Peter Schiff Still Wrong

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1722...ce=google_news

"I mention Peter Schiff because he was recently on CNBC making more predictions. One prediction was, in my opinion, so off-base I feel compelled to mention it. Mr. Schiff predicted the Federal Reserve will increase the quantitative easing program, not taper or end it. "They're going to have to do 100, 115, 125 (billion dollars a month). When the market comes to terms with that it's going to be a whole different ballgame," he said. "Right now, the Fed has to maintain the illusion that there's a method to their madness."

His reasoning for the increase in quantitative easing is that the economy is being propped up by the Federal Reserve's easy money policy. To keep the economy going the Fed will have to accelerate their buying, not decrease it.

I think he is right that the economy has benefited from the easy money policy of the Fed, but, this is nothing new. The Fed has moved rates up and down based on the health of the economy for decades. The recent zero interest policy and the bond buying is unprecedented, but the economic downturn, with exception of the Depression, was also unprecedented.

I do not think anyone can argue, the economy is in better shape today than it was 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2012. Home values are up, car sales are sizzling, unemployment is down, and industrial production has been steadily rising. Is the economy running full speed ahead? No. But, it is getting healthier and the Fed will soon begin to reduce its bond buying. In July, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke stated that the Fed anticipates it will be appropriate to begin to moderate the pace of the $85 billion asset-purchase plan "later this year" and end them "around midyear" in 2014, if the economy evolves as forecast. The Federal Open Market Committee minutes from the July meeting showed broad support for a reduction in the bond purchases with a few members suggesting it should be sooner than later.


For seven years now Mr. Schiff has been proclaiming the American economy was on the verge of collapse, the dollar was going to have a massive decline, and that gold and other commodities were going to skyrocket. For most of those seven years he has been wrong. Gold has been down huge the last two years, the dollar has not lost value and the American economy is stronger, not weaker. Like others before him, Mr. Schiff keeps repeating the same talking points, in hopes that at some point he will be right."