I’m Living in an Economic Twilight Zone – Ep. 52
The Peter Schiff Show Podcast
Peter Schiff
4.6 • 5.9K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2015
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
* China announces a record trade surplus
* Media reports surplus as bad news for China
* Because of the strength of the Yuan, Chinese can buy more imports for less
* Chinese consumers purchasing more
* Chinese businesses manufacturing more
* Contrary to press reports these factors point to a strong economy in China
* U.S. has record deficits along with a strong dollar
* The short term effect of a strong currency is that trade deficits should go down because imports are cheaper
* The fact that our trade deficit continues to rise illustrates underlying economic weakness
* Media double standard: China trade surplus is bad but U.S. trade deficit is good
* Media reports "low rate of unemployment" among college grads, however:
* Record number of college graduates are under employed
* Only 44% of employed Americans work 30 hours or more per week
* In future, the smarter students will skip low-value degrees in favor of work experience
* Shake Shack IPO valuation $1.5 billion on $5 million profits
* Grilled Cheese Truck: valued at $100 million on negative revenues
* Black is white and white is black: Twilight Zone
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So over the weekend, I'm reading these stories about China announcing a record monthly |
| 0:15.8 | trade surplus in January, surplus, $60 billion surplus in one month. |
| 0:23.4 | This is the best trade performance ever for China. |
| 0:28.7 | A huge surplus, meaning $60 billion more of exports over imports. |
| 0:34.6 | It's like a record profit, right? |
| 0:35.9 | A corporation reporting a record quarterly profit, right? |
| 0:40.1 | Because a surplus is like a profit and a deficit is like a loss, right? |
| 0:45.2 | So you want to generate a surplus, maybe, you know, for a college, right? |
| 0:49.5 | For high school, for grades, a surplus is an A and the deficit is an F. |
| 0:56.5 | Or, you know, the higher the surplus, the higher the grade, the bigger the deficit, the |
| 1:01.9 | lower the grade. |
| 1:02.9 | I mean, that is in a real world. |
| 1:05.1 | But you know, every day, you know, my life, you know, reminds me more and more of a twilight |
| 1:10.3 | zone episode, you know, like I might as well have a name like a Millicent Barden. |
| 1:14.5 | And my whole life should be in black and white. |
| 1:16.3 | There should be a little Rod Cirlene should be in the corner there, you know, welcome to |
| 1:20.7 | the twilight zone because that's where I live. |
| 1:23.4 | And a twilight zone where nothing makes sense, right? |
| 1:27.1 | And so I'm reading all these articles about the China, China trade surplus. |
| 1:32.0 | And I can't find a single article that reports it as is a good thing. |
| 1:39.1 | Here is a typical example. |
| 1:40.7 | I got a Reuters headline in front of me. |
... |
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