by Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, and host of The Peter Schiff Show, broadcasting live from WSTC Norwalk CT from 10am to noon Eastern time every weekday, and streaming at

This morning many on Wall Street were stunned by the big fat zero put up by the August jobs report, the worst showing in 11 months. The data convinced many previously optimistic economists that the United States will slip back into recession. I believe that we have been in one giant recession all along that was only temporarily interrupted by trillions of useless and destructive deficit and stimulus spending.  Unfortunately, the August numbers will increase the talk of government efforts to stimulate the economy.

But while President Obama prepares to unveil a new plan for the Federal Government to create jobs, evidence is rapidly piling up on how his Administration is actively destroying jobs with stunning efficiency. Recent examples of this trend are enough to make anyone with even a casual respect for America’s former economic prowess hang their head in disgust.

The assault on private sector employment began in April when the democrat controlled National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint seeking to force Boeing aircraft to move Boeing’s newly opened non-union production facilities in South Carolina back to its union controlled plants in Washington State. Although Boeing simply says that it is looking to open a cost effective domestic manufacturing facility (an endangered species) to employ American workers, the NLRB alleges that the company was punishing union workers in Washington for past strikes. Despite a lack of any direct evidence that Boeing was being punitive, and the fact that the company was not laying off any union workers, the NLRB has not backed down. Against little public support and nearly universal revulsion among business leaders, the NLRB is continuing its campaign to keep Boeing from exercising its freedoms and to employ people in a manner that makes sense for its business.

The Boeing move served notice that the Obama’s loyalties were firmly tied to the Union interests that were so critical to his election in 2008. This week, the anti-business tendencies of the administration came into even sharper focus.

In the telecommunications industry, service provider AT&T made the seemingly essential move in its attempt to acquire wireless specialist T-Mobile. But the Justice Department sued to block the $39 billion deal on antitrust grounds, saying that the merger between the second and fourth largest cell phone providers would unfairly restrict competition and raise prices.

In so doing, the DOJ seems to be operating under the assumption, without any direct evidence, that at least four companies are needed to provide healthy choice in the marketplace, and that three providers simply won’t cut it. More broadly, competition may increasingly come from outside the telecommunications sector (in particular from cable and satellite industries). Plus, with the speed of technological change, who knows what types of competitors will arise in the years to come. The situation reminds me of the broken merger in 2004 and 2005 between Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video. Based on antitrust concerns emanating from the Justice Department, Blockbuster backed off from the deal. Of course, just a few years later the whole sector was made obsolete by Netflix, and any advantage Blockbuster would have gained would have only been temporary.

In light of the current and future competition that is sure to change the way consumers talk with one another over great distances, AT&T and T-Mobile are much better positioned to survive as a combined entity. In any event if AT&T can’t buy T-Mobile, someone else will. The company’s parent, Deutsche Telecom, has stated its intention to divest itself of its American subsidiary.

So why not help American business survive in an increasingly competitive market? Most likely antitrust lawyers at the DOJ have been otherwise bored with the lack of merger deals to scrutinize (another downside to a weak economy), and this transaction just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the legal activism will certainly cost jobs. Even the unions recognize this and have supported the merger.

But the absurdity of the current environment reached a peak when the DOJ, and agents from, get this, the U.S. Fish and Wild Life Service, raided the Nashville factory of the legendary Gibson Guitar company. The raid resulted in agents carting off more than a half million dollars of supplies and essentially shutting the company down. The take down of one of America’s commercial icons apparently resulted from Gibson’s purchase of partially finished ebony and rosewood guitar fingerboards (these endangered trees are carefully managed) from an Indian supplier.

Now here’s the interesting part. The Indian government had issued no complaint about the transactions and there was no evidence that the company had violated U.S. law. The DOJ acted simply on suspicion that Gibson had violated Indian law. Since when do U.S. companies have to make sure that they comply with laws of every country in the world before they produce a product?

I had the good fortune on interviewing Henry Juszkiewicz, the CEO of Gibson on my radio show this Thursday.

The Supreme Court must now rule on this question, but we shouldn’t have to wait for that.I sent a letter to Congress telling them to repeal Obamacare now.

