Jim Clifton of Gallup, CEO of one of the largest public polling companies in the world, has published a severe indictment of the official unemployment data reported by the United States Department of Labor. Obama and Wall Street cite the 5.6% unemployment rate as a triumph of the American economic recovery, while conveniently ignoring the raw data behind that number.
"There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie."
So who is not counted in the Department of Labor’s headline unemployment number? At least 30 million Americans fall into the following categories:
People who are paid at least $20 a week for odd jobs.
The severely underemployed, like highly trained professionals working only 10 hours a week.
Anyone who hasn’t looked for a job in the past four weeks.
That’s 30 million people unaccounted for in the government’s unemployment rate. With a population of about 320.25 million, that’s a nearly 10% underemployment rate on top of the official 5.6%.
According to Gallup, a “good job” requires at least 30 hours per week of work with a regular paycheck. Only 44% of the adult population has this sort of full-time job. Clifton argues that these are the jobs needed to revive the dwindling American middle class. He wants the media and people in power to start telling the truth to the American people.
"I hear all the time that ‘unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren’t feeling it.’ When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth — the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real — then we will quit wondering why Americans aren’t ‘feeling’ something that doesn’t remotely reflect the reality in their lives. And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class."
Source: http://schiffgold.com/key-gold-news/official-unemployment-is-a-big-lie-043/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=gold-news
Peter Schiff`s Investment Commentary - Tracking Schiff`s Media Appearances And Market Commentary
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
The Fed Tries and Fails to Debunk the Gold Standard
Last month, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis published an essay that supposedly debunks the idea that a monetary gold standard can stabilize and improve economies. The piece is blatant propaganda that returns to the same excuse central bankers always use to discredit the gold standard. Namely, that tying a currency to gold prevents a government and its central bank from quickly responding to economic problems by manipulating the money supply. This is the same argument used to defeat the “Save Our Swiss Gold” campaign back in November, which would have forced the Swiss National Bank to significantly increase its gold reserves.
Here’s the conclusion of Scott A. Wolla’s gold hit piece for the Fed:
"A gold standard ties the value of money to a country’s stock of gold reserves. While some argue that a gold standard can effectively maintain price stability over long periods, governments still have the ability to change their money supply and price level simply by changing the official gold-to-money ratio. Moreover, a gold standard can be problematic because of sudden gold inflows and outflows that cause the supply of money, and therefore prices, to fluctuate. In the end, a gold standard is not needed to preserve price stability as long as a country’s central bank is independent and has a clear mandate to achieve price stability."
You’ll notice Wolla also relies upon the idea that central banks like the Fed are independent of the government. He argues that this autonomy prevents central banks from printing money solely to “inflate away” sovereign debt for the benefit of politicians. It’s hard to read this dribble with a straight face, especially when one of the most notorious central bankers of our time – Alan Greenspan – recently and publicly declared, “I never said the central bank is independent!” Greenspan also suggested gold is a good investment, because he sees inflation coming thanks to the Fed’s policies.
Forbes has published a sharp rebuttal to this paper by Nathan Lewis, author of Gold: The Once and Future Money. Lewis walks us through a brief history of the money supply and inflation in the United States during and after the gold standard. His article neatly cuts the legs out from under the Wolla’s key points and finishes with this:
"The reason we don’t have a gold standard policy today is not because it doesn’t work – the last twenty years of the gold standard era, the 1950s and 1960s, were the most prosperous of the last century – but because people forgot what it was for, and how it operated. The world gold standard era didn’t end because it was producing bad results, but because it was left in the hands of people who blew it up out of sheer ignorance and stupidity…
I think there has been a bit of disinformation over the years. It serves some people’s interests if people don’t understand the most basic concepts of gold-based money. In any case, if we are to create a viable alternative to today’s floating-fiat madness, we need to have a strong foundation regarding these core principles."
The fact that the Fed feels it is necessary to publish official arguments against the gold standard could be a good sign. If gold really has no purpose in modern economies, if gold is truly a “barbarous relic,” then why even bother addressing it? Perhaps the Fed is concerned that people are waking up.
Just think of all the news in the past year or two. The Swiss gold vote last year; Germany and other European nation’s gold repatriation efforts; Russia’s gold buying spree; the seeming end of the gold bear market of the past couple years; China’s liberalization of its gold markets while turning into a bigger international economy. Could all of these trends have central bankers worried that the world is getting fed up with manipulated fiat currencies? Let’s hope so.
