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.
We talk a lot about bubbles in the economy.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve discussed the stock market bubble, the housing bubble, the auto bubble and the debt bubble.
Nick Giambruno simplifies things in an article he recently wrote for the International Man. He just calls it the “everything bubble.” And he says it will pop in the near future thanks to the Federal Reserve.
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.
As Peter Schiff put it in his most recent podcast, Jerome Powell blinked.
In a surprising about-face, the Federal Reserve Chair hinted that interest rates are “just below” neutral, leading to speculation that the central bank might be close to ending its tightening cycle. Peter said the Fed has basically been playing a game of chicken with the markets.
And the way the game of chicken goes is the markets keep moving lower and the Fed keeps talking about how great the economy is and how many rate hikes are coming in the future and somebody his to flinch. Somebody has to blink. It’s like you have these two automobiles driving toward each other and there’s going to be a major crash unless somebody turns the wheel. And it seems like it was Jerome Powell that turned the wheel first and in fact was chicken.”
Stocks rallied and the price of gold got a bounce after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell released a dovish trial balloon on Wednesday.
During a speech at the Economic Club of New York, Powell seemed to indicate interest rates are “just below the broad range of estimates of the level that would be neutral for the economy.” Investors and pundits widely interpreted this to mean the central bank may well be near the end of its tightening cycle.
In this special episode of It’s Your Dime, Mike Maharrey switches roles and becomes the interviewee.
Mike recently appeared on Inside the News with Paul Jensen and Suzanne Sherman on K-TALK AM1640 in Utah to talk about the popping of the auto bubble and more generally how the Federal Reserve has set us up for the next big crash.
Bankers, investors and executives are increasingly worried about corporate debt, according to a Reuters report.
Specifically, the concerns center around “leveraged lending.” These are loans made to firms already deeply in debt. Think subprime loans for corporations. As the Reuters report put it, “the concern is that the loans would be difficult to either collect or resell in a downturn, putting both the borrower and lender at risk.”
Last week, we reported that it looks like the air is coming out of housing bubble 2.0. Now it appears the auto bubble may have also popped.
Yesterday, GM announced plant closures and layoffs due to sluggish sales. The big automaker said it plans to shutter five North American factories and slash around 14,000 jobs.
Peter Schiff put it pretty bluntly in a podcast last week. We don’t have a booming economy. We have bubbles. And it looks like the air is starting to come out of some of those bubbles. We see signs of trouble, particularly in interest rate-sensitive sectors such as real estate. As just one example, home sales in California have hit the lowest level in a decade. And it’s not just California. We’re seeing declines in many of the “most splendid housing bubbles” in America. Even more troubling is that we’re seeing these tremors and interest rates aren’t historically high.
Yet.
But they are rising quickly. According to an article in Wolf Street, they may soon hit 6% and that could be the real tipping point.
Generally, when the mainstream talks about gold, you get a negative spin. So, whenever I see anybody in the mainstream talking positively about the yellow metal, I sit up and take notice. Well, MarketWatch had some positive things to say about gold recently, calling it “the best house in bad neighborhood” for 2019.