Peter Schiff

The Dec. Chicago PMI crashed to 42.9, its lowest level in over 4 years. The survey has been in contraction for 7 consecutive months. Historically this has only happened during a recession. Yet it is happened now when we are being told that the U.S. economy is the strongest ever!

Joe Biden's attack on Bernie Sanders for not being a real Democrat will backfire by strengthening Sander's appeal as an outsider who can shake up Washington, despite his near 30 years in the U.S. Congress. The same strategy also backfired when used by Republicans against Trump.

Despite a record increase in the national debt, three rate cuts and a return to QE, GDP growth in 2019 was just 2.3%, the slowest of the Trump presidency. If this was all the fake GDP growth massive fiscal and monetary stimulus could buy, image the severity of the next recession!

The argument over whether the current Fed balance sheet expansion constitutes QE is pointless. QE was always just a euphemism for debt monetization. The Fed monetized debt in the past, its monetizing more debt in the present, and it will monetize even more debt in the future!

The Fed's low interest rate policy is forcing savers to save #gold rather than fiat, or to speculate in over-priced financial assets. The result is less savings available to finance capital investment. So the Fed's war on savings is also a war on economic growth and prosperity.

Powell basically said that losses suffered by savers are acceptable collateral damages because its low interest rate policy is good for debtors and homeowners. The Fed's message is clear -- never a saver be. Too bad savings is the seed corn for real economic growth. Buy gold!

Powell claims that the current balance sheet expansion is not QE, as it's different from the large-scale asset purchase program the Fed did in the past. Powell is correct about that. This asset purchase program is proceeding on a much larger scale. So maybe QE+ is a better name!

Powell said the Fed isn't satisfied with the cost of living rising by less than 2% per year. I wonder how much higher the cost of living must rise annually for the Fed to be satisfied? Of course, families would be more satisfied if their cost of living went down instead of up!

According to Powell too low inflation is bad because it causes interest rates to be too low. So, we need higher inflation to have higher interest rates. But it's the Fed that is holding interest rates down. If it wants higher rates don't create more inflation, just raise rates!