Source: http://schiffgold.com/guest-commentaries/fed-tries-fails-debunk-gold-standard/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=guest
Here’s the conclusion of Scott A. Wolla’s gold hit piece for the Fed:
"A gold standard ties the value of money to a country’s stock of gold reserves. While some argue that a gold standard can effectively maintain price stability over long periods, governments still have the ability to change their money supply and price level simply by changing the official gold-to-money ratio. Moreover, a gold standard can be problematic because of sudden gold inflows and outflows that cause the supply of money, and therefore prices, to fluctuate. In the end, a gold standard is not needed to preserve price stability as long as a country’s central bank is independent and has a clear mandate to achieve price stability."
You’ll notice Wolla also relies upon the idea that central banks like the Fed are independent of the government. He argues that this autonomy prevents central banks from printing money solely to “inflate away” sovereign debt for the benefit of politicians. It’s hard to read this dribble with a straight face, especially when one of the most notorious central bankers of our time – Alan Greenspan – recently and publicly declared, “I never said the central bank is independent!” Greenspan also suggested gold is a good investment, because he sees inflation coming thanks to the Fed’s policies.
Forbes has published a sharp rebuttal to this paper by Nathan Lewis, author of Gold: The Once and Future Money. Lewis walks us through a brief history of the money supply and inflation in the United States during and after the gold standard. His article neatly cuts the legs out from under the Wolla’s key points and finishes with this:
"The reason we don’t have a gold standard policy today is not because it doesn’t work – the last twenty years of the gold standard era, the 1950s and 1960s, were the most prosperous of the last century – but because people forgot what it was for, and how it operated. The world gold standard era didn’t end because it was producing bad results, but because it was left in the hands of people who blew it up out of sheer ignorance and stupidity…
I think there has been a bit of disinformation over the years. It serves some people’s interests if people don’t understand the most basic concepts of gold-based money. In any case, if we are to create a viable alternative to today’s floating-fiat madness, we need to have a strong foundation regarding these core principles."
The fact that the Fed feels it is necessary to publish official arguments against the gold standard could be a good sign. If gold really has no purpose in modern economies, if gold is truly a “barbarous relic,” then why even bother addressing it? Perhaps the Fed is concerned that people are waking up.
Just think of all the news in the past year or two. The Swiss gold vote last year; Germany and other European nation’s gold repatriation efforts; Russia’s gold buying spree; the seeming end of the gold bear market of the past couple years; China’s liberalization of its gold markets while turning into a bigger international economy. Could all of these trends have central bankers worried that the world is getting fed up with manipulated fiat currencies? Let’s hope so.
Source: http://schiffgold.com/guest-commentaries/fed-tries-fails-debunk-gold-standard/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=guest
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Peter Schiff: QE 4 will send gold toward new highs
Gold has had a solid January - up close to 10% as measured by the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD). It’s not unlikely territory for the yellow metal. 2014 started out in much the same way, up more than six percent that month before closing the year a few percentage points lower than where it began.
Peter Schiff thinks while the start of 2015 is similar, the end will be quite different.
Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App
“All the Wall Street strategists are all bearish on gold. They’re bearish on gold stocks and I think instead of giving up the early rallies that happened last year, I think we’re gonna build on the gains throughout the year.”
He notes that the price of gold in just about every currency but the dollar has shot up even faster this year, though he’s not completely ready to discount the precious metal’s standing here at home.
“I think gold is going to go up in all currencies - it is rising faster in euros and some other currencies than it is in dollars but it’s still rising in U.S. dollars...I think it’s breaking out - now is a good time to buy….In fact this year I believe gold prices are going to hit all time record highs in just about every major currency except the U.S. Dollar. We might have to wait until 2016 before gold prices hit a record high in dollars."
Schiff believes the strong dollar has no where to go but down, another catalyst for gold as the year plays out. Still, he says the biggest move in gold in dollars will come at the hands of the Fed.
Related: Schiff: QE won't work in Europe just like it didn't work here
“When the Fed announces QE 4, that’s gonna be a big game changer. It’s gonna catch everybody by surprise.” Schiff says such a move by the Fed would prompt China to follow in Switzerland's footsteps, depeg-ging the yuan from the dollar as the Swiss did from the euro two weeks ago.
