Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell recently participated in an IMF roundtable with European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and several other figures in global politics and banking. In his podcast, Peter Schiff broke down Powell’s comments and revealed that just about everything Powell said was wrong.
The inflation freight train continues to barrel ahead. Not only are consumer prices at historically high levels; producer prices continue to run ahead of CPI, casting some doubt on the “peak inflation” narrative in the mainstream.
Despite the fact that inflation has been running hot for over a year, the mainstream pundits, government officials and central bankers can’t seem to nail down what’s going on. First, they said printing trillions wouldn’t cause inflation. Then they called inflation transitory. They said it was the pandemic. They pointed their fingers at supply chains and “excess demand.” Now they’re blaming Putin.
The Fed faces a real conundrum. Bond yields continue to rise. The only thing that can stop it is a central bank pivot back to rate cuts and quantitative easing. But the Fed needs to raise rates and shrink its balance sheet to fight inflation. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the bond market and Fed’s conundrum. He also goes on a little rant about taxes.
If the Fed is fighting inflation and has ended quantitative easing, why is its balance sheet still going up?
In the week ending April 13, the balance sheet grew by $27.9 billion, hitting a new record of $8.965 trillion. This is up about $3 billion from its previous high in March.
The Consumer Price Index hit 8.5% on an annualized basis in March, the highest level since 1981. In an attempt to get ahead of what everybody knew would be bad news, the Biden administration started blaming Russia for the big CPI before the data even came out. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “We expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s price hike.” The mainstream media quickly picked up that mantra. Peter Schiff appeared on the Megyn Kelly show and explained why this is a false narrative.
We got the CPI data for March this week. As expected, prices spiked significantly again last month. A lot of people in the mainstream are calling it “Putin’s price hike.” Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey says it would be more appropriate to call it Powell’s price hike. In this episode of the podcast, he digs into the CPI data and explains why the blame for high prices is largely misplaced and inflation probably hasn’t peaked.
As expected, the March Consumer Price Index was smoking hot with a 1.2% month-on-month increase and an 8.5% annual gain. But the mainstream found a silver lining in the numbers. Core inflation wasn’t quite as high as expected leading many to conclude that we’ve reached “peak inflation.” In his podcast, Peter Schiff said this is just wishful thinking.
The inflation freight train is still hurtling down the track at breakneck speed.
Everybody expected a big Consumer Price Index number for March. When it was all said and done, we got what was expected. And then some.
Earlier this week, Lael Brainard said the Federal Reserve will run off its balance sheet at a considerably more rapid pace than it did last time around. SchiffGold Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey thinks Brainard and the rest of the Fed officials suffer from delusions of grandeur if they think they can really pull this off. In this episode, he explains exactly why balance sheet reduction is doomed to fail.
Earlier this week, Federal Reserve governor and vice-chair nominee Lael Brainard indicated the central bank will shrink its balance sheet at a “considerably” more rapid pace than it did during the previous cycle. I, Peter Schiff and a few others outside the mainstream have said the Fed won’t be able to do this.
Why not?
