Jim Grant recently appeared on the Santelli Exchange on CNBC and the conversation quickly turned to this notion that “intellectuals” have the wherewithal to run the economy. Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey recently explained two very important economic principles that make it impossible for central planners to ever truly succeed. As he put it, they might be smart, but they aren’t smart enough to know they’re not smart enough. Nevertheless, this doesn’t seem to dampen the fatal conceit and hubris of central bankers who think they can micromanage a complex economy.
Grant put it another way. He called it the ignorance that knows not it’s ignorant.
There was a lot of Fed-talk on Friday and the big theme was inflation.
For quite a while, Peter has been asking an important question: what is the Federal Reserve going to do when the inflation level gets above 2%? Well, it looks like its setting the stage.
Peter Schiff recently sat down with Daniela Cambone on Kitco News and talked about gold, the phony government shutdown, and his track record on economic forecasting.
The Federal Reserve bases its monetary policy decisions on where it thinks the economy is heading. The $64,000 question is how does it know? Or to put it another way, what makes us think a panel made up of a few economists and policy wonks can accurately predict the future and then make the “right” decisions?
During an interview on CNBC Squawk Ally, Jim Grant said we shouldn’t put this kind of faith in the Fed and that its monetary manipulations have created an environment of tremendous uncertainty.
I think people are too certain about things about which they should not be certain.”
Your Trump tax cut isn’t going to be quite as big as you might have thought.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, a new inflation measurement included in the GOP plan and recently implemented by the IRS will cut into your tax cut savings in 2019.
Ron Paul warned you about this during the debate over the tax cuts.
The SchiffGold Friday Gold Wrap podcast combines a succinct summary of the week’s precious metals news coupled with thoughtful analysis. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
Last week, we got data on the producer price index. It came in at o.6%, a much hotter number than expected. It was the biggest jump in the PPI in six years. Year-over-year, producer prices are up 2.8%.
Analysts expected the monthly increase to come in at half that – 0.3%. While the Fed typically looks at consumer prices to gauge inflation, producer prices are also significant. After all, the cost of production is ultimately passed on to the consumer.
As soon as that PPI number came out, the price of gold dropped about $10. As Peter Schiff pointed out in a recent podcast, this is because the markets still don’t get it. They are playing checkers instead of chess.
Get ready for higher prices.
According to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, US consumers are about to be hit by a wave of inflation. ZeroHedge summed up the report.
Many US consumer staple and industry-leading companies are either already in the process of raising prices, or have set concrete plans to do so in the very near future.”
When the August jobs report came out earlier this month, much was made over the “solid” wage growth. Average hourly wages increased by 2.9% on an annualized basis.
Peter Schiff raised an important question when the report hit the news cycle. Is this wage growth indicative of a growing economy? Or is it simply a sign of inflation?
When the New York Times published an op-ed from a White House insider claiming there are people inside the Trump administration actively working to undermine the president, the markets shrugged it off. In fact, as Peter Schiff said in a recent interview on thestreet.com, the markets are shrugging pretty much everything off.
Everything is bullish as far as investors are concerned. They believe the US economy is in great shape. According to President Trump, it’s in the best shape ever. This is the greatest boom in the history of the United States. And so that fantasy continues to dominate the narrative and markets are shrugging off all the bad news.”
Despite the optimism, Peter said the economy is headed for the “greatest bust ever.” And that’s the perfect storm for gold.
