Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Peter Schiff Gives Congress an Awesome Lesson in Economics

Watch these clips and you will learn more sound economics than you would ever get from a full semester sitting in a Paul Krugman class at Princeton, where he spouts off Keynesian nonsense. Schiff is awesome in these clips.



28 comments:

  1. Peter Schiff absolutely blew them out of the water! Awesome!

    With people like Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, Thomas E. Woods debating others it's almost unfair. It's like mature adults debating a bratty 5 year old. These people simply can't compete against the Austrians.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love the righteous indignation when the libs pull out their favorite shield; the children. Peter handles them smartly. Bravo!

    ReplyDelete
  3. cool, but i cringed when he talked about a national sales tax

    ReplyDelete
  4. What was he thinking suggesting a National Sales Tax? UGH...Why not just read the Constitution and stick with excise taxes for national funding?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Let me just say, oh snap! That was fantastic. I especially enjoyed the nod to Ron Paul's silver dime-gallon of gas statement. Keep it up Mr. Schiff!

    ReplyDelete
  6. What if the political terrorists understand that Schiff is correct and they are doing what they are doing to deliberately destroy our living standard.

    That's exactly what they are doing. They are not economically stupid...They are terrorists.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "the" Phantom CapitalistSeptember 15, 2011 at 1:46 AM

    I love it how Peter has no papers, notes, or prepared statements in front of him and is cruising. While the women next to Peter is constantly shuffling through papers and writing.

    Why do these people always have all these papers and are constantly writing things down while others are talking.

    Peter Schiff - Flawless Victory

    ReplyDelete
  8. all good.except the nonsense about the need to "manufacture" more.manufacturing output is the highest ever in the US.and far ahead of any country.it is just that americans today manufacture aeroplanes or hi tech equipment and not knick knacks.you grow wealthy by creating value and not just stuff.in apple ipods,only 6% value is cornered by chinese manufacters.another 10% by japanese electronics makers.the rest is by US marketing,design and transport and retail.arent these guys americans? how does capturing 80% of the value created become a bad thing.schiff hasnt thought thru his blind love for manufacturing.

    ReplyDelete
  9. *Dr.* Boushey: the embodiment of Schiff's point about doing damage by spending money on education.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The libertarian tide is turning thanks to the internet. Expect this to happen more and more.

    By the way, what about the attacks of keynesians who say Schiff lost money for his investors in 2008 and was wrong on some of his predictions? I don't know enough about him to know what is true and what isn't.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Peter obviously blew them out of the water . . . but I don't think those fish even know what water is, let alone what was done to them. They refuse to accept they are dying because they refuse to give in. They refuse to acknowledge that what they are doing and what they firmly believe in is the root of the problem.

    Even though Peter is right, and explained things admirably, it is a wasted effort. These psychopaths will not change their minds. If their constituents want their medicare, social security, food stamps, and the rest of the massive spending spree, these people will be voted right back into office.

    If said constituents change their mind, they will put the opposite yet equally evil corporatist side in, which continues to foster the idea of propping up Wall Street and expanding the crony corporate bubble. Both 'sides' do not want to accept that government must shrink to restore order. They want to use the government credit card to 'empower' themselves.

    I cannot help but feel this country is dooming itself. We are using our own desperate greed and godlessness to cannibalize ourselves.

    ReplyDelete
  12. "the" Phantom CapitalistSeptember 15, 2011 at 7:09 AM

    Dsylexic,

    There are many more things in this world to manufacture than just planes and hi-tech equipment.

    Not to mention how much of Americas current manufacturing goes to the U.S. and foreign military's. Forgive me if I don't get excited over the U.S. exporting of stealth bombers instead of manufacturing real consumer goods(knick knacks).

    ReplyDelete
  13. Mr. Schiff was very impressive. They should pay attention to him. They won't. Sad.

    ReplyDelete
  14. How are these airplanes and other hi-tech equipment priced? I hear what you are saying, that people might not realize how much manufacturing is done in the US. If this is true then, I wonder how much the government buys because it seems like the government pays "government prices" and I am curious how these prices are arrived at and what the affect is on the economy. I would love to see sources and figures.

    ReplyDelete
  15. @Anyonymous

    Regarding the question of Schiff's investment performance in 2008, everyone lost money that year. Schiff stayed the course and maintained his investment strategy, and less than a year later he made it all back and them some. He says he didn't expect gold and commodities to fall as much as they did, but they still didn't fall as much as traditional investments.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Congress is willfully blind. It will never listen though its members have been sufficiently warned.

