A lot of pundits and analysts insist inflation isn’t a problem because the bond market isn’t signaling any inflation concerns. But in his podcast, Peter Schiff argues that you can’t rely on this bond market to tell you anything. The bond market is broken, thanks to the Federal Reserve. It’s rigged and it’s sending false signals.
Demand for silver jewelry is expected to rebound sharply in 2021, according to a report released by the Silver Institute.
The COVID-19 pandemic crushed silver jewelry demand this year. The economic slowdown, coupled with record silver prices in India and higher US dollar prices, is expected to drive a 23% decline in silver jewelry demand in 2020. But the Silver Institute report anticipates a bounceback in 2021, with a projected 13% recovery even with the expectation of higher silver prices.
When unemployment began to quickly shrink over the summer as governments loosened up on the economic lockdowns in response to COVID-19, everybody got giddy and assumed we were in for a quick recovery. But we’ve been saying that the quick turnaround was an illusion and that the lockdowns caused deep wounds in the labor market. The numbers are starting to hint at this reality.
A lot of people have a vague sense that too much inflation might be a bad thing. But in a world where central banks and governments promote and implement policies intended to increase inflation by 2% annually, most people don’t seem to really understand just how much inflation erodes their purchasing power over time. After all, 2% doesn’t sound like a lot.
But you have to remember that this decrease in the value of your money compounds over time and it ultimately devastates savers and those on fixed incomes. Looking at Social Security benefits drives this reality home.
The US dollar has been showing significant weakness over the last several weeks. The dollar index closed at 90.814. Just two weeks ago, it was in the 94 range. Compared to the Swiss franc, the dollar is at a 6-year low. In his podcast, Peter talked about the dollar weakness and the Federal Reserve policy that’s causing it. The crazy thing about the rising inflation expectation is that the Fed appears poised to try to fight it with even more inflation.
After a dismal November, gold and silver are starting to show some signs of life. But what caused the big drop in the price of precious metals last month? Was it warranted? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey looks at the economic and monetary fundamentals and tries to bring us back to reality. He argues that despite the optimism about a coronavirus vaccine, nothing will fundamentally change.
After two months of net global declines in gold holdings, central banks became net buyers again in October.
Gold-buying by central banks has slowed from the record pace we saw in 2018 and 2019, but many countries continue to load up on the yellow metal. In October, central banks added a net 22.8 tons of gold to their reserves, according to the latest data compiled by the World Gold Council.
The money supply continues to grow at a torrid rate.
Based on the “true” or Rothbard-Salerno money supply measure (TMS), the money supply grew by 37.08% year-on-year in October. That was down just slightly from September’s record rate of 37.54%.
The US government is increasingly relying on the Federal Reserve to prop up the Treasury market and absorb the trillions of dollars in bonds it’s issuing in order to fund its massive budget deficits. The Fed now holds a record 16.5% of US debt. And it’s going to have to buy trillions of dollars of additional Treasuries in 2021 to keep pace with government borrowing.
In other words, there is no end in sight to quantitative easing. In fact, the central bank will have to double its scheduled monthly QE in 2021 to catch up to where it was in 2020.
The stock market is booming as everybody anticipates an end to the coronavirus pandemic with the rollout of a vaccine. But as Peter Schiff pointed out in this podcast, the rally isn’t really about a cure for COVID. It is being driven by government and central bank policies meant to shield us from the pain of the pandemic. The problem is this government “help” really isn’t helping. In fact, it’s made a bad situation much worse.
