Peter Schiff: Love Him Or Hate Him?

Peter Schiff is the man and it is nice to see people with conviction who are not deterred by detractors in the media. Anyone who is against the economic plans of Obama is sensible enough for me.

Watch this whole series of his speech at the Western Regional Mortgage Bankers Assoc. back in 2006. He predicted every single step in how the subprime market would unfold and collapse to lead to everything that we are experiencing today. This is a guy who really did his homework and understood how the system works.

Doesn't strike me as the type that just got lucky. He called it step for step as Lynn said. Really interesting.

Peter Schiff is my hero.

If Obama offered him a position on his economic advising team, because he would be an opposing voice, that would be change that I could believe in.

it's amazing that this guy called it before everything unfolded. watching the youtube videos of him on the networks goes to show that you can't trust everything the so-called analysts are saying and that you really must do your homework. i was talking to a lehman banker back in september and he warned my about how the auto industry would be the next to suffer, and look what's happening!

for refusing to listen to people like Schiff and others from the Austrian school. The American public's refusal to accept any personal responsibility (evidenced by a majority vote for Obama) is plunging the country into another depression.

The sad thing is, I'm sure Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and other canaries in the coal mine aren't gratified by being right. I imagine they wish people would have listened and this crisis had been averted.

jim rogers also called it. quite a few people did. i cashed in big with shorts on builders and bear. didn't see it as quite so broad and deep though.

The neoclassical (theoclassical) economists, both conservative (Monetarists like Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan) and liberal (neo-Keynsians like Paul Krugman) are the people that missed the 2008 meltdown. Their unrealistic models of the economy should be discredited for their massive failure, but they are still the dominant school out there amongst university economics departments, academic journals, think tanks, businesses, pundits, and government.

Everything else can be classified at heterodox economics. Many many many people in the umbrella "heterodox" classification predicted the 2008 meltdown... NOT just the Austrians. For example, the post-Keynsians also did. Even some Marxians (NOT Marxists! those are different things). And then a few other prominent individuals such as Steve Keen of Australia that don't really fit into any category (though I suppose he's probably most related to the post-Keynsians). Only the Austrian school, amongst the heterodox economic schools, doesn't believe in empirical evidence, mathematical models, or predictions. That is why I don't trust them. I will grant you they predicted 2008... but they are one amongst many! Plus Peter is 100% gloom and doom all the time. Using that strategy you're guaranteed to be on the right side of the economy at least half the time.... so I don't see that as a big accomplishment.

Steve Keen fundamentally disagrees with Schiff on Peter's hyperinflation prediction. While both the Keen and Austrian schools argue that debt is a problem, Keen tends to see personal debt as prominent. Keen says the theoclassical response (lowering interest rates and stimulation) won't work because of personal debt. People are de-leveraging. He thinks we are much closer to deflation rather than inflation. Keen's criticism of Schiff is that Schiff doesn't understand how money is created. The federal reserve doesn't just shove money in people's hands hot off the press... instead what happens is that credit must be demanded first. People are not demanding credit because they're trying to pay down their existing debts (the personal debt to GDP ratio is at a record high: 300%!... traditionally it's been about 160%).

So, based on my concept that Austrians such as Schiff are just negative all the time (even a broken clock is right twice a day!) and that their theory is more like a religion than a theory (not subject to verification with facts and empirical evidence (how convenient!) according to the Austrians), I'll go with just about ANY of the other schools that predicted 2008... including individuals such as Keens, and post-Keysians, etc. Here's a primer from Keen on how money is ACTUALLY created:

http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcavaliersofcredi…