Author: Peter Schiff

Municipal bonds have long been viewed as a staple asset class for conservative, income-seeking investors. “Munis,” as they are known, are a large, liquid market of credit-rated securities that provide tax-exempt (from Federal taxes) income to millions of American investors. Towns, school districts, and other public sector authorities across the country have issued an estimated […]

Journalists, politicians and economists all seem to agree that the biggest economic issue currently worrying voters is unemployment. It follows then that most believe that the deciding factor in the presidential race will be the ability of each candidate to convince the public that his policies will create jobs. It seems that everyone got this […]

A month ago, I presented the case for why Fed Chairman Bernanke would have strong motivation to launch another round of quantitative easing (QE) before the election. In short, it would save him his job. Now, I didn’t predict with certainty that he would do so – only the few men at the FOMC knew […]

As China and Japan continue to ratchet up tensions over a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea, many investors may be wondering how the dispute could affect the marketplace. One potential area for fallout is the market for rare earth elements (REEs): the futuristic sounding group of 17 minerals with unpronounceable names […]

There never really could be much doubt that the current experiment in competitive global currency debasement would end in anything less than a total war. There was always a chance that one or more of the principal players would snap out of it, change course and save their citizenry from a never ending cycle of […]

With yesterday’s Fed decision and press conference, Chairman: Ben Bernanke finally and decisively laid his cards on the table. And confirming what I have been saying for many years, all he was holding was more of the same snake: oil and bluster.: Going further than he has ever gone before, he made it: clear that he will be permanently […]

This past Friday, as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered his annual address from Jackson Hole – the State of the Dollar, if you will – I couldn’t help but hear it as an incumbent’s campaign speech. While Wall Street was hoping for some concrete announcement, what we got was a mushy appraisal of the Fed’s […]

Do Democrats favor banning corporate profits? Noted author and economist Peter Schiff: went to the Democratic National Convention to find out. In an extensive range of interviews with delegates and: attendees: at the Democratic National Convention, radio show host and free-market economist Peter Schiff found a number of people who actually support the idea. Posing as an anti-business […]

There is an ongoing three way debate between those who believe the Fed should do more to strengthen the recovery, those who believe that the recovery is strong enough to continue on its own, and those who believe that the economy has been so fundamentally altered by the recession that no amount of stimulus can […]

As Republicans convene in Tampa to nominate Mitt Romney and hammer out their party platform, one of the planks that could attract the most attention is the Party’s official position on the gold standard. As it is now being considered, the platform stops short of recommending a return to the gold standard, but does advocate […]

For much of the past few generations, the debate over balancing the federal budget has been a central feature of every presidential campaign. But over time, the goalposts have moved. As the amount of red ink has grown steadily larger, the suggested time frames to restore balance have gotten increasingly longer, while the suggested cuts […]

The past week provided clear lessons not just in how central bankers have a limited ability to positively influence the economy but also how they are limited in their capacity to deliver the shortsighted policy actions that investors currently crave. The developments should provide new reasons for investors and economy watchers to abandon their faith […]

Now that the Supreme Court has given its narrow blessing to the Affordable Care Act, the big question is whether it will deliver the benefits that its proponents promise. Unfortunately, as it is now constructed, the plan will backfire causing fewer healthy people to buy insurance, raise premiums for those who do, destroy employment opportunities, […]

The media is now fixated on an apparently new feature dominating the economic landscape: a “fiscal cliff” from which the United States will fall in January 2013. They see the danger arising from the simultaneous implementation of the $2 trillion in automatic spending cuts (spread over 10 years) agreed to in last year’s debt ceiling […]

In the wake of my last commentary on the horrendous Supreme Court decision upholding Obama’s health care plan, several people have pointed out that I erred in saying that the income tax is a “direct tax.” While it is technically correct that the Court ultimately declared it to be an excise, not a direct tax, […]

Despite the celebrations among Democrats, yesterday a majority of Supreme Court justices ruled that the Constitution does not allow the government to force Americans to buy health insurance. However in providing the swing vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) Chief Justice John Roberts broke with the four other justices who shared that […]

The political left wing has long tried to cast doubt on the fairness, and even the efficacy, of free market capitalism by branding it as a “trickle down” system. This epithet is meant to show how the middle and lower classes are dependent on scraps of wealth that happen to fall from the buffet table […]

While JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been credited for a confident and feisty performance today in front of Congress, he was careful to not criticize their efforts thus far to regulate the financial services industry. Given that JP Morgan has been on the receiving end of federal bailouts, this should not be surprising. Last […]

Last week in an interview on CBS Network News, Economist Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody’s, unwittingly revealed a central error of the global economic establishment. Zandi has made a career out of finding the middle ground between republican and democrat economic talking points. As a result of this skill, he has been rewarded […]

Many people became convinced that data releases earlier this year indicated that “recovery” in the U.S. was imminent. But as I have been saying for months, this evidence would ultimately be shown to be as reliable as sightings of Bigfoot. Lots of people claim to say they have seen it, some even produce plaster footprints, […]

I first came to national attention back in 2008 and 2009 when the housing and credit markets imploded. I became known as the guy that other market “experts” laughed at when I warned of trouble brewing in the seemingly indestructible American economy. After the wheels ground to a halt in mid-2008, people noticed that my […]

With uncertainty in Europe spooking investors away from any asset perceived as risky, many Americans have become wary of overseas equities. While the fear is understandable, it may be keeping us away from some of the world’s most promising economies.: : I believe economic fundamentals are still the ultimate driver of investment performance, but it’s easy to […]

In an April speech in Berlin, Dr. Andreas Dombret, a member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank (the German central bank), offered a startlingly frank assessment of the current problems in Europe.:  Although his comments were meant to apply to the tensions and imbalances that exist between the northern and southern tier of […]

According to the European Central Bank, the Italian banking industry now holds more government debt than the banks of any of the major European economies: nearly €324 billions worth of shaky bonds. The Spanish banking sector is also heavily overweight in government paper, at a new record high of €263 billion. This bond-buying spree was […]