The US middle class continues to shrink, squeezed by government policy and an ever-increasing burden of debt.
According to a recent Pew Research report, the majority of American adults no longer are part of the middle class.
The middle class accounted to 61% of the population in 1971. The most recent figures put the middle class at just below 50%, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times:
Pew defined middle class as households earning two-thirds to twice the overall median income, after adjusting for household size. A family of three, for example, would be considered middle income if its total annual income ranged from about $42,000 to $126,000. Pew analyzed data from the Census Bureau and the Labor Department, as well as the Federal Reserve.”
The Federal Reserve made its much-anticipated move yesterday, nudging up the key interest rate by a quarter point.
Peter Schiff did an interview with The Hard Line on Newsmax TV a short time later, reiterating what he was saying before the Fed’s announcement – the rate hike does not indicate confidence in the US economy.
In fact, Peter argued the economy is about to enter into another recession, and may in fact already be in the early stages of a downturn:
The Fed appears to be skipping merrily toward an interest rate hike this afternoon, which is supposed to signal that the US economy has recovered. But as Peter Schiff has been pointing out relentlessly on his Facebook page, the actual economic data tells a completely different story. In fact, the economy isn’t nearly as good as advertised.
This is precisely why Peter and many other economists say they don’t think interest rates will stay above zero for very long, even if the Fed does indeed go forward with a hike.
Here are just a few of the warning signs over the last week or so.
Austria has started acting on its plan to repatriate a big chunk of its gold reserves.
Last week, the Austrian National Bank announced it brought 15 tons of gold back into the country. According to Reuters, a spokesman said the bank began repatriating the gold from London in October:
The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee will kick off its December meeting Tuesday. Most pundits seem to think the Fed will raise the benchmark short-term interest rate from near zero to 0.25 on Wednesday. But many economists agree with Peter Schiff that even if the Fed ticks the rate up this week, it won’t stick.
We tend to think of economic crises as relatively rare, isolated events like the Great Depression or the 2008 meltdown. But in truth, they are pretty common. They’ve been happening for thousands of years, and few generations escape them.
This fascinating video by HowMuch graphically illustrates the history of economic crises.
If you want to be ridiculed by mainstream pundits, economists, and financial analysts, just bring up the gold standard.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz got the full treatment after a recent GOP debate when he had the audacity to suggest, “I think the Fed should get out of the business of trying to juice our economy, and simply be focused on sound money and monetary stability, ideally tied to gold.”
Cruz’s passing references to the gold standard led to howls of protest. Based on the hue and cry, you’d think the Texas senator had suggested the earth was flat.
US Mint set a new record for American Silver Eagle bullion coins this year.
The mint sold over 44,850,000 ounces of American Silver Eagles, topping the previous record of 44,006,000 ounces set last year. Analysts expect the final sales total for 2015 to come in between 45 and 47 million ounces.
While analysts and investors debate the latest jobs report, or obsess over the most recent Federal Reserve announcement, it’s easy to overlook the basic fundamentals of the gold market. With that in mind, consider this recent news: one of the world’s top gold producers says market dynamics may well lead to shrinking gold supplies in the future.
Randgold Resources Ltd. CEO Mark Bristow told Bloomberg that half the gold mined today is not viable at current prices. In other words, many mines aren’t even hitting their break-even point on half of the gold they dig out of the ground. That means new supplies of gold could begin to dry up in the near future.
Asian countries are not only buying up gold, they also have a huge appetite for silver.
Chinese imports of the white metal are on a record-breaking pace this year, driven partly by strong demand for jewelry and industrial applications such as solar panels.
According to the Wall Street Journal, based on the current trend, Chinese silver imports will top 3,000 tons in 2016, making it the best year since 2011:
