There are no checks and balances if the gov is wrong. If a private entrepreneur makes a mistake, he goes bankrupt, the losses are cut, if he bets wrong, he loses. If the gov bets wrong, they just get bigger, they just appropriate more money; it’s a bottomless pit, because they either get it from the tax payers or run it off a printing press.
Authors@Google: Peter Schiff, YouTube, April 2, 2009.
When private industry makes a mistake, it gets corrected and goes away. As governments make mistakes, it gets bigger, bigger and bigger and they make more, more and more because as they run out of money, they just ask for more and so they get rewarded for making mistakes. In the meantime that is exactly what we are doing by subsidizing companies which are failing, we have a reverse Darwinism, we’ve got survival of the unfittest, the companies and people that have made terrible mistakes are being rewarded and other people are being punished and being taxed.
Authors@Google: Peter Schiff, YouTube, April 2, 2009.
Paying attention to the CPI and the others is like leaving your house on a rainy day without carrying an umbrella because a government weather report told you it was sunny.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
The process of dumbing people down so they’ll buy official figures showing inflation “under control” at levels of 1 to 2 percent or so (when it is actually more like 8 to 9 percent) is actually a fairly recent development.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
Think about all the rules and regulations American businesses have to deal with. How can we compete with nations that don’t impose those excessive burdens? Does anyone think that the United States could ever have become a great power with all the rules, regulations, and taxation that exist today?
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
Money
The Founding Fathers, those who wrote the Constitution and founded the American Republic, they understood the benefits of sound money and the evils of paper money. They’ve put America on a gold standard from the very birth of the republic and we should heed their wise—they were very learned men. I think they were much more educated and understanding about economics then the people who lead the U.S. today. So, to try to suggest that we will have less robust economy if we went back to gold standard—mostly, that’s propaganda from Central Bankers and politicians, who want to scare us from going back to something that works, because when you go back to free market, the politicians and bankers will lose their power, and they want to maintain their power by scaring people into thinking that if we just go back to freedom and market forces, that’s somehow is going to be bad and we have to surrender our freedoms to politicians and bankers because they know much better than the market. They can define the proper rate of interest and they can manage the money supplier, centrally planning the economy, and it’s going to be more effective than free market capitalism—and that is just not the case.
Reported by Sophie Shevarnadze in “Blind faith in dollar will lead world to financial Armageddon—leading financial analyst,” RT.com, September 26, 2014.
Schiff’s 2010 Senate Campaign
Too many people in Connecticut are struggling right now, and the last thing we need is meddling politicians making things worse. Only by cutting deficit spending, reducing burdensome regulations, and letting people keep more of their hard-earned dollars will we get our economy back on track.
Reported by Daniela Altimari, “Peter Schiff criticizes Chris Dodd’s plan to overhaul financial regulators,” Capitol Watch blog, Hartford Courant, September 22, 2009.
Transferring regulatory authority from one unaccountable agency to another will not solve any problems.
Reported by Daniela Altimari, “Peter Schiff criticizes Chris Dodd’s plan to overhaul financial regulators,” Capitol Watch blog, Hartford Courant, September 22, 2009.
I think most Connecticut voters know that we need fewer czars in Washington, not more. As long as Fannie and Freddie and Congress are meddling with the economy, changing the structure of the regulators is basically rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Reported by Daniela Altimari, “Peter Schiff criticizes Chris Dodd’s plan to overhaul financial regulators,” Capitol Watch blog, Hartford Courant, September 22, 2009.
I’m interrupting my career. It’s not like I want my new career in politics. But I’m willing to interrupt it the same way that somebody interrupted their career and joined World War II and went off to fight the Nazis. I don’t think that I’m that heroic, and I don’t think I’m risking as much as a soldier. But it’s the same principle.
Interview with Frank Ahrens, “Peter Schiff: Hard-Core Free-Marketeer,” Outlook and Opinions, washingtonpost.com, October 4, 2009.
Stock Market
Non-dividend-paying growth stocks can be attractive but should be viewed as speculation rather than investing.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
If Enron had been forced to pay cash dividends, it could never have pulled that caper off!
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
It can be argued that the U.S. brokerage and investment banking industry has transformed the modern American stock market into nothing more than a mechanism for transferring wealth from shareholders to management.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
If you think mutual funds aren’t a flagrant enough example of conflict of interest, try hedge funds.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).
Trade
Borrowing to build factories is not the economic equivalent of borrowing to buy television sets, and it’s amazing just how few modern economists can see the difference…Borrowing to produce is the way poor countries become rich. Borrowing to consume is the way rich countries become poor. A vivid example of the latter is the stream of container ships unloading at U.S. ports and going back empty because we have nothing to ship.
Peter D. Schiff, with John Downes, Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse (2007).