What If Oil Is Just the First of Many Bubbles? (Video)

Peter Schiff appeared on Fox Business to explain why the bursting of the oil sector bubble could be the first of many collapsing bubbles that will push the United States economy back into recession.

Highlights from Peter’s interview:

“Long term, of course [lower oil prices are a good thing]… Contrary to what the central bankers and the economists are telling us, it’s always a good thing when consumer prices fall. Even Janet Yellen acknowledged the benefit of lower gas prices. Well, the same thing applies to all prices. But here’s the problem… If the Fed really does raise interest rates (and I don’t really think that they’re going to)… and the oil price stays at these levels or goes lower – as previous guests just mentioned, maybe $40 – all of the activity in the oil sector for the past several years is going to turn out to have been a bubble. And the lay-offs that we’re going to get in the short run, the credit losses, and the capital expending declines will be significant enough – in the short run – to push the US economy back into recession. I think it’s a bigger impact than the bursting of the dot-come bubble, and that brought us into a recession back in 2001…

“Most of the good jobs that have been created over the last few years were created in that [oil] sector. So these jobs are now at risk. I think this is somewhere between the dot-com and the housing bubble. I think it’s bigger than dot-com, smaller than housing, but there were positive effects from falling home prices. It made it cheaper for people to buy houses. But there was a lot of debt that was accumulated and a lot of lay-offs in the sector. So we’re looking at the same possibilities in the oil sector. But here’s a bigger question to ponder. If it turns out that oil was just a bubble created by cheap money, what about the stock market? What about the housing market? What about the bond market? What if they’re all bubbles? What if the oil bubble is just the first of many bubbles that are going to pop? We have much bigger problems there…

“I think the bigger problem [than a surplus] is where is the global demand? I think the demand is contracting. It’s because economies are slowing down, and I think this is going to include the United States…

“If I were bullish, if I thought we had a legitimate recovery, which I do not, I would still have to be worried about that recovery being derailed by a collapse in the oil sector. Because that has been the brightest spot in the US economy. If we extinguish that light, what is going to take its place? Where are we going to get the high-paying jobs to replace the jobs that we’re losing in the oil sector?”

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