He also notes that gold and the Swiss franc have a history of mutual benefits. He believes a strong Swiss franc, un-pegged from the euro, will also aid in gold’s ascent.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/peter-schiff--qe-4-will-send-gold-toward-new-highs-193301148.html
Peter Schiff thinks while the start of 2015 is similar, the end will be quite different.
Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App
“All the Wall Street strategists are all bearish on gold. They’re bearish on gold stocks and I think instead of giving up the early rallies that happened last year, I think we’re gonna build on the gains throughout the year.”
He notes that the price of gold in just about every currency but the dollar has shot up even faster this year, though he’s not completely ready to discount the precious metal’s standing here at home.
“I think gold is going to go up in all currencies - it is rising faster in euros and some other currencies than it is in dollars but it’s still rising in U.S. dollars...I think it’s breaking out - now is a good time to buy….In fact this year I believe gold prices are going to hit all time record highs in just about every major currency except the U.S. Dollar. We might have to wait until 2016 before gold prices hit a record high in dollars."
Schiff believes the strong dollar has no where to go but down, another catalyst for gold as the year plays out. Still, he says the biggest move in gold in dollars will come at the hands of the Fed.
Related: Schiff: QE won't work in Europe just like it didn't work here
“When the Fed announces QE 4, that’s gonna be a big game changer. It’s gonna catch everybody by surprise.” Schiff says such a move by the Fed would prompt China to follow in Switzerland's footsteps, depeg-ging the yuan from the dollar as the Swiss did from the euro two weeks ago.
He also notes that gold and the Swiss franc have a history of mutual benefits. He believes a strong Swiss franc, un-pegged from the euro, will also aid in gold’s ascent.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/peter-schiff--qe-4-will-send-gold-toward-new-highs-193301148.html
Friday, January 23, 2015
Schiff: QE won't work in Europe just like it didn't work here
Put away the party hats and the champagne. Mario Draghi’s version of quantitative easing is a “major mistake” says Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital.
“The only thing they’re going to succeed in doing is lifting the inflation rate but it’s going to be a case of ‘be careful what you wish for.’”
Schiff argues the European Central Bank mandate is to keep inflation below 2%. While the environment there is currently one of deflation, he believes Euro QE will work quickly to bring inflation above 2%.
“I think this open-ended program might end a lot sooner than people think,” Schiff says. “Once they blow through that 2% level they have to cut back the quantitative easing.”
Schiff believes the real problems facing Europe’s economy have less to do directly with inflation versus deflation and more to do with employment.
“Higher inflation is not going to solve the labor problems in Europe,” Schiff contends. “The problem is that the governments have all of these onerous restrictions that punish employers. You have serious structural problems creating unemployment and detracting from economic growth. It has nothing to do with low inflation... all Mario Draghi is going to succeed in doing by raising the rate of inflation is slow down economic growth and make the unemployment problem worse.”
Here at home, he thinks all the “QE worked, the economy is saved” talk is no more than wishful thinking. While Europe may have used our success as an argument to institute their own version of the policy, Schiff notes that “We still have a QE high. But as the stimulus is wearing off, the hangover is setting in," he says. "The U.S. economy is rolling over and I think we’re going to head into recession in 2015 if we don’t get QE 4 and I think we might get it before the end of the year."
Schiff says in the second half of the year the U.S. will see unemployment tick up, the GDP tick down and pressure will grow on stock and housing markets. That, he says, will lead to a QE 4 here at home even bigger than the one Mario Draghi just announced.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/schiff--qe-won-t-work-in-europe-just-like-it-didn-t-work-here-155615061.html
Weakness Is Not Strength. European QE Will Impoverish the People
Follow along with this transcript:
Question: Most people say [quantitative easing] doesn’t work. So why [is the ECB] trying it?
Peter: I think they’re trying it, because they want to try to bail out European governments that have too much debt. What they’re doing is monetizing government debt. They’re printing euros and buying government bonds. What that really does is prevent European governments from actually cutting spending, which is one of the big problems in Europe. The problems there are too much government spending, too much debt, and too much unemployment. Quantitative easing not only doesn’t solve these problems, but actually prevents gets.
Question: Things were kind of improving in Europe, generally. Maybe not so much for Greece, not so much for Southern Europe. But generally, the rest of Europe was over the worst of it. Not true?
Peter: I think things are going to get worse because of this quantitative easing. What they are going to succeed in doing is lifting consumer prices throughout Europe. So Europeans who are struggling are going to have to struggle even harder, because the cost of living is going to go up. So compounding the unemployment problem with an inflation problem is not a solution that’s going to work.
