After the August CPI report showed price inflation heating up again thanks to rising gasoline prices, Peter Schiff appeared with Jesse Kelly on First TV to answer the question: where are we heading? Peter said this story is going to have a tragic ending.
As evidence mounts that the major Western economies are heading into a banking and monetary crisis due to contracting credit, we face the consequences of unsound money. The era of fiat is drawing to a close and its death will be painful for the highly indebted advanced economies in North America, Europe, and Japan. History and legal precedent tell us that fiat will die and gold will return to provide an anchor to credit system values.
There is a growing consensus that the Federal Reserve can slay price inflation while guiding the economy to a “soft landing.” In fact, Fed economists now project the US economy will not spin into a recession. Other mainstream pundits and prognosticators have taken up this narrative. But there are plenty of reasons to doubt it.
Since price inflation took off in the wake of pandemic-era stimulus, Americans have blown through their savings and run up their credit cards to make ends meet. Now they’re starting to have a hard time paying those credit card bills.
The number of Americans rolling credit card debt from month to month is now higher than the number of people paying their bills in full for the first time ever.
There is a growing consensus that the Federal Reserve can successfully slay price inflation and bring the economy to a soft landing. After all, the economy appears to be chugging along. But as Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey explains, there are a lot of things bubbling under the surface that should temper that optimism. In fact, what we’re seeing today looks a lot like 2007.
Credit cards are great until the bill comes due. And the US economy has about maxed out the plastic. The Federal Reserve incentivized borrowing and the economy is buried under trillions of dollars in debt. As Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey explains in this episode, the bill is about to come due. He also goes over the July CPI data and digs into some of the ramifications.
After the Federal Reserve incentivized borrowing with more than a decade of artificially low interest rates and easy money, the debt chickens are coming home to roost.
Last week, Fitch Ratings downgraded the US’s long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+, and on Monday, Moody’s cut the credit rating of 10 small and midsize banks.
The number of corporate debt defaults in 2023 has already exceeded the total number of defaults last year.
According to data from Moody Investment Services, 55 American-based companies defaulted on loans through the first half of 2023. That was a 53% increase over the total number of defaults in 2022.
In a recent podcast, Peter Schiff warned that we could be on the verge of a further breakdown in the bond market and that a bear market in bonds could also maul US stocks and the dollar.
Financial commentator and investment guru Jim Grant has similar concerns. In a recent interview on Odd Lots Podcast, Grant said he thinks we’re at the beginning of a long-term trend of a weak bond market with higher interest rates that could last decades.
Americans continued to run up credit card debt in May, but borrowing for big-ticket items tanked. This could indicate that cash-strapped, over-leveraged consumers are reaching the end of the rope.
American consumers borrowed another $7.2 billion in May, increasing total consumer debt to a record $4.865 trillion, according to the latest data released by the Federal Reserve.