Peter's Blog

A Look Back: How the Greenspan Fed Helped Blow Up the Dot-Com Bubble

We often talk about the fatal conceit and hubris of central bankers who think they can micromanage a complex economy. Oftentimes, these monetary policymakers do things with the best of intentions, believing their actions will move the economy in the right direction. Sometimes, they do things just to benefit their buddies. Regardless of their motives, […]

The Fed’s Crazy Game of Chicken

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 […]

Real Capitalism Isn’t Rigged; Socialism Is

As we’ve noted before, Keynesian central planners suffer from fatal conceit. They think they are smart enough to plan and direct the economy better than the free market. When you boil it all down, these people believe they can do a better job of making your economic decisions than you can. After all, a free […]

Economy Rolling Over: Focus On Housing And Tariffs

As the stock market was tanking last month, Peter Schiff said a recession is obviously coming. Now things have calmed down a little bit and everybody seems convinced October was just a bad month —  a needed correction. But as Peter has been saying, there are some fundamentals everybody is ignoring that look really bad. […]

Andrew Cuomo on Halloween – Far More Terrifying Than Michael Myers

Peter Schmidt recently wrote two article highlighting the fatal conceit of PhD central planners who populate the world’s central banks. You can read those articles here and here. But central banking is not the only place you find people suffering from fatal conceit and the delusional notion that they are smart enough to micromanage the economy. […]

Savings – Not Tariffs – Will Make America Great Again

In a podcast earlier this month, Peter Schiff talked about the “twin deficits” of national debt and trade. We’ve talked a lot about the federal debt spiral, and there has even been some discussion about it in the mainstream. But almost nobody is paying attention to the growing trade deficit. Peter is an exception. When […]

Fatal Conceit and the Question That’s Never Asked

Keynesian central planners suffer from what Peter Schmidt calls “fatal conceit.” Paul Krugman serves as the poster child for central planning arrogance. But it’s the Federal Reserve that gives the central planners power, as Schmidt highlighted in the first article in a series highlighting this fatal conceit. Schmidt built on this theme in the second article, […]

The Gold Standard: Protector of Individual Liberty and Economic Prosperity

Most of the mainstream view the gold standard as an archaic relic from a bygone era. At best, a return to some kind of gold standard is unnecessary. At worst, it would plunge the world into economic chaos. Conventional wisdom holds that a gold standard would make boom-bust cycles worse. (This is a myth.) Paul […]

The Story of Benjamin Strong: How Fatal Conceit Wrecks Economies

In an article we published last week, Peter Schmidt highlighted what he called the “fatal conceit” of modern Keynesian economics. These economists, central bankers and politicians think they can plan, direct and guide the economy through their great wisdom and application of their economic models. But as economist Friedrich Hayek explained, the central planners’ arrogance ignores […]

Paul Krugman, the Federal Reserves and the Fatal Conceit of Keynesian Economics

A recent Paul Krugman New York Times column praised the success of the Keynesian macro model in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. In his view, the Federal Reserve did exactly what was necessary  – pushed interest rates to zero and launched rounds of quantitative easing to jumpstart demand. As Tom Woods and Bob […]