The first trading day of 2021 was, as Peter Schiff put it, “atypical.”
In his first podcast of 2021, Peter analyzed the unusual day on Wall Street and explored a significant question: are we beginning to see the decoupling in the global financial markets that he’s been predicting for years?
There aren’t many people sad to see 2020 in the rearview mirror. But there’s no guarantee that 2021 is going to be any better. In his podcast final podcast of 2020, Peter Schiff said that hopefully, the upcoming year will be better healthwise in terms of COVID-19, but economically, this could be the year the chickens come home to roost.
Not just the ones that we let out in 2020 but the ones we have been letting out for the years and years and years that preceded 2020.”
The year 2020 is coming to a merciful end. As it was with pretty much everything, it was a nutty year for the economy and the precious metals markets. We all hope 2021 will be better, but it seems unlikely that it will be any less nutty. In this special Thursday episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey takes a look back at 2020 and speculates on what could lie ahead in 2021.
Peter Schiff has been saying that all of the “help” the US government and the Federal Reserve have offered up during the coronavirus pandemic isn’t helping. In fact, it’s made the situation worse. In a podcast last month, Peter said that all of the money printing and stimulus allowed people to keep spending, but they aren’t producing anything.
The problem is government doesn’t seem to understand the difference between money that is actually earned by being productive and money you get just because the Federal Reserve or some other central bank conjures out of thin air. When you’re productive, you’re helping to grow the economy. When the Fed prints money, all they’re doing is distorting the economy and increasing the cost of living.”
Peter Schiff has been driving home the fact that the Fed’s extraordinary monetary policy isn’t helping the economy. In fact, it’s setting the stage to destroy it.
Peter points out that the Fed seems to think inflation is the cure for what ails us. That means the monetary and fiscal policies that resulted from COVID are here to stay.
The Federal Reserve has increased the money supply by an astounding amount. This is by definition inflation. But the mainstream insists this isn’t a problem because we haven’t seen a big jump in the consumer price index. CPI has been creeping up, but it hasn’t reached the mythical 2% level. The Fed has signaled it will allow inflation to above that level for some time once it gets there. This should cause concern. As Peter Schiff said, the question is whether or not the Fed can keep doing this indefinitely and the answer is no.
Eventually, the dollar has to give way.”
This is not the ideal time to own an apartment building. Millions are struggling to pay rent and despite the extension of the federal eviction moratorium through Jan. 31 in the latest stimulus bill, a lot of people will likely face eviction in the coming months. According to data released in November, 17 million households are behind on rent or mortgage payments.
Of course, this has a trickle-down effect. If renters can’t pay their rent, that makes it difficult for apartment building owners to keep up with their mortgage payments. If they default, who’s on the hook?
Increasingly, the US taxpayer.
The big story last week was the dollar’s slow meltdown. The dollar index broke below 90 for the first time since the spring of 2018.
The financial media hasn’t ignored the dollar weakness, but Peter said they don’t seem to grasp the significance of what’s going on, nor do they realize how much further the dollar has to fall. In fact, a lot of the talk has focused on the positives of dollar weakness. In his podcast, Peter argues this growing dollar weakness is not America’s win.
The Federal Reserve held its last meeting of the year this week. There were no big surprises policy-wise. But Jerome Powell and company made it clear that the easy-money spigot will remain wide open pumping trillions of dollars created out of thin air into the economy. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, Mike Maharrey talks about the Fed meeting and the ramifications of its monetary policy.
Coronavirus vaccines began rolling out this week, boosting optimism that the economy will soon rebound. But as Peter Schiff said in a podcast last month, there is no vaccine for what ails the economy. Even if the vaccine proves effective and governments ease off the draconian policies they have implemented in response to the pandemic, governments and central banks will have to continue stimulus programs and loose monetary policies. That’s good for gold.
Commerzbank sees things the same way, projecting gold’s bull run will continue through 2021 with the yellow metal rising to $2,300 by Q4.
