The primary factor that enables our government to peddle economic snake oil is the dollar's unique role as the world's reserve currency, and our creditors' willingness to preserve its status. By buying up dollars and loaning them back to us through Treasury debt, productive countries give American politicians cart blanche to play Santa Claus.
Peter SchiffGold has intrinsic value. The problem with the dollar is it has no intrinsic value. And if the Federal Reserve is going to spend trillions of them to buy up all these bad mortgages and all other kinds of bad debt, the dollar is going to lose all of its value. Gold will store its value, and you'll always be able to buy more food with your gold.
Peter SchiffOnce the government runs out of foreign and private sector bidders for new Treasurys, the Federal Reserve will be the only buyer, and the hyper-inflation cat will be completely out of the bag.
Peter SchiffPerhaps the most important reason to be skeptical of government inflation numbers is that the government, like a fox campaigning to guard a hen house, has many reasons to be disingenuous. As the world's largest debtor, the Federal Government is inflation's primary beneficiary.
Peter SchiffI think there are a lot of people out there that are speculating in the stock market. They have all kinds of tech stocks or social media stocks. If you want to gamble in the stock market, I would much rather gamble on a mining stock than a social media stock.
Peter SchiffWhat got us out of the depression was capitalism, and we would have gotten out a lot quicker had the government not intervened.
Peter SchiffCentral banks are choosing to increase their gold holdings as a percentage of total reserves. They obviously think there is a reason to do that. It doesn't make sense to back up one currency with a hoard of other paper currencies. There needs to be a real anchor there. I think that central banks are well behind the curve. If you look at the percentage of above-ground gold controlled by central banks, it's historically low. Hence the fact that central banks are trying to increase their holdings. They've got a long way to go to get where they need to be.
Peter Schiff