Question: What about the currency wars that the chairman of Goldman Sachs is warning of today in Davos, where countries devalue their money… I kind of get it, but when everyone does it, then it doesn’t work.
Peter: It doesn’t work at all. A currency war is where a government tries to destroy its own people. You don’t make your country richer by making your citizens poorer. That’s all that happens when you devalue your money. It means that the prices of the things that you want to buy –
Question: Yes, but it’s about imports and exports, isn’t it?
Peter: Well, it just means that you export for less. It’s like putting your stuff on sale. Sure, if you reduce the price of your exports, you’re going to sell more. But why would you want to discount your exports? You want to get as much as you can for your exports, so you can import more. But what happens when your currency goes down, your standard of living goes down, because you’re poorer. You have to work harder to consume the things that you want and need.
Question: Back in 2013, the G7 leaders said they wouldn’t interfere with currency rates. They said the market should determine it. That seems to have gone out the bucket?
Peter: Yeah. And you know, the only way to win a currency war is not to fight. The winners don’t participate. The best thing for your country and your economy is a strong currency. A strong currency reduces the cost of living. It increases the standard of living, and people benefit through strength. Weakness is not strength.
Source: http://schiffgold.com/interviews/weakness-not-strength-european-qe-will-impoverish-people-video/
Question: Most people say [quantitative easing] doesn’t work. So why [is the ECB] trying it?
Peter: I think they’re trying it, because they want to try to bail out European governments that have too much debt. What they’re doing is monetizing government debt. They’re printing euros and buying government bonds. What that really does is prevent European governments from actually cutting spending, which is one of the big problems in Europe. The problems there are too much government spending, too much debt, and too much unemployment. Quantitative easing not only doesn’t solve these problems, but actually prevents gets.
Question: Things were kind of improving in Europe, generally. Maybe not so much for Greece, not so much for Southern Europe. But generally, the rest of Europe was over the worst of it. Not true?
Peter: I think things are going to get worse because of this quantitative easing. What they are going to succeed in doing is lifting consumer prices throughout Europe. So Europeans who are struggling are going to have to struggle even harder, because the cost of living is going to go up. So compounding the unemployment problem with an inflation problem is not a solution that’s going to work.
Question: What about the currency wars that the chairman of Goldman Sachs is warning of today in Davos, where countries devalue their money… I kind of get it, but when everyone does it, then it doesn’t work.
Peter: It doesn’t work at all. A currency war is where a government tries to destroy its own people. You don’t make your country richer by making your citizens poorer. That’s all that happens when you devalue your money. It means that the prices of the things that you want to buy –
Question: Yes, but it’s about imports and exports, isn’t it?
Peter: Well, it just means that you export for less. It’s like putting your stuff on sale. Sure, if you reduce the price of your exports, you’re going to sell more. But why would you want to discount your exports? You want to get as much as you can for your exports, so you can import more. But what happens when your currency goes down, your standard of living goes down, because you’re poorer. You have to work harder to consume the things that you want and need.
Question: Back in 2013, the G7 leaders said they wouldn’t interfere with currency rates. They said the market should determine it. That seems to have gone out the bucket?
Peter: Yeah. And you know, the only way to win a currency war is not to fight. The winners don’t participate. The best thing for your country and your economy is a strong currency. A strong currency reduces the cost of living. It increases the standard of living, and people benefit through strength. Weakness is not strength.
Source: http://schiffgold.com/interviews/weakness-not-strength-european-qe-will-impoverish-people-video/
Monday, January 19, 2015
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
December 2014 Unemployment Was Actually
In his latest podcast, Peter Schiff dissects the jobs numbers from December, Obama’s new community college plan, and Charles Evans’ call for more inflation. Peter continues to be one of the few reporting on the reality underlying the headline jobs numbers, though Paul Craig Roberts just published an enlightening article at LewRockwell.com. Roberts looks at the Shadow Stats employment data for December and reveals that real unemployment is more like 23% – not 5.6% as reported by the government.
