Peter Schiff has been saying that the Federal Reserve is going to take interest rates back to zero and launch another round of quantitative easing in order to reinflate the bubble economy after the next crash. The central bank successfully pulled this off after the 2008 crisis. By dropping rates to zero and holding them there for nearly a decade, and running three rounds of QE, the Fed has reinflated the real estate bubble, blown up a bond bubble and pumped up the stock market. But Peter said it’s not going to work the next time around. Instead, Fed monetary policy will tank the dollar and lead to an inflationary recession.
So, why can’t the Fed pull off another rescue? Peter explained why he thinks it’s not possible during an interview on the Tom Woods Show.
In a move “Bond King” Jeffrey Gundlach said could be a prelude to the next round of quantitative easing, the New York Fed conducted a repurchase operation involving about $53 billion in debt instruments on Tuesday. The move to designed to unplug the financial system’s “plumbing” with an injection of cash was the first such move since the financial crisis a decade ago.
The purchases involved about $40.8 billion of Treasurys, $11.7 billion in mortgage-backed securities and $600 million in agency debt, according to a CNBC report. The move was prompted by the recent surge in interest rates that drove the overnight repo rate Monday to as high as 8.5%.
The New York Fed was expected to repeat the operation on Wednesday.
Former Reagan administration OMB Director David Stockman has called this the “mother of all bond bubbles.” Has that bubble popped? That remains to be seen, but bonds got hammered last week.
Bonds have pretty much moved in tandem with gold over the last several weeks as perceived safe-haven trades. Peter Schiff talked about it in his latest podcast, saying he thinks the bond market is eventually going to decouple from gold.
Americans continue to drive the economy along spending money they don’t have. Consumer debt increased yet again in July, setting another record, according to the latest data released by the Federal Reserve.
Total consumer debt surged $23.4 billion in July, driven by a huge jump in credit card balances. The big rise in consumer indebtedness took analysts by surprise. Bloomberg said the increase “exceeded all estimates” in a survey of economists. Overall, consumer debt increased by an annual rate of 6.8% after a 4% increase the previous month.
We’ve written extensively about a push toward de-dollarization by countries like Russia and China and their desire to undermine the ability of the US to weaponize the dollar as a foreign policy tool. The global gold rush on the part of central banks is part of this movement.
And it’s not just countries like Russia and China. As fund manager Ronald-Peter Stöferle wrote in an article for the Mises Wire, Europe as also joined the de-dollarization party.
The federal government continues to spend money at an insane rate and is running up budget deficits reminiscent of the Great Recession era.
With one month left to go, the federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2019 eclipsed $1 trillion in August, according to Treasury Department data released last Thursday.
It’s Friday the 13th!
You know what? It already seems lucky to me. Heck, it’s Friday. That’s a pretty good start!
I’ve never been one to get all torqued up about the number 13 anyway. In fact, I kind of like it. My preferred hockey number is 33 in honor of Patrick Roy and just because it has nice symmetry. But if it’s not available, I’ll go with 13. Why not mock the number gods, right?
The price of gold whipsawed this week, driven up and down by various headlines. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey covers some of the big news that moved the markets. But he said that we need to keep our eyes on the big picture. All of this is happening in front of a backdrop of surging debt driven by central bank policy. How much do we owe and what does it mean for the future? Mike talks about it.
Donald Trump has been badgering Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for months, begging for lower interest rates. Yesterday, he took things to another level, saying that the “boneheads” at the Fed need to push rates into negative territory.
In his podcast, Peter Schiff said negative interest rates are boneheaded.
Corporations are piling on the debt.
Last week, companies borrowed $74 billion in the US investment-grade bond market. It was the largest corporate debt increase for any comparable period since they started tracking such things in 1972.
