Peter’s Blog

The Federal Reserve wrapped up its April meeting yesterday. Again, there were no changes in actual policy, leaving everybody to try to parse out meaning from the FOMC’s statement and Jerome Powell’s post-meeting press conference. When you boil it all down, it was pretty much the same song and dance from  Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome […]

Through the first six months of fiscal 2021, the US government ran a record $1.7 trillion budget deficit. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this is sustainable – for now. During a webinar sponsored by the Economic Club of Washington DC, Powell said the economy can handle the current debt load. But he did warn […]

Prices are going up. The Federal Reserve is printing money at an unprecedented rate. The US government continues to borrow and spend at a torrid pace. As Peter Schiff put it in a recent podcast, we’re adrift in a sea of inflation. Gold is supposed to be an inflation hedge. So, why isn’t the price […]

On Wednesday, the House gave final approval to coronavirus stimulus bill 3.0. For those keeping score at home, that brings total stimulus spending approved during the pandemic to $5 trillion. So, what exactly is all of this money going to be spent on? And who is going to pay for it?

Bond yields spiked. The stock market threw a tantrum. Reuters analyst Dhara Ranasinghe called it “a tussle over borrowing costs.” The Fed won round 1, thanks to a little help from the Aussies. But even the mainstream seems to have noticed that this wrestling match isn’t over and the Fed may be forced to take […]

Talk of hiking the minimum wage at the national level has ramped up in recent weeks. With the Democrats controlling the House and the Senate, and Joe Biden in the White House, it seems increasingly likely that we’ll soon see a federal $15 per hour minimum. In other words, it may soon be illegal to […]

The tale of GameStop has much more to say about the current state of investing.” The central idea in the classic Mel Brooks comedy “The Producers” is that unscrupulous Broadway impresarios could succeed fabulously by creating a play so uniquely awful that it would close on its first day.  Their idea was to oversubscribe shares […]

If you’re following the markets at all, you know that the price of GameStop stock skyrocketed this week. As the story goes, it was primarily driven up by retail investors on platforms such as Robinhood, and pushed by social media posts, particularly on Reddit. Now, these so-called Reddit-Raiders have set their eyes on silver.

This year will mark the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon severing America – and the world – from its last tie to the gold standard. The rapid devaluing of the dollar is the most obvious result. But another consequence has been an enormous national debt that continues to grow at a staggering pace. Most […]

During testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Treasury Secretary-nominee Janet Yellen talked out of both sides of her mouth. She acknowledged that too much debt is problematic, but in the same sentence, insisted we need to “act big” to rescue the economy.