The hard-wired message says simply, “Please repeal Obamacare.”

I added these comments…

Uncertainty over what Obamacare will really cost companies is probably the major reason they’re reluctant to hire new people. Repeal Obamacare quickly, and this uncertainty will disappear. Unemployment would probably fall instantly, and dramatically.

Repealing Obamacare is probably the best thing you could do to create jobs.

But that’s not the only reason to repeal it.

Obamacare never had public support. It still doesn’t. The American people hate it. Plus…

The “individual mandate” is an affront to a free society. It violates the Constitution. The 11th Circuit agrees, and the Supreme Court will probably agree too.

And if the individual mandate goes, so must the rest of Obamacare. The individual mandate was essential to the scheme, because Obamacare also requires insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. The only way companies could afford that is through the requirement that everyone has to buy their product. But that won’t work if the court rejects the individual mandate.

This is a dangerous situation. If the Supreme Court kills the individual mandate, but not the whole of Obamacare, then the uncertainty companies face will grow. Job creation will remain stagnant.

America can’t afford to wait for a Supreme Court ruling, and then for further Congressional action to clarify things after the ruling. Instead, Congress should “fix” the problems of Obamacare by repealing ALL of it now.

You should also take IMMEDIATE steps to make health care more affordable, which is the key to expanding access. You can do this by allowing INDIVIDUALS to choose for themselves, with their own money. Here are some ideas…

* Introduce legislation allowing Americans to buy health insurance from any provider in the country, not just those licensed in their own state. This will reduce premiums for nearly every American.
* Remove all tax and regulatory incentives that tie health insurance to employment. This will give individuals full ownership over their own health insurance policies. This would also reduce the risk that people will end up uninsured because they change jobs, which is especially important to those Americans who have a family member with a pre-existing condition.
* Transition Medicare to a true voucher program with Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). People are always more prudent with their own money than they are when spending other people’s money. Therefore, HSA’s would reduce healthcare prices across the board.

Repealing Obamacare care now will help the economy immediately. It could also pave the way for more individual choice in healthcare. Choice would bring lowered costs, improved quality, and expanded access.

You can do better than Obamacare. Repeal it now. Then start over, using better ideas.

END LETTER

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Official email newsletter of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation.

by Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, and host of The Peter Schiff Show, broadcasting live from WSTC Norwalk CT from 10am to noon Eastern time every weekday, and streaming at www.schiffradio.com

I have been forecasting with near certainty that QE2 would not be the end of the Fed’s money-printing program. My suspicions were confirmed in both the Fed minutes on Tuesday and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s semi-annual testimony to Congress yesterday. The former laid out the conditions upon which a new round of inflation would be launched, and the latter re-emphasized – in case anyone still doubted – that Mr. Bernanke has no regard for the principles of a sound currency.

Tuesday’s release of the Fed minutes contained the first indication that a third round of quantitative easing (QE3) is being considered. The notes described unanimous agreement that QE2 should be completed, along with the following comment: “depending on how economic conditions evolve, the Committee might have to consider providing additional monetary policy stimulus, especially if economic growth remained too slow to meaningfully reduce the unemployment rate in the medium run.” Since the unemployment situation is deteriorating, and by all accounts will continue to do so, the Fed is essentially pledging to keep the spigot turned on. The committee also decided to look only at current “overall inflation” in making their judgments, as opposed to “inflation trends.” Since new dollars take awhile to circulate around the economy and raise prices, this means the Fed is sure to be too late in tightening once inflation starts to run away, causing more dislocations in the American economy.

If anyone had lingering faith that Mr. Bernanke actually has a plan to end the US government’s addiction to cheap money, the Chairman’s semi-annual testimony to Congress should have washed it away. In addition to claiming that his money-printing has helped the US economy, Bernanke told Congress that gold is not money, people buying gold are not concerned about inflation, and the external value of the dollar has no influence on its domestic purchasing power. He even took a moment to stump for President Obama’s plan to raise the debt ceiling.

By claiming that gold is not money, the Chairman demonstrates his ignorance of much of monetary history. He told Congressman Ron Paul that he had no idea why central banks hold gold, before speculating that it might have something to do with tradition. Yes, traditionally gold is money, which is precisely why central banks hold it. And gold is money because central bankers like Mr. Bernanke cannot be trusted with a paper substitute.

