I’m not sure that this is appropriate for “fun” on Friday. It’s more like sad on Friday. Or ironic on Friday. But I don’t have anything more fun, so I’m going to run with this.
As you may know, yesterday was Constitution Day. And you know what? The federal government can’t even get that right.
The Federal Reserve wrapped up another FOMC meeting this week. The central bank delivered pretty much what was expected. The easy money will continue to flow unabated. But it looks like what is expected is no longer enough. The addict wants even more of the monetary drug. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the Fed meeting and the market reaction.
Peter Schiff recently did a presentation at the Endeavour Silver Town Hall Webinar. He talked about the state of the economy, the US dollar, and gold and silver. Peter said he thinks we’re about to see a gold bull market rivaling the 1970s because the world is going to reject the dollar standard and go back to a gold standard.
If you go to McDonald’s, you expect to get a hamburger. If you go to KFC, you expect to get chicken. And if you go to the Federal Reserve, you expect to get easy money.
The Fed delivered exactly what you would expect at this month’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting that wrapped up Wednesday.
Every week, analysts and pundits pour over the latest weekly jobs report looking for signs of life. Every month, we dive into the monthly unemployment numbers hoping they signal economic recovery. But these unemployment numbers don’t tell the whole story.
The government economic shutdowns in response to the coronavirus pandemic have deeply wounded the economy in ways that won’t immediately show up in the numbers. In fact, they could leave scars on the economy that don’t fade for years.
Even as the fiscal 2020 budget deficit surged past $3 trillion, more than double the previous record deficit, US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin called for more federal spending, saying “now is not the time to worry about shrinking the deficit.” Of course, he wasn’t worried about shrinking the deficit before the pandemic either. Peter Schiff talked about the looming debt crisis during his podcast.
The Chinese are threatening to dump US Treasuries even as the federal government borrows money at a torrid rate. If the Chinese were to follow through, it could wreak havoc on the bond market and send interest rates surging despite the Federal Reserve’s best efforts to hold them down.
The federal government added another $200 billion-plus to the budget deficit in August, pushing the fiscal 2020 budget shortfall to over $3 trillion with one month still left in the fiscal year.
Uncle Sam continues to rack up enormous monthly budget deficits. The August shortfall came in at $200.1 billion, according to the Treasury Department’s Monthly Treasury Statement, pushing the fiscal 2020 budget shortfall to $3.01 trillion. That’s more than double the previous record deficit of 1.413 trillion set in FY 2009 at the height of the financial crisis.
Wildfires are raging out of control in western states doing millions of dollars in damage and disrupting countless lives. In a recent podcast, Peter Schiff said the Federal Reserve has set an even fiercer wildfire – inflation. And we are in danger of it burning out of control through the entire US economy.
Last month, the Federal Reserve moved its inflation goalposts. Is it setting us up for a return to the inflation of the 1970s?
During a speech at Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced new policy guidance for how it addresses price inflation. In the past, the central bank has targeted a 2% inflation rate as measured by CPI. Now it will shift to “average inflation targeting.” In practice, the Fed will allow the CPI to run “moderately” over 2% “for some time” to balance out periods where it runs under that level. In effect, the central bank now has an excuse to let inflation run hot.
