Peter Schiff and Megyn Kelly: “Putin’s Price Hike” Is a False Narrative

The Consumer Price Index hit 8.5% on an annualized basis in March, the highest level since 1981. In an attempt to get ahead of what everybody knew would be bad news, the Biden administration started blaming Russia for the big CPI before the data even came out. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “We expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s price hike.” The mainstream media quickly picked up that mantra. Peter Schiff appeared on the Megyn Kelly show and explained why this is a false narrative.

As Peter pointed out, we’ve been dealing with higher than expected inflation numbers for a long time.

All of last year, all of 2021, long before Putin invaded Ukraine, prices kept going up month after month, more than expected, and the Fed kept saying, ‘Don’t worry about it; it’s transitory. it’ll go away on its own.’ And in fact, the Fed was finally forced to reluctantly admit that inflation wasn’t transitory. And all this happened before Putin invaded Ukraine.”

Peter noted that if you are going to blame the invasion of Ukraine for some of the inflationary pressure, it’s not so much the invasion but the economic sanctions.

But I think neither is the culprit. It’s all the Federal Reserve and the US government. It’s Congress, it’s the Biden administration that has been spending money that it was not collecting in taxes. We were running record budget deficits and the Federal Reserve was monetizing those deficits. We were printing all this money and the government was spending it. We told people not to go to work, not to be productive. Don’t help make stuff. Don’t provide services. But here’s a bunch of money to go out and spend. We want you buying stuff even though you aren’t making stuff. And so we flooded the country with money at the same time the production of goods and services slowed down. And of course, prices went up. It’s not a surprise. It’s exactly what I was saying was going to happen when we first went down this misguided path. So, we’re simply reaping the whirlwind of the wind that we sowed.”

Megyn summed it up.

It’s just too much money chasing too few goods. And they just kept pushing money after money after money into the economy, and then finally found a scapegoat – Vladimir Putin.”

Peter pointed out the enormous trade deficit.

We’ve never had so much stuff coming into the country as we have right now. The problem is we printed even more money. And that’s why everybody is chasing all this stuff. The problem isn’t a lack of stuff. It’s a surplus of money. Because the government can print money, but they can’t print stuff. So, if they keep printing money, clearly, prices have to go up because there’s nothing to buy with the money they print.”

In this interview, Peter and Megyn also talk about why the Fed won’t be able to raise interest rates to fight inflation, what happens to the economy when inflation skyrockets, what’s going to happen the next time banks fail, and Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter.