Peter Schiff

The paper price of gold crashed to $1,325 in the wake of this huge trade. It is now hovering around $1,400. Our first reaction is to suggest that this is only an aberration, and that the fundamentals of the depreciating value of paper currencies will eventually take the price of gold much higher, making it a buying opportunity. But what we can't predict is whether big players might again deliver short-term downturns to the market. The momentum in the futures market can make swings surprisingly larger than the fundamentals of currency valuation would suggest; but the fundamentals will drive the long-term market more than these short-term events. The fight between pricing from the physical market for bullion and that from the "paper market" of futures is showing signs of discrimination and disagreement, as the physical market is booming, while prices set by futures are seemingly pressured to go nowhere. In short, we think this is a strong buying opportunity.

Getting a second passport is just part of a larger "permanent traveler" strategy. The ideal is to live in one place, have your citizenship in another, your banks and brokers in other jurisdictions, and your business dealings in yet others. That makes it very inconvenient for any one government to control you. You don't want all your eggs in one basket – that just makes it easier for them to grab them all. I understand it may not be easy for most people to structure their affairs that way. That's exactly why most serfs stayed serfs; it was hard and scary to think of anything other than what they were told they should do.

Based on the coming 'oil revolution', John Mauldin makes the point that the US can run $300-400 billion deficits and the Fed "can print trillions" and the dollar will surge (since the rest of the world demands it). Peter Schiff begins quietly adding that "we don't have that much oil" then goes on to discuss the 'ifs' in Mauldin's thesis, beginning the wildcard that "we can't suppress interest rates indefinitely" as we await this supposed oil export boom to begin - and that somehow the US is expected to generate a budget surplus when even the perpetually optimistic CBO in its most recent forecast gave up on expecting a surplus in the future of America. Ever. The ensuing 3 minutes or so is worth the price of admission as Dollar bull meets Dollar bear in a nose-dripping, face-ripping trip into the future.

If Peter Schiff is selling gold, then maybe you should too!

In just under 30 minutes, contrarian libertarians Peter Schiff and Doug Casey muse on many facets of the crumbling edifice of the status quo that is our current world. The conversation is wide-ranging and absolutely must-see as they remind market-watchers that "the whole thing is artificial." You can't just keep printing money and monetizing debt without the dollar imploding even with monetary policy descending (along with its trillion dollar coin) into 'Three Stooges'-like comedy. The conversation ranges from gold heading to $5,000 and beyond (and why) to Schiff's father's imprisonment but ends with a discussion of what the future brings: "the biggest change that is coming to the global economy is a realignment of global living standards," and that will not play well for the USA. It's hump-day, grab a beer and watch...

My colleague and erstwhile nemesis Gonzalo Lira posed the question above in a recent essay, and it is indeed a most puzzling one.  Given that the world’s central banks — joined most recently by a shockingly reckless Switzerland — are waging all-out economic war by inflating their currencies, shouldn’t gold be soaring?

That didn't take long, did it? I guess it's bullish when your most dangerous competitor catches up to you in customers BEFORE you've fully developed your business model or method of monetization, right???!!!

A douche bag is someone who lets you know who and what he is without any need of explanation: Mike Norman

What causes hyperinflations? The answer is: Quasi-fiscal deficits (A quasi-fiscal deficit is the deficit of a central bank)! Why have we not seen hyperinflation yet? Because we have not had quasi-fiscal deficits! Essentially, hyperinflation is the ultimate and most expensive bailout of a broken banking system, which every holder of the currency is forced to pay for in a losing proposition, for it inevitably ends in its final destruction. Hyperinflation is the vomit of economic systems: Just like any other vomit, it’s a very good thing, because we can all finally feel better. We have puked the rotten stuff out of the system.

From the government-induced structural unemployment malaise to the implosion of our entire 'artificial economy', Peter Schiff and Rick Santelli explore the dark side of monetary policy in this brief clip. On the Fed's new policy and potential exit strategy, Schiff notes that "the Fed is constructing goalposts so it never actually hits them; the Fed is never going to tighten." While Santelli tends to agree with Schiff on the eventual collapse of the USD under this never-ending Fed easing scenario, he notes that getting a fix on that USD weakness is hard given everyone is racing to debase. Schiff notes, oil prices, gold prices, food inflation, and real assets all send the signal that Bernanke chooses to ignore and on the topic of 'monetization' which Bernanke seemed so 'put off' by during the press conference last week, Sch-antelli both seemingly (obviously) conclude that the mere mention of an exit at some point in the future by the great and powerful Oz does not preclude the fact that 90% of current Treasury issuance ends up on the Fed's books... leaving the fact that selling any of this "would make 2008 look like a Sunday picnic."

Isn't it amazing that you can get more notoriety for showing your ass and a pretty smile than you can get for outing the scam of the decade through intellectual analysis? More money was lost through the Facebook scam IPO at $38 than Bernie Madoff could ever have pulled off.

As in any other Ponzi scheme, when the weakest link breaks, the chain breaks. The risk of such a break-up, applied to economics, is known as systemic risk or “correlation going to 1”. As the weakest link (i.e. the Euro zone) was coupled to the chain of the Fed, global systemic risk (or correlation) dropped. Apparently, those managing a correlation trade in IG9 (i.e. investment grade credit index series 9) for a well-known global bank did not understand this. But it would be misguided to conclude that the concept has now been understood, because there are too many analysts and fund managers who still interpret this coupling as a success at eliminating or decreasing tail risk. No such thing could be farther from the truth. What they call tail risk, namely the break-up of the Euro zone is not a “tail” risk. It is the logical consequence of the institutional structure of the European Monetary Union, which lacks fiscal union and a common balance sheet.... And to think that because corporations and banks in the Euro zone now have access to cheap US dollar funding, the recession will not bring defaults, will be a very costly mistake. Those potential defaults are not a tail risk either: If you tax a nation to death, destroy its capital markets, nourish its unemployment, condemn it to an expensive currency and give its corporations liquidity at stupidly low costs you can only expect one outcome: Defaults. The fact that they shall be addressed with even more US dollars coming from the Fed in no way justifies complacency.

How does Facebook's investor prospects look now, after a healthy dose of reality? Ha! Muppet Mania!!!!

On a regular basis we are placated by commercials to satisfy our craving to know which bathroom tissue is the most absorbent; debates 'infomercials' assuaging our fears over which vice-presidential candidate has the best dentist; and reality-shows that comfort our 'at least I am not as bad as...' need; there is an inescapable reality occurring right under our propagandized nose (as we noted here). Economic Reason has gathered together the Top 15 'reality' economic documentaries - so turn-on, tune-in, and drop-out of the mainstream for a few hours...

Perhaps no better example of the two camps of perspectives on the market's performance and the Fed's expectations was on display this afternoon on CNBC. In the 'we need some destructive asset clearing in order to get back to any sort of growth trajectory and the Fed is feeding an inflationary monster with its band-aid upon band-aid money-printing' camp is Peter Schiff; while the other side of the investing octagon is Ron Insana who sees a '100% rise in stocks as evidence of something and that the Fed must do something, anything in order that we avoid the reality under the surface of a deleveraging deflationary world economy'. We are not sure of the winner as the shouting became too much to bear - but nevertheless the vociferous nature of the two combatants (each proclaiming their #winning-ness) shows the bifurcated world in which we live.