Peter's Blog

Nope, Everything Is Not Great: Just Look at the Data

Everything is great! We’ve heard this mantra over and over again from government officials, TV talking heads and Federal Reserve bankers. But as we’ve been saying, all the optimism in the world can’t trump economic reality. And there are a lot of signs in the global economy indicating everything is not, in fact, great. Dan […]

Your Optimism Can’t Trump Economic Reality

You can say, “Everything is great,” all you want. But if it isn’t, it isn’t. Pundits and politicians keep trying to talk up the economy. They might be able to keep optimism running high for a while, but at some point, expectations will run headfirst into economic reality. In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff […]

Tom Woods Ponders What’s Really Wrong with the Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve manipulates interest rates, creates money out of thin air, blows up asset bubbles and generally wreaks havoc on the economy. But some people have found an even more insidious problem with the Fed. It’s not “diverse” enough. Historian Tom Woods offered up some pretty sharp observations about this latest “outrage” in a […]

The Fed Is Limited in How Much It Can Tighten: Here’s Why

The Federal Reserve claims to be tightening. According to the conventional wisdom, the Fed will raise interest rates at least three times in 2018 – maybe even four. And last fall, the central bank announced its plan to begin shrinking its balance sheet. But have you actually looked at the Fed’s balance sheet? Dan Kurz […]

Analysis: Where Bonds Go, Stocks Will Follow and They’re Going Down

During a podcast last month, Peter Schiff asked a key question: who is going to buy all of the debt necessary to finance the ballooning US deficit? In his most recent analysis, Dan Kurtz at DK Analytics explores this question more in-depth and comes to generally the same conclusion. The dollar has lost more than […]

Political Rhetoric vs. Economic Reality

Just over a week ago, President Trump delivered the State of the Union speech. The president gave a speech with a decidedly optimistic tone. This was certainly welcome with the increasingly fractured and divided American political landscape. But it’s important to focus beyond the political theater and take a hard look at where the US economy […]

Federal Infrastructure Proposal an Unnecessary Keynesian Boondoggle

As the GOP tax plan wound its way through Congress, we argued that it is not going to create the kind of economic benefits promised without some reduction in the size and scope of government. We don’t just need tax relief, we need government relief. But there don’t appear to be any serious efforts to […]

The Fed Plays the Economy Like an Accordion

We talk a lot about how central banks serve as the primary force driving the business cycle. When a recession hits, central banks like the Federal Reserve drive interest rates down and launch quantitative easing to stimulate the economy. Once the recovery takes hold, the Fed tightens its monetary policy, raising interest rates and ending QE. […]

What Would Real Tax Reform Look Like?

We’ve done extensive reporting on the GOP tax reform bill as it’s moved through Congress. We’ve highlighted a number of concerns about the plan, specifically the significant expansion of the national debt it will cause. Yesterday, we explained how the impact on the deficit will likely be even bigger than expected because of the incentives […]

Just How Dangerous Is Trump’s Latest Fed Board of Governors Pick?

Last week, Pres. Donald Trump nominated Marvin Goodfriend to fill a vacancy on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. When we reported the news, we called him “another swamp creature” – a member of the Washington D.C./Wall Street clan Trump promised to drain away. We’re not alone in our thinking. In an article on the Mises […]