    I hate to say it, but the only way the economy is going to be cured is if it blows up, implodes, or otherwise falls apart. When Congress and the Fed can no longer do anything, then productive Americans can do the hard work of building a profitable economy built on real savings, investment, with gold and silver circulating as money.

    The faster the current system falls apart, the faster productive people can begin building on economy founded on a solid foundation.

    ReplyDelete
  17. @ anonymous 11:14 AM

    You should look at some hedge fund performance data during 2008, especially Paulson & Co, although they not doing so great now. There were some who saw it all coming and profited.

    ReplyDelete
  18. The MMTers are on watch for us:

    Here were his proposals for job creation. (Totally serious.)

    1. Fed should hike interest rates significantly
    2. Balance the budget immediately with huge spending cuts
    3. Abolish the minimum wage
    4. Repeal all Federal workplace anti-discrimination laws
    5. Repeal all laws governing workplace conditions, overtime, benefits, leave, medical benefits, etc.
    6. Abolish unemployment benefits

    Please read Schiff's entire testimony here.

    I don't know about you, but this has just made me sick to my stomach. I am literally ill. In a country where we have thoughtful, educated, intelligent, rational people like Warren Mosler, our representatives in Congress prefer to listen to the ravings of this depraved idiot, Schiff.

    We are surely doomed. Surely as the sun comes up.


    http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2011/09/peter-schiffs-job-creation-proposals.html

    What would we do without the MMTers?

    ReplyDelete
  19. Mike Norman is still out there running his mouth. That boggles my mind. You'd think he'd have learned something about economics by now.

    ReplyDelete
  20. WOW this video shows how doomed we are...

    ReplyDelete
  21. yeah Schiff was incredible like usual, mixing theory with clear common sense policy. 99% he's dead on, but what is Schiff's fetish obsession with the "trade deficit" ?? It's a non-issue!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Yes, I agree with the comment above about the good Dr. Boushey. She is, unfortunately a classic example of the ivory tower types our educational system produces that, while having earned their PhD's do not actually understand and cannot apply the subjects of their study.

    Quite sad to watch, actually.

    Her "knowledge" is obviously not of the subject she professes, but only of others' commentary and opinions about it.

    ReplyDelete
  23. The reason more employers don't take the "high road" that Dr. Boushey mentioned at the end of #2 is because they cannot weed out (fire) the riff-raff that ruin employee morale and work ethic.

    If a company cannot fire (because of unions or other regulations, threat of lawsuit) a poor performer who makes the same amount of money as the next person, why should the next person be highly productive? What is the incentive?

    Instead the "good" worker has to listen to all of the poison spewing continuously from the mouth of the degenerate employee that Henry Ford would have fired in a heartbeat.

    That poison is all the "ways the company abuses and takes advantage of us". Soon, the "good" employee is just "putting in time" like everyone else.

    And when the plant closes down because the company learned that people in China are not only lower cost but also more highly motivated and maybe even appreciative of their job, the U.S. employees see that as the company's fault - never their own.

    Companies cannot even give a bad reference to another potential employer for fear of a lawsuit, so companies are forced to continually deal with perennial "loser" employees, thus raising their costs and further poisoning their otherwise valuable workforce.

    And the list goes on, Dr. Boushey, why companies don't take the "high road" that Henry Ford took.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Economics 101
    More is less vs less is more. Very nice. Thanks for the videos.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Peter Schiff for president. Not really. He's much too smart, honest, & direct for the position

    ReplyDelete
  26. The trade deficit is important because it's now some $8 trillion "out there" which can be or has been used to buy debt, or can be used to buy controlling interest in US corporations.

    As far as manufacturing, the percentage of GDP is still about the same as historic levels, but with around 1/5 or less of the workforce. Not just airplanes, but high-tech in medical equipment as well as in plastics and petro-chemicals. More computers and robots, fewer workers.

    ReplyDelete
  27. "The trade deficit is important because it's now some $8 trillion "out there" which can be or has been used to buy debt, or can be used to buy controlling interest in US corporations."

    debt can NOT buy debt ... do you have any idea WTF you are babbling about ... our trade deficit and debt are what is going to cause massive deflation of the dollar ... if this practice doesn't change the world will change it idea of the value of the US dollar - abandon it and we will default ... meaning we will not be able to import anything .... good you might think .... NOT a chance ... every job that depends on imported goods will be destroyed ... massive unemployment that makes our current figures seem like good times ...

    ReplyDelete
  28. The end of the USD is nigh. Inevitable AND IMMINENT.

    ReplyDelete