Bernanke further disputes the facts by claiming that the only reason people are buying gold is to hedge against uncertainty, or “tail risks” as he calls them. My advice to the Chairman is to ask the people who are actually buying it. As someone who has been buying gold myself for a decade, I can assure him that my gold buying has nothing to do with “uncertainty.” In fact, it’s just the opposite. I am buying gold because of what is certain, not what is uncertain. I am certain that Mr. Bernanke’s incompetence will destroy the value of the dollar and unleash runaway inflation.

If it were true that people bought gold to protect themselves from market uncertainty, as the Chairman claims, then the metal should have spiked in the midst of the ’08 credit crunch. Instead, it fell along with most other assets. People instinctively fled into US dollars and Treasuries because of their long record of stability. What Bernanke doesn’t understand is that his irresponsible monetary policy is undermining that faith in US assets, built up over generations. That is what’s driving gold: easy money, negative interest rates, and quantitative easing.

Finally, by claiming that the dollar’s exchange rate has no effect on domestic prices, Mr. Bernanke demonstrates that he probably lacks the competence to be a bank teller, let alone Chairman of the Federal Reserve. A weaker dollar means Americans have to pay more for imported goods. But it also means domestic producers have to pay more for raw materials and imported components, which raises domestic production costs as well. It also means that more domestically produced goods are exported, reducing the supply and raising the price of what is left for Americans to consume. This is Econ 101.

Given the Chairman’s confusion on the basics of economics, perhaps it’s no surprise that he’s put quantitative easing right back on the table, where, despite prior rhetoric, it has been all along. The Fed has always known that QE3 is coming; it’s just looking for an excuse to launch it.

The problem is that fighting a recession with QE is like fighting a fire with gasoline. As the flames of recession reignite, more QE, while dousing it momentarily, will only produce an even larger economic inferno.

At one point, Bernanke said, “The right analogy for not raising the debt ceiling is going out and having a spending spree on your credit card and then refusing to pay the bill.” He’s got the analogy right, but his conclusions are completely wrong. Yes, Congress has gone on a spending spree and it’s time to pay up. But raising the debt ceiling is like taking out a Mastercard to pay the Visa… it just makes the problem worse. If you or I go out one night, get drunk, and run up a huge credit card bill, we know that the way to fix it is to buckle down and pay it back. We might postpone vacation plans or put off buying a new car, we might cancel our cable TV subscription or gym membership. The point is that we would have to reduce current consumption to make up for the overspending in the past.

Obama claims that raising the debt ceiling is about getting a hold of the federal debt. Have you ever heard of anyone getting out of debt by taking on more debt? Has anyone ever reduced their debt without reducing current consumption? How can the Fed Chairman endorse such a preposterous idea?

Bernanke actually went a step further and warned against reducing current federal spending too sharply, claiming that such a move might impede the “recovery.” He apparently believes that it is the role of the Congress to go on spending sprees, and his role to pay the mounting bills with freshly printed dollars. The fact that this formula has produced larger and larger economic crises does not seem to bother him. I guess ignorance is bliss.

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The artificially engineered U.S. recovery is already starting to falter as a continuous procession of disappointing data continues to confirm the sad truth. Recent numbers on GDP, durable goods, housing, regional manufacturing, initial unemployment claims and leading economic indicators all indicate a sharp slowdown in GDP growth. Just today the ADP Employment report showed that the private sector added a paltry 38,000 jobs in May, down from 177,000 jobs in April, significantly below expectations, and the weakest number since September 2010. Just yesterday Case Shiller announced that the U.S. housing market had officially achieved a “double dip,” in that national home prices have given up the entire 5% bounce that they had achieved after the May 2009 lows. These signs of continuing malaise comes at a time when the government is contemplating ways to dramatically cut spending. But given the economic weakness, is America really ready to accept the short term consequences that a government spending cut would cause?

