Joe Biden might be confident in the US economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell might be confident about the US economy. But the average American? Not so much.
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell for the second straight month in February, dropping from a downwardly revised 106.0 in January to 102.9.
There has been a lot of talk about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The powers that be sell CBDCs on the promise of convenience and security. But in reality, they are part of a broader “war on cash” and a push to give governments even more control and power over you and me. Digital currencies could allow governments to track and even control everybody’s spending.
But some state legislators are pushing back against CBDCs and working to implement laws to protect people in their state from this excessive federal government control.
Peter Schiff appeared on Greg Hunter’s USA Watchdog.com show to talk about inflation and the economy. Peter didn’t paint a rosy picture, explaining that the Federal Reserve is ultimately going to throw in the towel on the inflation fight in order to fight something much worse – economic collapse.
The markets basically shrugged off the hotter-than-expected inflation data for January. Most people remain convinced that the Fed can easily get price inflation back to 2% without wrecking the economy. But in his podcast, Peter explains that stuffing that inflation genie back into the bottle is a lot harder than most people seem to think.
Gold deliveries in February came in quite low for a major month, totaling only 15,055. This is the lowest month going back to February 2020 (pre-Covid). The chart below shows the big spike in deliveries seen after Covid started. While the current month is still above any pre-Covid month, it is small when compared to some of the major delivery months seen recently.
The Federal Reserve came close but still fell short of its $95 billion per month balance sheet reduction target through the last full week in February. This means the Fed has fallen short in 8 of the last 9 months.
And with rising interest rates coupled with even this modest balance sheet reduction, the Fed is also bleeding money.
Why should you own gold in your investment portfolio? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about some reasons to own gold, including its historical wealth-preserving qualities and its role as a safe haven. He also talks about a new buzzword central bankers and politicians are using to make inflation seem less bad.
Any suggestion of returning the monetary system to a gold standard is immediately met with howls of protest. “It’s impossible!” were told.
But Bettina Bien Greaves who was a translator, editor, and bibliographer for economist Ludwig von Mises’ works argues that there is no practical reason we couldn’t return to a gold standard. The objections are almost all ideological. “If this basic obstacle could be overcome, however, a return to gold money would become a realistic possibility,” she wrote.
Retail sales surged in January, creating the impression that the economy is humming along nicely. After all, there can’t be a problem if consumers are out there consuming, right?
But a lot of people are ignoring a key question: how are people paying for this shopping spree?
The data over the last several months has been spot on in predicting the moves in gold and silver. November showed the market was in neutral, but then the December analysis correctly identified an impending move upward, and the January review concluded that gold may need a breather before moving higher.
So, what about this month?
