New Peter Schiff Interview: We’re Paying the Price for Deficits

Last week, Peter was interviewed on Speak Up with Anthony Scaramucci. In their conversation, they covered a wide range of important topics, including inflation, the fate of the dollar, and the trade-offs between gold and cryptocurrency. 

Peter’s longtime followers know that cheap credit and unending public debt have inevitable consequences. One key factor at play in America’s debt cycle is the incentive politicians have to continually accrue more debt:

“The politicians— they’re just concerned about postponing those consequences for as long as they can. They don’t really care ultimately what happens to the country. They’re more concerned about what happens to themselves in the moment— their political careers. … The reason that we have so much debt—and it’s now closer to 35 trillion than 34 trillion— is because we’ve been able to get away with borrowing it, and we’ve been able to do that in large part because we’ve had a complicit Fed that has monetized this debt.”

The fact that the economy has survived so long while addicted to debt is in part due to the entrepreneurs who drive economic growth:

“Technological advancement has been helping us all along. Imagine where we would be today if we had all of this debt but we had the technology of the 1960s or 1970s. If we hadn’t come up with all these advancements, it would’ve been even more difficult, and so everything would’ve probably collapsed even sooner. You have the ingenuity of individuals in a relatively capitalist economy innovating and producing and helping us to absorb all the damage that’s being done by government.”

The debt-ridden can is continually kicked down the road, all while the solutions to America’s economic woes get harder and harder to implement:

“Politicians tend to pick the poison that is the least damaging to themselves, and so I think they’ll always choose inflation and devaluation over deflation and default. Even though deflation and default is a healthier and better solution to the problems that we have, that’s not the choice that our leaders are going to make.”

Compounding the government’s debt problem is a long list of unsustainable entitlements that demand larger and larger deficits:

“There’s no money for these entitlements. They’re broke. Their social security is a Ponzi scheme, and [Biden] has to level with the public. The government never should’ve started Social Security. … Apart from it being unconstitutional, it is a Ponzi scheme, and the current generation is left holding the bag.”

Peter also gave his thoughts on recent antitrust news. With the DOJ taking aim at Apple, Peter recalls Blockbuster and General Motors, two so-called “monopolists” who quickly lost market share to better firms:

“I think the government has done a lot more harm than good by breaking up companies that it believed to be monopolies. They’re usually wrong! … They’re just trying to justify their existence. I just think that in a free market, let businesses operate. If Apple is overcharging its customers, it will lose its customers. Nobody forces me to use Apple products.”

Government regulation is typically what creates monopolistic firms in the first place:

“If you look at where you have the most monopoly power, where you have people getting ripped off, it’s where government has intervened and created a monopoly through government regulation, where the government comes in and outlaws competition and protects a particular business that is giving them a bunch of money. … It’s pure hypocrisy for the government to waste time and money going after Apple when the low hanging fruit is to just eliminate all the laws that it has already passed that are stifling competition and driving up prices.”

Antitrust laws are just part of the burden weighing down the economy. With each dollar the government spends, politicians and their cronies benefit at the expense of the everyday American:

“We have a 50% increase in government spending. Where’s that money coming from? It’s causing the inflation. All that spending is bidding up prices. … There is no free lunch! We’re paying for all of this government everytime we go to the grocery store, everytime you go to the gas station. Everytime you buy anything, you’re paying for these Biden deficits. And yes, we’re also paying for the Trump deficits and the Obama deficits and the Bush deficits. This has been going on regardless of who’s in power.”