I would probably have a hard time convincing you that the higher prices you’re paying at the grocery store and the gas pump are “good for you.” But there are people out there making that claim.
We know that the Federal Reserve pushes interest rates artificially low by manipulating the federal funds rate (the target interest rate that commercial banks borrow and lend their excess reserves to each other) and using monetary policy maneuvers such as quantitative easing. But could we have low interest rates without Fed intervention? In this clip, Peter Schiff explains the difference between artificially and naturally low interest rates and how the Fed messes up the economy with its intervention.
Incentives matter. All of the political grandstanding, media spin and wishful thinking won’t change this basic economic principle.
Both Janet Yellen and Joe Biden insisted “enhanced” unemployment benefits weren’t incentivizing people not to work. But as we recently reported, analysis of continuing unemployment claims after a number of red states cut enhanced benefits undermined this narrative. Now a study by Mercatus Center economists Michael Farren and Christopher M. Kaiser further destroys the ludicrous notion that paying people not to work won’t result in fewer people working.
Both Janet Yellen and Joe Biden insisted “enhanced” unemployment benefits weren’t incentivizing people not to work. The numbers prove them wrong.
Labor day is a weird holiday. We celebrate working people by — not working.
If labor is so great, shouldn’t we celebrate by doing more of it?
During a Q&A with students and teachers, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell praised the bad economics that drove the government response to the coronavirus pandemic. In this clip from his podcast, Peter Schiff breaks down everything Powell got wrong.
During the Zoom event, Powell went out of his way to praise Congress for passing the “CARES Act.” The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act was the first $2.2 trillion stimulus plan Congress passed in response to the pandemic back in March 2020.
Economics 101 – incentives matter.
But politicians often seem to forget this. Or simply ignore it. “Generous” unemployment benefits provide the perfect example. With the US government handing out enhanced unemployment checks, we ended up in a bizarre situation with high unemployment even as job openings hit record levels.
Mainstream pundits sometimes accuse Peter Schiff of being a “stopped clock.” They admit he’s right occasionally, but only by virtue of sticking to the same narrative, talking about the malinvestments and misallocations in the economy and warning about an impending crisis. In this clip from his podcast, Peter said it’s the mainstream regulars on financial networks like CNBC who are the real stopped clocks.
Earlier this week, a federal court threw out an antitrust case against Facebook. The lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission, along with 48 state governors, sought to force Facebook to divest itself of WhatsApp and Instagram, but the court said the FTC failed to prove that Facebook holds monopoly power. In his podcast, Peter Schiff said whatever problems Facebook may present, the only monopolies we should really be afraid of are the government-protected monopolies.
A guy made a comment about my article highlighting Chipotle’s recent decision to raise menu prices in order to cover some of the cost of higher wages, pointing out that the CEO made some $38 million last year, noting “I doubt he needs it.”
The first thought that popped into my head was, ‘how exactly do you know what Brian Niccol needs?’ My second thought was, ‘what does that have to do with anything?’ And my third thought was ‘dude, you don’t have a clue how business works.’