Free market disciples (like me) believe that government intervention is anathema to a healthy economy. In contrast, we believe genuine government stimulus comes from low taxes, stable prices, reduced regulation and low debt. Our economic policy makers have scrupulously avoided such remedies. However, in the short term, it is possible for government central-planning to artificially boost GDP. But as the short term has come and gone, Washington’s heavy hand is now inflicting lasting demand on the economy.

When a country spends in order to stimulate growth it gets the money from three sources: taxing its citizens; borrowing from the existing pool of capital, or borrowing newly created money from its central bank.  All three options are economically poisonous.

The act of taxing one sector of the economy in order to redistribute wealth to another is not a net economic benefit. To think that taking money from Citizen A and giving it to Citizen B improves the outlook for both assumes that the government knows the best way to allocate resources. But everything I have ever seen tells me that this is not so.

A government could instead distribute money borrowed from the private sector’s existing pool of capital into targeted areas of the economy. But this type of “stimulus” is simply a deferred tax with interest. Any money borrowed by government could have been utilized by the private sector to expand business and grow the economy. Instead, money spent by government makes no lasting economic impact.

Some liberal economists argue that funds left in the private sector would likely be saved, rather than spent, during an economic downturn-thus exasperating the recession. This may be true, but necessity, in the form of weak balance sheets, is the factor that usually drives the private sector to save. Any interference with that deleveraging process can have dire consequences in the long term. Government borrowing only delays the eventual pain because a significant tax increase will eventually be needed to pay down the added debt. If the private sector is prevented from paying down debt, the debts will simply be transferred, with interest, to the public ledger.

Finally, a government can acquire spending power from outside the existing domestic savings pool by borrowing newly printed money that enters the economy in the form of deficit spending. However, the inflation created by the central bank printing has its downside. At first, the economy experiences a combination of higher prices and growth. Producers raise prices as the domestic currency loses its value, while others are deceived into believing the value of money has remained unchanged; and so they increase their production and expand real GDP. However, the more the central bank prints, the less real growth and the more inflation the economy will experience.

This is precisely the recipe that we are currently following. Between 2008 and 2010, the Federal government borrowed over $3.1 trillion. It is expected to run-up another $1.5 trillion in debt this fiscal year. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has increased their balance sheet by nearly $2 trillion in order to accommodate the massive increase in public sector borrowing.

By borrowing printed money, the government has been able to perpetuate our consumption driven economy, while simultaneously raising most asset prices-even home prices have been prevented from falling to a level that can be supported by the free market. The Fed’s desire to create inflation and support prices has at last driven up industrial commodity prices like copper to all-time nominal highs. But once oil prices crashed through the $100 per barrel level, the Fed was forced to ratchet down its inflationary rhetoric. The question now is whether actions will follow.

The Fed and the Administration have now reached the point of diminishing returns. Whatever anemic and temporary growth that was generated by borrowing and spending printed money is now being superseded by rising prices. Any further monetary stimulation will only send aggregate price levels surging, even as GDP growth falls.

The government’s window to artificially drive real GDP growth by borrowing and spending has closed. The U.S. economy now faces another recession head-on, as the private sector deleveraging process resumes and the public sector deleveraging process begins. Alternatively, the Fed can keep expanding their balance sheet and sending the economy deeper into stagflation. The only question for investors is whether the next recession will be accompanied by inflation or deflation. But only Mr. Bernanke can answer that.

by John Browne, Senior Market Strategist at Euro Pacific Capital

Despite last week’s confusing employment data, the increasing threat of another decline in home values, political uncertainty in Egypt and the broader Middle East, and sharp pullbacks in some emerging markets such as Brazil, US stock markets continued to rise. It sometimes seems that Wall Street exists in a bubble that is well-insulated from the rough and tumble of the outside world. But, in what may be a harbinger that America’s era of prosperity is winding down, the hallowed New York Stock Exchange, long the epicenter of American economic might, is expected to be bought by Germany’s Deutsche Boerse. When the king is so unceremoniously uncrowned, it won’t be long before investors notice how shabbily dressed he really is.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that the unemployment rate had fallen from 9.4 percent to 9.0 percent. Many in the financial media seized on the report and bundled it together with recently released data on improved consumer sentiment as great news for the economy. However, the report only showed 36,000 new jobs created, far less that the 146,000 that economists estimate need to be created to bring down unemployment significantly. Regardless, US stock markets continued to rise.

