In the week before it raised interest rates another 25 basis points to fight inflation, the Federal Reserve added more than $94 billion to its balance sheet. This was on top of the nearly $300 billion it piled onto the balance sheet in the first week of its bank bailout.
The balance sheet reveals that Fed has loaned banks nearly $400 billion in money created out of thin air in just two weeks.
The Federal Reserve added nearly $300 billion to its balance sheet in a single week as it kicked off its loan bailout program for banks.
In effect, the Fed loaned troubled banks $300 billion of new money that was created out of thin air.
In other words, we got $300 billion in inflation in a single week.
The annual rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for February came in at 6%. This was down from the 6.4% annual increase charted in January. The eighth straight monthly decline in CPI seems to have restored faith that the Federal Reserve is winning the inflation fight. But everybody should probably stop and remember that the target is 2%.
Six percent is a lot bigger than 2%.
On June 14, 2022, Peter Schiff appeared on Ingraham Angle, and he said, “Thanks to the Federal Reserve, everybody has so much debt that we can’t afford to pay an interest rate high enough to fight inflation. But it is going to be high enough to cause a massive recession and another financial crisis that’s worse than the one we had in 2008.”
On March 13, 2023, Peter was on Ingraham Angle again, this time to talk about the beginning of that financial crisis.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell performed some “open mouth operations” on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Powell talked and the markets freaked out.
Despite the hotter-than-expected CPI report, the mainstream still seems convinced that the Federal Reserve can get inflation under control and bring the economy to a soft landing. But Peter Schiff argues that the central bank can’t win this fight – at least not without crashing the economy. Since the Fed isn’t willing to do that, it won’t go all-in. In effect, the Fed brought a knife to an inflation gunfight.
Just four months into fiscal 2023 and the US federal budget deficit is already approaching half a trillion dollars. This is a big problem for the Federal Reserve that few people seem to be talking about.
You’ve probably heard the saying that history might not repeat, but it often rhymes. If that’s true, looking back at the runup to the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession should cause concern. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey looks at some of the parallels between then and now. He also digs deeper into the January jobs report and explains why you should be skeptical.
Consumer debt grew at a slower pace in December, but Americans continued to rely heavily on credit cards to keep up with high price inflation.
The mainstream seems more and more convinced that the Federal Reserve can bring inflation back down to 2% without creating any significant problems in the economy. After the February FOMC meeting, Fed chair Jerome Powell even suggested that the economy would avoid dipping into a recession. But in an interview on Fox Business with Liz Claman, Peter Schiff argued that the Fed won’t beat inflation or get a soft landing. He said the looming economic slowdown will fuel the inflation fire.