Peter Schiff’s Contrarian Take on China vs US

CNBC spoke with Peter Schiff last night about his expectations for today’s first quarter GDP announcement. They went on to discuss why no matter what the GDP is, the Federal Reserve will be unable to significantly raise interest rates this year. In a second segment, they spoke about the growth of China’s economy. Peter argues that long-term investors should be bailing on the US and buying into the budding Asian market.

Follow along with full transcripts of both videos below.

Transcript of first video:

“I don’t think [the GDP] is going to be much worse than is expected, but they’re already prepared to dismiss it. You have the Federal Reserve in San Francisco come out and say they’re going to double seasonally-adjust it anyway when they look at it. So people aren’t going to care, even if it’s negative 1 or greater. They’re going to say, ‘Ah, we’ll call it 1.8 or 2.’ They’re already excusing it. Meanwhile, I think the second quarter is also going to be very weak. How are they going to blame that on the weather? …

“Inventory is a part of it. That’s one of the things that goosed the GDP last year. You had a lot of businesses that bought into this recovery story. So they loaded up on inventory that they can’t sell, because their consumers are too broke to buy it, because their part-time paychecks don’t give them enough spending power. So yes, there is too much inventory. Also, we got a boost last year from Obamacare spending. But you know, if people are spending more money on healthcare, they have less money to spend on other things. So the economy is going to collapse beneath the weight of all these problems. The Fed, unfortunately, is going to rescue it with the same kind of toxic medicine that made it so sick in the first place, which is more quantitative easing…

“[The Fed should be raising interest rates], but they won’t be doing that. They’re just bluffing about rate hikes, because they want to pretend the economy is actually strong enough to withstand higher interest rates. But the economy is in a giant bubble, and if the Fed raises rates, they’re going to prick it. Is it possible they could do a trivial rate hike – one and done? Maybe, but I think that’s dangerous for the Fed, because the markets may react very strongly to that and they may be forced to back away very quickly and launch QE4 even sooner than if they don’t raise rates at all. But I think the Fed is just trying to talk the economy up. The Fed is trying to pretend its medicine works, even though the patient is sicker than ever.”

Transcript of second video:

“Look how much that [Shangai] market rose in such a short period of time. Nothing goes in a straight line. Obviously, you’re going to get volatility, you’re going to get corrections. Long term, I remain very constructive on both the economy in China and on the markets. For long term investors, I think it’s a good time to be buying stocks. That doesn’t mean it can’t go lower from here, but ultimately I believe the Chinese market will respond very favorably when the US ends up launching QE4…

“I’m a long-term buyer of Chinese names. We buy a lot of Chinese names through Hong Kong as well. I think that’s where you want to be as a long-term investor. There’s a lot of wealth being created in China, legitimate wealth. Are there problems? Sure. The problem is their currency is pegged to the dollar, and as a result of maintaining that peg, the central bank of China does a lot of foolish things. But I think the Fed is doing even more foolish things. I think ultimately the fundamentals in China are much better than they are in the United States…”

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