Peter's Blog

Introductory economics courses teach students that money serves three functions, a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value, but they rarely explain why money came to serve those roles in the first place. Following the Austrian School of economics, the medium of exchange function is primary and logically prior, while […]

Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson delivered remarks titled “The U.S. Economy and Monetary Policy” on October 1st at the Darden School of Business in Charlottesville, Virginia, offering the latest in a string of recent admissions from Fed officials that inflation has run hot for years without a clear resolution in sight. Jefferson acknowledged that […]

Last week, Peter joined the What The Finance podcast to break down the deteriorating state of the housing market, the credibility problems plaguing the Federal Reserve, and the growing parallels between today’s economy and the stagflation of the 1970s. He also explains why gold, not Bitcoin, has emerged as the real beneficiary of the dollar’s […]

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook delivered a speech titled “An Update on AI and the Economy” on September 28th at the Oakland Tech Week Opening Keynote, cohosted by the Kapor Center in Oakland, California. Cook discusses why she voted with the rest of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to raise interest rates by 25 […]

Last week, Peter joined host Lena Petrova on World Affairs in Context to walk through the mounting dangers facing the US economy. He lays out how the national debt, the Federal Reserve’s inflationary tools, and shortsighted political decisions are converging to set up a crisis far worse than anything Americans have experienced in modern times. […]

Last week, Peter joined Gary on the Metals and Miners podcast to explain why confidence in the US Treasury market is eroding and why the Federal Reserve’s response will only make matters worse. He walks through the mechanics of Fed intervention, the coming pressure on the dollar, and why gold remains the standout asset in […]

Anna Paulson, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, delivered opening remarks at the 10th Annual Fintech Conference in Philadelphia on September 24th, noting explicitly that her views are her own, “not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve System or the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).” Paulson said she supported the FOMC’s […]

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, PCE, has now come in above its 2 percent target for 65 consecutive months, with core PCE running at 3.3 percent year over year in July and CPI up 3.4 percent through August. The dollar has lost 28 percent of its purchasing power since January 2020, and with wages falling […]

Commentators have labeled the divide between soaring asset prices and stagnant wages the “K-shaped economy,” but slapping a name on the pattern is not the same as explaining it. The real driver is the Cantillon effect: new money enters the economy through the banking system first, inflating the assets held disproportionately by the wealthy while […]

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Tom Barkin delivered a speech titled “Why Hike?” to the CFA Society Baltimore on September 22nd, discussing the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) recent rate hike of 25 basis points. The move marked the Fed’s first rate increase since mid-2023 and its first policy action of any kind since […]