Peter Schiff: “We’re in the Early Stages of a Depression”
In August 2006, Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, offered what many considered to be an outlier prognosis for the economy: The exuberance would end, real estate prices would crash back down to earth, and consumers would revert to saving from spending. In short, a deep recession was in the works.
As outlandish as he may have sounded at the time, he was right. Four years and the worst recession since the Great Depression later, Schiff stands alone again with a bleaker diagnosis for the economy: an inflationary depression.
In an interview, Schiff, president and chief global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, and author of the new book How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes, said he thinks the government’s policies — massive fiscal stimulus and a zero interest-rate policy — have put the U.S. on a track for a collision course.
Reagan insider: ‘GOP destroyed U.S. economy’
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — “How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy.” Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, “Four Deformations of the Apocalypse.”
Get it? Not “destroying.” The GOP has already “destroyed” the U.S. economy, setting up an “American Apocalypse.”
Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats’ Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider — someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology — says about America, helps all of us better understand how America’s toxic partisan-politics “holy war” is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish.
What collapsing empire looks like
As we enter our ninth year of the War in Afghanistan with an escalated force, and continue to occupy Iraq indefinitely, and feed an endlessly growing Surveillance State, reports are emerging of the Deficit Commission hard at work planning how to cut Social Security, Medicare, and now even to freeze military pay. But a new New York Times article today illustrates as vividly as anything else what a collapsing empire looks like, as it profiles just a few of the budget cuts which cities around the country are being forced to make. This is a sampling of what one finds:
Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further — it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation.
Many transit systems have cut service to make ends meet, but Clayton County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, decided to cut all the way, and shut down its entire public bus system. Its last buses ran on March 31, stranding 8,400 daily riders.
Even public safety has not been immune to the budget ax. In Colorado Springs, the downturn will be remembered, quite literally, as a dark age: the city switched off a third of its 24,512 streetlights to save money on electricity, while trimming its police force and auctioning off its police helicopters.
40 Bizarre Statistics That Reveal The Horrifying Truth About The Collapse Of The U.S. Economy
Most Americans still appear to be operating under the delusion that the “recession” will soon pass and that things will get back to “normal” very soon. Unfortunately, that is not anywhere close to the truth. What we are now witnessing are the early stages of the complete and total breakdown of the U.S. economic system. The U.S. government, state governments, local governments, businesses and American consumers have collectively piled up debt that is equivalent to approximately 360 percent of GDP. At no point during the Great Depression (or at any other time during our history) did we ever come close to such a figure. We have piled up the biggest mountain of debt that the world has ever seen, and now that gigantic debt bubble is beginning to pop. As this house of cards comes crashing down, the economic pain is going to become almost unimaginable.
Already, things are really, really, really bad out there. Unemployment is at shockingly high levels. Foreclosures and personal bankruptcies continue to set new all-time records. Businesses are being shut down at a staggering rate, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. government continues to pile up debt at blinding speed.
There is no use sugar-coating it.
GDP report: Economic growth slows with 2.4 percent rate in second quarter
The recovery is fading, and a troubling new pattern is setting in: economic growth that is too slow to put Americans back to work.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, grew at a 2.4 percent annual rate in the April-through-June period, the government said Friday, down from 5 percent at the end of 2009 and 3.7 percent at the beginning of this year.
The good news is that it was the fourth consecutive quarter of economic growth and that the expansion continued despite a crisis overseas and palpitations in global financial markets. The bad news is that the growth was below the long-term trend rate at which the U.S. economy expands and is not strong enough to drive down unemployment. And more worrisome, many of the details of the report point to a continued slowdown of expansion this year.
Four Shocking Bombshells Bernanke Did NOT Tell Congress About Last Week
In his testimony before Congress last week, Ben Bernanke lifted the Fed’s skirt and gave us a glimpse of the disasters now sweeping through the U.S. economy.
