Peter’s Blog

Fifty-one years ago this week, President Richard Nixon slammed shut the “gold window” and eliminated the last vestige of the gold standard. Nixon ordered Treasury Secretary John Connally to uncouple gold from its fixed $35 price and suspended the ability of foreign banks to directly exchange dollars for gold. During a national television address, on […]

The US government is addicted to spending money. And the Federal Reserve is Washington DC’s pusher. When we talk about inflation, we usually focus on money creation by the Fed. After all, that is the definition of inflation. But the Fed has to keep creating money in order to monetize the massive federal deficit. And […]

Cooling Consumer Price Index data did not cool the hot rhetoric coming from some Federal Reserve members. The question is whether this is a bunch of hot air or do these central bankers actually have the fortitude to move forward with rate hikes in the face of a sinking economy?

As expected, the Consumer Price index cooled a bit thanks to falling gasoline prices. The question is will this give the Federal Reserve the excuse it needs bow out of the inflation fight? The Consumer Price Index for July was up 8.5% year-on-year. That was down from June’s 9.1% print and slightly below the 8.7% […]

After the second straight negative GDP print in Q2, the markets began anticipating that the Federal Reserve would pivot away from its monetary tightening. But a few choice words from some Fed members this week caused thoughts of a pivot to pivot. As Peter Schiff put it in his podcast, it appears to be damn […]

The Federal Reserve delivered another 75 basis point interest rate hike at its July FOMC meeting. This pushes the federal funds rate over the 2% threshold to between 2.25% and 2.5%. The mainstream media emphasized the size of the hike. One headline called it “a second super-sized hike,” with many other mainstream pundits noting that […]

You don’t have to worry about that recession anymore. The White House fixed it. And by “fixed it” I mean it just changed the commonly held definition of a recession.

Putin is causing inflation. Greedy corporations are causing inflation. COVID-19 caused inflation. We hear all kinds of reasons for the recent spike in prices. And now we have a new one. It’s the millennials’ fault. This is all wrong and it illustrates the problem with redefining inflation to be something it isn’t.

Retail sales rose 1% in June after a 0.1% decline in May. Mainstream media breathlessly reported that the jump in retail spending “eases” recession fears. Does it though?

Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other members of the central bank have continued to talk tough about fighting inflation. But I’m pretty certain that in private, they were desperately hoping to see some cooling in the inflation data so they could start backing out of the ring. With a recession pretty clearly on the horizon […]