On Wednesday Peter appeared on Fox business to dissect the latest PPI figures and the Fed’s newest decision to hold rates steady. Peter argues the Federal Reserve is out of touch, inflation is already running hot, and recent geopolitical shocks will only make a fragile U.S. balance sheet worse.
To support his case, he walks listeners through recent price data, the housing market’s deep imbalance, and the latest price moves in gold and mining shares.
He opens by blasting a mainstream assessment of the economy as disconnected from the data, and points to a surprise jump in the producer price index (PPI) as a sign the inflation problem is real, not transitory:
Well, his [Powell’s] assessment of the economy is completely wrong, irrespective of what’s happening with oil. He doesn’t understand the economy, doesn’t understand inflation. I mean, first of all, the gold’s move down started before the Fed announcement and the press conference. And it happened in response to the much hotter than expected February producer price index, which spiked up 0.7, which annualizes to 8.4 percent annualized. We have a huge inflation problem that the Fed is not acknowledging.
Peter then ties inflation to fiscal excess and the new geopolitical risks, warning that deficits will explode and debt figures that already scare prudent investors will balloon further:
Now that Trump started a war, the situation is going to get a lot worse. The national debt just went past 39 trillion. I think yesterday, I think we’re going to blow through 50 trillion over the next three years because recession, rising interest rates, war and a housing crisis are going to send our budget deficits through the roof.
He points out one immediate casualty of higher rates is the government itself, since debt servicing costs will surge. At the same time he argues housing is primed for a major correction because prices are far above fundamentals and leverage is worse than it was in 2007–2008:
One of the most impacted is the U.S. government itself because the cost of servicing the debt explodes as interest rates go up. Meanwhile, look at the housing data that came out today. Home sales are collapsing because real estate prices are at least 30 percent overpriced nationwide. And we are on the cusp of a decline in housing prices, at least as great as the decline in 2007-2008 that precipitated the O8 financial crisis. And I think the economy is even more leveraged now than it was then.
Given the macro backdrop, Peter explains why precious metals and miners are suddenly attractive relative to many other equities, and he notes the oddity of his own oil positions in the new risk environment:
You know, I have a lot of oil stocks. Maybe now is not the greatest time to buy them. I think the gold stocks today, it’s a great day to buy gold stocks, a great day to buy gold. War is inflationary. It’s inflationary because war is financed through inflation. The war is going to be very expensive.
Finally, he delivers his actionable message: reduce exposure to overvalued U.S. financial assets, preserve purchasing power in hard money, and prepare for a painful era of recession plus rising prices that the Federal Reserve seems unwilling to acknowledge:
So people should be selling U.S. stocks and bonds. In fact, U.S. stocks are barely down today. They should be down a lot more. They should have already been down more. So people should take advantage of the fact that the stock market is still so overvalued by selling and getting more money out of U.S. financial assets, out of U.S. stocks and bonds, buying gold, buying silver, buying mining stocks, and get prepared for this because this is massive stagflation. And it’s not just stagflation. It’s going to be a recession and high inflation combined.
Peter Schiff is Chairman of SchiffGold, CEO and Chief Global Strategist of Euro Pacific Capital, Inc, and host of The Peter Schiff Show. Peter is an economic forecaster and investment advisor influenced by the free-market Austrian School of economics. He is one of the few forecasters who accurately and publicly predicted the 2007 housing market collapse and subsequent 2008 financial crisis. His latest best-selling book, The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy – How to Save Yourself and Your Country, warns that the 2008 crisis was just the prelude to a larger sovereign debt crisis in the United States that may lead to a collapse of the US dollar. Peter recommends long-term investment in foreign markets with sound fiscal policies, as well as global commodities including buying gold, silver and other physical precious metals.
