Peter Schiff: It’s Not Putin or the Pandemic — It’s the Fed!

There is all kinds of spin out there when it comes to inflation. Peter Schiff recently appeared on News Nation to talk about the economy. He explained that the spin misses the mark. The real source of inflation isn’t the pandemic or Putin. It’s the Federal Reserve.

Peter said he thinks the Q1 GDP contraction will turn out to be the first quarter of this new recession.

This is going to be a very deep recession. It’s going to last for a long time. And it could be the worst recession anyone has experienced.”

Peter said inflation will make this recession particularly problematic.

Inflation is high and it’s going higher. So, you’re going to have the combination of a very weak economy in recession and high inflation getting worse. And inflation is going to complicate the severity of the recession and make it that much more difficult for average Americans to endure it.”

The host mentioned that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently conceded that the economy will likely face more shocks and challenges in the future. But she continues to insist the economy is strong overall. Peter said Yellen has a very poor understanding of the economy.

She had a poor understanding as Fed chairman, and before that, she had a poor understanding when she was a member of the FMOC. She was clueless about the financial crisis that was looming right around the horizon. And of course, she was jumping on the bandwagon more recently of inflation being ‘transitory’ when it clearly was not. So, she doesn’t really know very much about the economy. She’s just there to talk up the economy no matter how bad it looks. She’s going to put positive spin on it. But it’s a disaster.”

Peter pointed out the record trade deficit for April and reiterated the economy is a disaster.

The host pushed back a bit, saying there are some signs that the economy is OK. He pointed out that airlines have never been busier. Hotels are booked for the summer. That would seem to indicate consumers think things have the potential to be OK.

Peter conceded that some people still have hope. But it’s a false hope.

The Fed is printing a lot of money and the value of that money is going down. It’s going to crash eventually. It’s not about the consumer. It’s about the producer. And I just said we have the worst trade deficit in our history because our economy is not productive. What we’re doing is printing a lot of money and we’re spending that money to buy things that are made in other countries. So, it’s the rest of the world that’s being productive, not America. We’re being profligate. We’re just spending the money that the Federal Reserve prints out of thin air. But that’s inflation. That’s the source of the inflation. It’s not Putin. It’s not the pandemic. It’s the Federal Reserve. It’s the US government running record budget deficits being monetized by a Federal Reserve that’s printing all this money. The money is losing value. Prices are going up. The government is being dishonest about how much because the CPI grossly understates the degree a which prices are rising. Prices are rising at more than double the rate the government claims.”