Last October, the Federal Reserve relaunched quantitative easing. Of course, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell insists it’s not quantitative easing. But as Peter Schiff pointed out in a recent tweet, that debate is really just semantics.
The argument over whether the current Fed balance sheet expansion constitutes QE is pointless. QE was always just a euphemism for debt monetization. The Fed monetized debt in the past, its monetizing more debt in the present, and it will monetize even more debt in the future!”
More and more Americans are struggling to pay their rent.
According to a report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, one in four renters are paying more than half their income on housing. This equates to 10.9 million renters.
Corporate debt has blown through the roof over the last several years. So much so that the Federal Reserve has issued warnings about the increasing levels of corporate indebtedness.
Borrowing by businesses is historically high relative to gross domestic product (GDP), with the most rapid increases in debt concentrated among the riskiest firms amid weak credit standards.”
But as Brandon Smith of alt-market.com noted in an article published at LewRockwell.com, this is a subject the mainstream media “seems specifically determined to avoid discussing these days when it comes to the economy.
Those peddling the narrative that the US economy is great keep pointing to the stock market. Indeed, stocks have continued to push higher, setting records along the way. But Peter Schiff has been saying that stocks aren’t being driven higher by a great economy. In a recent interview on RT Boom Bust, Peter said that if you look at the economic fundamentals, stocks should be coming down.
In the most recent Friday Gold Wrap podcast, Mike Maharrey talked about the fact that the Federal Reserve has increasingly engaged in more and more extraordinary monetary policy. As he put it, extreme has become the norm. Despite what pundits insist is a “great” economy, interest rates are extremely low by historical standards and the Fed is engaging in quantitative easing to the tune of $60 billion a month.
While stock markets continue to make record highs and the economy continues to grow, the question is how long can this last?
The Federal Reserve held its first FOMC meeting of 2020. It was mostly met with yawns as the Fed held rates steady, and despite a somewhat dovish tone, indicated that it probably wouldn’t make any moves on interest rates this year. We’ve grown so used to low interest rates that it barely registers that the Fed is actually engaged in extreme monetary policy. Extreme has become the new normal. In this week’s Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about it. He also touches on the Q4 GDP report and some interesting gold supply and demand trends.
The Federal Reserve held its first Federal Open Market Committee meeting this week. As expected, the central bank held interest rates steady but the overall posture of the Fed came off as rather dovish. Quantitative easing will continue into the near future and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell left the door open for future rate cuts.
The Federal Reserve funds rate will stay locked in at 1.5 to 1.75% and the vote was unanimous. Powell said, “We’re comfortable with our current policy stance and we think it’s appropriate.”
Bernie Sanders has gained in the polls of late and only trails Joe Biden by about three percentage points, according to the latest Fox News poll. On top of that, Sanders matches up against President Trump. He leads 48% to 42% in a head-to-head matchup.
Peter Schiff told Fox Business that a Sanders presidency would be an economic disaster for the US, but it would be good for gold.
If Sanders becomes president in 2020, the price of gold will be well above $2,000 on the day after election night.”
The spread of coronavirus in China has made markets jittery. Stocks have gone into a slide and gold has pushed up on safe-haven buying. Last week, Peter Schiff appeared on RT Boom Bust to talk about it. He said that 2020 may well be a bad year for the stock market, but probably not because of the virus. The real problem is markets are overvalued and the air will eventually come out of the bubble.
While impeachment proceedings kicked off at home President Trump was in Davos, Switzerland, talking up the US economy. He called it the best economy in American history. Is it though? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the economy, what’s really driving it, and why this might be a good time to think about gold.