Highlights from Peter’s podcast:
“The headlines are ‘Jobs Up, Unemployment Down, Everything Is Great.’ Again, not so fast, because you can’t just look at the headlines when it comes to the jobs numbers. First, in the official numbers, there was one disappointing number, and that was average hourly earnings. Last month, they were up 0.4, which was a big jump. They were expected another 0.2 this month. Instead, December was minus 0.2. Minus. Not plus. That was the biggest drop in 8 years in average hourly earnings. And they went down to that plus 0.4 from November, and they revised that down. They cut it in half…
“The real bad news was the labor force participation rate that continues to sink, hitting a new low. We had been at 62.8, now we’re at 62.7. That’s the lowest in 38 years. You have to go back to 1977, when women were entering the labor force in droves to find a year where labor force participation was as low as it is right now. What’s really a problem with the labor force participation rate that no one talks about is that for older Americans, labor force participation is actually on the rise. [For] over 55, it’s not falling… The real collapse in the labor force participation is among younger people. That’s why when you have people, even Janet Yellen, dismissing this as, ‘Well, it’s demographics. It’s the baby boomers retiring.’ They’re not retiring! They want to, [but] that’s the problem. They can’t afford to. The young people… they can’t get jobs. So the number is actually worse than it seems…
“The household survey showed that 450,000 people left the labor force in December, while only 110,000 people actually got jobs… As far as that survey is concerned, for every one person who entered the labor force, four people left. Lousy, lousy number…
“In December, 43,600 people got jobs waiting table and tending bar. That’s the highest number added in that segment since 2012. Chances are a lot of these waiters and waitresses are working part-time. A lot of them could be in their 60s. And I bet most of them have college degrees…
“Gold continued to trade very well throughout the week. It finished on another positive note. I think we’re above $1220 in US dollars. Gold stocks very strong on the day, on the week, leading the markets thus far in 2015. In fact, one of the only sectors that’s actually positive on the year… Gold continued to rise against other currencies. Huge moves up… Gold continues to rise, and I think this will continue to generate interest in the precious metals around the world… The fact that gold was strong even in a rising dollar environment, to me indicates a lot of strength. To me, it indicates that when the dollar resumes its downward trend, gold’s upward trend is going to be supercharged, once it’s no longer swimming against the tide…”
Source: http://schiffgold.com/key-gold-news/december-2014-unemployment-actually-23-audio-032/
Highlights from Peter’s podcast:
“The headlines are ‘Jobs Up, Unemployment Down, Everything Is Great.’ Again, not so fast, because you can’t just look at the headlines when it comes to the jobs numbers. First, in the official numbers, there was one disappointing number, and that was average hourly earnings. Last month, they were up 0.4, which was a big jump. They were expected another 0.2 this month. Instead, December was minus 0.2. Minus. Not plus. That was the biggest drop in 8 years in average hourly earnings. And they went down to that plus 0.4 from November, and they revised that down. They cut it in half…
“The real bad news was the labor force participation rate that continues to sink, hitting a new low. We had been at 62.8, now we’re at 62.7. That’s the lowest in 38 years. You have to go back to 1977, when women were entering the labor force in droves to find a year where labor force participation was as low as it is right now. What’s really a problem with the labor force participation rate that no one talks about is that for older Americans, labor force participation is actually on the rise. [For] over 55, it’s not falling… The real collapse in the labor force participation is among younger people. That’s why when you have people, even Janet Yellen, dismissing this as, ‘Well, it’s demographics. It’s the baby boomers retiring.’ They’re not retiring! They want to, [but] that’s the problem. They can’t afford to. The young people… they can’t get jobs. So the number is actually worse than it seems…
“The household survey showed that 450,000 people left the labor force in December, while only 110,000 people actually got jobs… As far as that survey is concerned, for every one person who entered the labor force, four people left. Lousy, lousy number…
“In December, 43,600 people got jobs waiting table and tending bar. That’s the highest number added in that segment since 2012. Chances are a lot of these waiters and waitresses are working part-time. A lot of them could be in their 60s. And I bet most of them have college degrees…
“Gold continued to trade very well throughout the week. It finished on another positive note. I think we’re above $1220 in US dollars. Gold stocks very strong on the day, on the week, leading the markets thus far in 2015. In fact, one of the only sectors that’s actually positive on the year… Gold continued to rise against other currencies. Huge moves up… Gold continues to rise, and I think this will continue to generate interest in the precious metals around the world… The fact that gold was strong even in a rising dollar environment, to me indicates a lot of strength. To me, it indicates that when the dollar resumes its downward trend, gold’s upward trend is going to be supercharged, once it’s no longer swimming against the tide…”
Source: http://schiffgold.com/key-gold-news/december-2014-unemployment-actually-23-audio-032/
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