But there are four bombshells he did NOT talk about:
FIRST and foremost, what’s CAUSING the economy to sink? The stock market has not yet crashed. Interest rates have not yet surged. Gasoline prices have not skyrocketed. There has been no recent debt collapse, market shock, or terrorist attack.
So what is the invisible force that’s suddenly gutting the housing market, driving consumer confidence into a sinkhole, and killing the recovery that Washington was so avidly touting just a few months ago?
Bernanke won’t say. But the answer is clear: The recovery had very little substance to begin with. Rather, it was, in essence, a mirage — a dead cat bounce bought and paid for by Washington’s massive bailouts, stimulus programs, and money printing.
Repent — The End Is Near
It is a lazy afternoon. Or at least it was until I came across a blog by Mish. There was little in the post that I didn’t know or suspect, but this quote triggered a reaction:
It hides the economic substance of what’s really happening-an unlimited taxpayer bailout.
William Black, a former no-nonsense regulator, described in that statement everything that has happened and continues to happen. It represents the federal government’s approach to “saving” the economy — subterfuge and no limits. Mish went on to add:
To address the situation, the FDIC is going to start selling U.S.-guaranteed FDIC senior certificates. However, it has no Congressional authority to do so according to former thrift regulator William Black.
These quotes summarized the double-speak, unconstitutional acts, bullying, outright lies, and trampling of the Rule of Law that now describes our government.
Smoking Guns of U.S. Treasury Monetization
A significant feature of fiat money systems is the privilege for the custodian of the reserve currency to engage in regular practices of ham-fisted monetary management, even permission for fraudulent centers to flourish, surely developing a debt monster that an economy grows dependent upon. Fannie Mae might be the most offensive blight on such privilege. Unfortunately, many shenanigans have matured into grand fraud. They are smoking guns of USTreasury fraud and counterfeit, with strong whiffs of monetization. Much more monetization is to come, fully endorsed and sanctioned. Other clever techniques are being used, given the Quantitative Easing has officially been halted. A close look reveals that Excess Cash Reserves at the USFed are being drawn down, which are thus funding the USGovt deficits in the last couple months. Ironically, such reserves held by big banks at the US Federal Reserve were the only thing preventing vast insolvency. Now that cash is being used, and the USFed insolvency is slowly exposed. Details can be found in the July Hat Trick Letter reports. Evidence is compelling, and grand motive for foreign creditors to reject the USDollar, whose active control strings are traced to Wall Street. When recognized monetization destroys the last vestige of trust and confidence in the USDollar, when more official rounds of sponsored Quantitative Easing arrive, the USDollar will be on a downward spiral. In fact, all major currencies face the same prospect of vast monetary expansion. They will all fall sharply in value, and by counter-effect, the Gold price will rise powerfully.
On the Disconnect Between the Market and the Economy
It has been an interesting 24 hours.
The index of leading economic indicators fell 0.2% in June, the second drop in three months. A negative surprise.
Unemployment claims rose to 464,000, more than expected.
Uncle Ben said we are facing a period of “unusual uncertainty.” No kidding.
Uncle Ben said we need continuing stimulus to a Congress unwilling to stimulate anyone or anything other than lobbyists with cash to contribute.
Home sales fell 5.1% in June.
The Best Introduction to Economics in Print
Thomas Eddlem reviews “How and Economy Grows and Why It Crashes” by Peter and Andrew Schiff
If this writer were to claim that Peter and Andrew Schiff have created the master work of introducing basic Austrian economics that could be clearly understood by anyone of middle-school age and older, I would be only partly incorrect in describing their new book, How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes.
The genius of this book comes from neither Peter nor Andrew Schiff, however. Much of the credit belongs to Irwin A. Schiff, who created the first draft of this introduction to Austrian economics back in 1985. The Schiff brothers acknowledge that “this story would best be described as a riff on the original.” But Peter and Andrew Schiff have perfected their father’s already brilliant work, which had some presentational shortcomings. The sons have new illustrations by Brendan Leach, and additional material that brings the text up to date.
Nalliah Thayabharan: 
Edward G. Nilges: 
