Peter's Blog

What’s the Difference Between Naturally and Artificially Low Interest Rates?

We know that the Federal Reserve pushes interest rates artificially low by manipulating the federal funds rate (the target interest rate that commercial banks borrow and lend their excess reserves to each other) and using monetary policy maneuvers such as quantitative easing. But could we have low interest rates without Fed intervention? In this clip, […]

Study: Enhanced Unemployment Benefits Enhanced Unemployment

Incentives matter. All of the political grandstanding, media spin and wishful thinking won’t change this basic economic principle. Both Janet Yellen and Joe Biden insisted “enhanced” unemployment benefits weren’t incentivizing people not to work. But as we recently reported, analysis of continuing unemployment claims after a number of red states cut enhanced benefits undermined this […]

Incentives Matter: Unemployment Edition

Both Janet Yellen and Joe Biden insisted “enhanced” unemployment benefits weren’t incentivizing people not to work. The numbers prove them wrong.

Fun on Friday: Celebrating Work By Not Working

Labor day is a weird holiday. We celebrate working people by — not working. If labor is so great, shouldn’t we celebrate by doing more of it?

Jerome Powell’s Bad Economics

During a Q&A with students and teachers, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell praised the bad economics that drove the government response to the coronavirus pandemic. In this clip from his podcast, Peter Schiff breaks down everything Powell got wrong. During the Zoom event, Powell went out of his way to praise Congress for passing the […]

Incentives Matter

Economics 101 – incentives matter. But politicians often seem to forget this. Or simply ignore it. “Generous” unemployment benefits provide the perfect example. With the US government handing out enhanced unemployment checks, we ended up in a bizarre situation with high unemployment even as job openings hit record levels.

Peter Schiff: The Mainstream Pundits Are the Real Stopped Clocks

Mainstream pundits sometimes accuse Peter Schiff of being a “stopped clock.” They admit he’s right occasionally, but only by virtue of sticking to the same narrative, talking about the malinvestments and misallocations in the economy and warning about an impending crisis. In this clip from his podcast, Peter said it’s the mainstream regulars on financial […]

Peter Schiff: Government-Protected Monopolies Are the Ones to Fear

Earlier this week, a federal court threw out an antitrust case against Facebook. The lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission, along with 48 state governors, sought to force Facebook to divest itself of WhatsApp and Instagram, but the court said the FTC failed to prove that Facebook holds monopoly power. In his podcast, Peter […]

Fun on Friday: It’s All Relative

A guy made a comment about my article highlighting Chipotle’s recent decision to raise menu prices in order to cover some of the cost of higher wages, pointing out that the CEO made some $38 million last year, noting “I doubt he needs it.” The first thought that popped into my head was, ‘how exactly […]

Is Basic Economics Wrong? Or Is Something Else Going on With Inflation?

We have been saying that given the extraordinary level of money printing the Fed has done since the beginning of the pandemic, a wave of price inflation is coming down the pike – perhaps even hyperinflation. But many will be quick to remind us that we raised the warning flag about inflation when the Fed […]