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The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

Frankenfed Finally Fears Its Own Monster – Ep. 303

The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

Peter Schiff

Business, Politics, Business News, Investing, News

4.75.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2017

⏱️ 41 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Fed Fears Inflation Is Not High Enough
Fed statements drove the markets today; particularly the foreign exchange markets and the precious metals markets. First we got a quote from Janet Yellen early this morning in which she was talking about inflation. Her concern is that inflation isn't high enough. Here's and exact quote from Janet Yellen:
“It can be quite dangerous to allow inflation to drift down and not to achieve over time a central bank’s inflation target,”
Dangerous? Dangerous to whom? She also says that one reason it is dangerous is because inflation expectations are likely to drift down, too. So she's not only worried that inflation isn't high enough, but she is worried that people won't be worried about inflation. Why is low inflation dangerous?
What's so Bad About Low Inflation?
First of all, it's not even negative. She's not saying we are going to have deflation, which I don't think is bad anyway. She is just saying it is dangerous if we don't have enough inflation, meaning that if we have 2-2.5% inflation, we're out of the danger zone, but if we have 1.5% inflation, we're in this danger zone?

What is so dangerous about prices not going up? This is all a bunch of nonsense that the media just accepts. Now, I'll tell you why it is dangerous and for whom it is dangerous: The reason the Fed wants high inflation is so the next time they cut interest rates, they can create a negative rate. They know that the bubble is so big that just low interest rates are not going to do anything. This addict is so hyped up on this "sauce" that we have to get rates negative. Low interest rates are not enough. They've got to be negative.
Major Ramifications for the Reserve Currency
So the Fed has got to be able to get the Fed Funds Rate below the inflation rate, and they need it to be way below, because, let's say inflation is only 1% and they go to zero interest rates, well they have -1%! That's not enough! They might think we need -3% or -4%. Well, if zero is the lower bound, and you want rates to be -3% then you need to have inflation at 3% in order to get a negative 3% yield. Unless you want to go from the absurd to the ridiculous, and actually take rates negative, which would have major ramifications for the reserve currency,

I think the Fed is still reluctant to try that, but if they have to, they'll certainly give it a shot. They'll use that as the Hail Mary, but they'd rather keep that one in their back pocket. So they need room to be able to get interest rates to zero but have a high enough negative rate to try to provide the stimulus that they think helps the economy.
Collateral Damage in the Fed's Manipulation and Experimentation
But it doesn't help the economy. This is all their nonsense but they are willing to sacrifice American families. They are just casualties of war, collateral damage in the Fed's manipulation and experimentation. They are saying that we need to have higher inflation so that we can fight the next recession. Well, the next recession is going to be a lot worse, if in addition to unemployment, people are dealing with a rising cost of living. But as far as the Fed is concerned, that's OK, because the only way we can stimulate the economy is to make sure we sedate it by causing the cost of living in the U.S. to go up and the standard of living to go down.
Concerns About a Potential Buildup of Financial Imbalances
The other danger of inflation not being high enough is probably the stock market. Interestingly enough, later on in the day, the FOMC minutes were released, and in addition to expressing their concern about low inflation, they are also worried about the stock market. It's about time, but listen to this, I am reading a quote from the minutes:
"In light of elevated asset valuations and low financial market volatility, several participants expressed concerns about a... Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0

The Peter Schiff Show.

0:07.0

Well, let me wish everybody listening to the podcast a happy Thanksgiving.

0:13.6

The markets are of course closed tomorrow.

0:16.8

We have a abbreviated session on Friday, but we did have a full session today of trading.

0:23.4

The NASDAQ was the only index to make a new high today and finish, finish positive

0:29.2

day.

0:30.2

Both the Dow and the S&P were lower.

0:32.9

The bigger action was in the foreign exchange market.

0:35.4

The dollar really got clobber today.

0:38.4

Dollar index dropping pretty sharply on the day.

0:42.8

Just about 70 to 93 and a quarter.

0:46.7

This is the lowest it's been since we got above 95, what I think it was last week.

0:51.8

Gold prices up about 11 bucks back above 1290.

0:55.2

We've had a volatile week in gold.

0:57.8

Remember we had that big $15, $16 rally last Friday.

1:02.4

Then on Monday we had a huge seller right out of the gate again dumping a lot of gold

1:08.0

on the market.

1:09.0

The market tanked right away and it was down pretty much $15, $16 gave back all of Friday's

1:15.4

gains.

1:16.4

Yesterday was pretty quiet and then we had the jump up again today.

1:20.0

We didn't quite take out Friday's high but a pretty good position right now.

1:25.0

Gold still looks like it wants to break out.

...

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