The September Consumer Price Index (CPI) data came out on Thursday. Once again, it was “hotter than expected,” despite the Federal Reserve hiking rates by over 3% since March. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey breaks down the CPI data in the context of the Fed’s inflation fight and concludes “this is what losing looks like.”
On the surface, the September job numbers looked pretty good. The economy continues to add jobs and the unemployment rate fell. But these headline numbers paper over underlying problems in the economy.
While President Biden brags about job growth, the average American is working more just to maintain last year’s standard of living.
It’s easy to look back over the post-pandemic era and say the Federal Reserve stayed too loose for too long in the face of rising CPI. For months, the central bank ignored the inflation problem, claiming it was transitory. But as Peter Schiff pointed out in a podcast, the loose money problem isn’t anything new. It’s been going on for decades.
Some people in the mainstream have been talking about gold’s demise as an important financial asset. Meanwhile, central banks continue to buy gold. What are the gold naysayers missing? Peter Schiff appeared on Fox Business with Charles Payne to talk about the price of gold and why some investors are starting to realize they’ll need gold as the Fed loses its inflation fight.
Last week, the Bank of England threw in the towel on its inflation fight and launched a quantitative easing program. Why? Because something broke in the UK financial system. That led to a rally in stocks and precious metals this week as many in the US realized the Fed might be closer to a pivot than previously thought. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about why he thinks something is going to eventually break in the US economy.
“I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country than to be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability to ever discharge.” – Brutus
Well, here we are.
On Monday, the US national debt eclipsed $31 trillion for the first time in history.
Is now the time to buy gold? Or should we be bearish on the precious metal? Peter Schiff debated TD Securities Global Head of Commodity Markets Strategy Bart Melek on the future of gold prices on CNBC Asia.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) got it half right.
The UN agency warned that there is a high risk of a global recession due to central banks tightening monetary policy to fight inflation. But the solutions offered reveal that the UNCTAD has no idea what causes inflation.
With a hurricane barreling toward his home, Friday Gold Wrap podcast host Mike Maharrey called an audible and recorded this week’s show ahead of time. And since the hurricane is in the news, as well as top-of-mind for his family, he uses it as a jumping-off point to talk about some economics including the concept of “price gouging” and the “broken window fallacy. He also touches on dollar strength and how it’s impacting the gold and silver markets.
This is starting to look a lot like the popping of the dot-com bubble with one big difference — inflation.
Beginning in mid-June, we saw a significant bear market rally in stocks. But the recent declines have wiped out those gains and more. For instance, the Dow jumped 14% during the 2-month rally. By the close on Friday, Sept. 23, it was once again down 20% from its all-time high. That same day, the NASDAQ closed just 2% off its June low after a 23% rally.