One must remember that the unemployment figure excludes those who have given up looking for jobs altogether. The percentage of Americans who have jobs continues to shrink. By factoring back in those who have left the work force over the last few years, many economists have concluded that the real unemployment rate is closer to 20 percent.

The housing market also shows fresh signs of enduring stress. Based on a report released last week, using data as of November 2010, nearly one third of US houses are now worth less than the amount owed on their underlying mortgages. Not surprisingly, given this harrowing statistic, defaults continue to rise. The price of the average house is now at a ten-year low and still falling.

In view of this evidence of increased unemployment and continued erosion in the housing sector, it is hard to see any likely recovery in consumer demand in the short term. Without such a rise, it is hard to justify any short-term run up in consumer sentiment and stock prices. But both have done just that. From my perspective, this represents a major financial disconnect.

Serving under former Fed Chairman Greenspan, Ben Bernanke helped to engineer the largest asset boom in history. The natural result was the credit crunch of 2008, from which we now are still trying to recover. However, Bernanke has been unwilling to accept continued recession. Clearly, he is determined to stimulate the economy, not by encouraging consumer demand, but by inflation.

The stimulus packages and quantitative easing programs have created a massive injection of liquidity. Furthermore, the Fed’s manipulation of interest rates has pushed investors into riskier assets, such as equities and commodities, and out of relatively secure investments, such as bank deposits and bonds. This abundance of cheap money is creating an artificial asset boom, and it is the main reason why equity prices have risen.

Meanwhile, the political problems in Egypt have caused smaller investors to temporarily fear political risks in emerging markets, despite their having better fundamentals than the US. I expect this dynamic to quickly reverse as the protests settle in Cairo.

In short, the continued rise in US equities appears to be stimulated not by sustainable US consumer demand, but by cheap government-supplied liquidity, and a temporary diversion away from emerging markets. This qualifies more as a splash than a wave. The tide is still drawing capital to the developing world.

The big question investors should ask themselves is: for how long can the rise in US stock prices continue when consumers are still faced with stagnant employment and falling house prices?

The printing of fiat money is likely to be able to sustain a false economic recovery for some time. But, eventually, the cost will be a rapid erosion of the value of the US dollar – not just in real terms, but also against almost every other foreign currency. Despite possible short-term corrections, gold and silver holdings are likely best to shield investors from the perils that lie ahead.

There can be little doubt that Fed Chairman Benjamin Bernanke has been a very, very good friend to gold investors. However, some of those who have benefited from his largesse now fear that the recent selloff in gold indicates an imminent end to Bernanke’s monetary high-wire act. Most assume that a cessation of the Fed’s stimulative efforts, if it were to occur, would spell the end of gold’s bull run. But a closer reading of Bernanke’s economic philosophy and the Fed’s own recent history, shows that once central banker begins a strenuous routine starts, it is very hard, if not impossible, for them to dismount.

It is widely believed that the unemployment rate, core inflation and home prices are the three key pieces of economic data that Bernanke and his Fed cohorts rely upon when formulating monetary policy. Although other data points, such as regional manufacturing surveys and the producer price index (which have rebounded significantly in some cases) attract some attention, they do not carry near the weight of the big three. With the unemployment rate remaining north of 9.4%, YOY core CPI inflation still less than 1% and the Case/Shiller Home Price Index down .8% from the year ago period, the Fed is in no mood to downshift. If anything, my guess is that Bernanke will step on the gas.

More importantly, in light of Bernanke’s often stated conclusion that premature Fed tightening in 1937 and 1938 led to a prolongation of the Great Depression, even if the big three metrics were to show marked improvement, any future increase in interest rates will be moderate and held in abeyance for as long as politically possible.

Despite the fact that some economic data is improving, the foundation of the economy is getting worse. Consumers are now increasing their borrowing again–as evidenced by last week’s number on consumer credit–and our government is now massively overleveraged. But leaving alone the deteriorating nature of these forward looking metrics, the Fed’s own history provides unexpected good news for those holding tight to their gold positions.

The Fed began its last round of rate hikes in June of 2004 when Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan began a sequence of consecutive 25 basis point increases. The Maestro bumped rates 14 times before passing the baton to Bernanke in February of 2006, who continued the program with three more ¼ point increases. The combined efforts took rates from 1% to 5.25% in the span of two years. However, the tightening program did nothing to tarnish the luster of gold. Here’s why.

Since the Fed increased interest rates very slowly from an extremely low level, money supply continued to expand during the long, slow, deliberate campaign of 25 basis point increases. From June 2004 through June 2006 the M2 money supply increased 9.3%, rising from $6.27 trillion to $6.85 trillion. Total loans and leases from commercial banks jumped from $4.61 trillion to $5.71 trillion during that same time period, an increase of 24%.  As a result, over the time that the Fed’s dynamic duo waged their phony war against the asset bubbles of the mid 2000′s, the price of gold increased from $395 to $623 per ounce.

The truth is that increases in money supply and bank lending aren’t curtailed very much by a Fed Funds target rate that is increased very slowly from a starting point that is decidedly below the rate of inflation. Currently, Fed Funds is decidedly below the rate of inflation, and is likely to stay there for some time. Therefore, investors need not necessarily fear a run on gold once Bernanke eventually lifts rates from zero percent…if he ever makes that decision.

In addition, investors should keep their eyes on the damage created by these ultra low rates. An enormously destructive housing bubble grew out 1% and 1.5%  rates that were in place from November of 2002 through August of 2004. In our current round, the Fed has kept interest rates near zero since December 2008…more than two years! Why should we expect a different outcome this time around?

A key point to mention is that the credit crisis and collapse of the housing market were not caused by a the Fed bringing rates to 5.25%. Rather real estate prices simply went too high because rates were too low in the years prior. The low rates were the problem. And once home prices became unaffordable to most consumers, banks then became insolvent because millions defaulted on mortgages. After their capital became significantly eroded they were subsequently unable to lend.

The bottom line is that if Bernanke should ever attempt a “dismount” from massive monetary easing, investors should take solace not because he is likely to “stick” the landing, but because the exercise will likely be so futile that owners of gold should continue to shine.

Despite the fact that the S&P is up over 80% in the last 21 months, US financial firms are currently tripping over each other in their zeal to raise their S&P 500 and GDP targets for 2011. JPMorgan’s chief US equities strategist, Thomas Lee, came out on December 3^rd with a target of 1425 on the S&P for 2011, which would be a 15 percent gain. Barclays Capital last Thursday released a 1420 estimate. Not to be outdone, Goldman Sachs also recently released its forecast, and it sees a more-than-20 percent increase next year, to 1450. Meanwhile, PIMCO’s idea of a “new normal” has translated into a 2011 GDP forecast raised from 2-2.5% to 3-3.5% due to “massive” government stimulus.

In the midst of this collective ‘hurrah,’ very little attention is being paid to what is going on over in the bond market. With my due condolences to Fed Chairman Bernanke, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note has increased from 2.33% on October 8^th to 3.29% today. And, if there is any notice at all given to that recent run-up in yields, it is merely explained away as a sign of robust growth returning to the economy.

In reality, growth doesn’t cause an increase in interest rates; it is either lack of savings or inflation that is responsible. To refute the ‘robust growth’ reasoning, turn your attention to the fact that the spike in yields just happened to coincide with the news that the unemployment rate jumped to 9.8% in November.

A slightly broader explanation for the surge in borrowing costs might be the failure of the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission to implement any cost cutting measures. Or, perhaps it was the intimation from Bernanke himself that QE III may already be under construction in his infamous interview on 60 Minutes. Or, maybe it is the fact that the $150.4 billion November budget deficit was the highest total for that month… ever, and was the 26^th straight month of red ink! I often wonder to myself, where in the midst of all this good news do I summon a bearish attitude?

I think it’s pretty clear that ‘robust growth’ is going the way of ‘green shoots’ and knickers – right into the dustbin of history.

So, what will the increase in interest rates – ignored by all of Wall Street – actually mean for the economy in 2011?

For starters, the National Home Price Index already fell 2% in the third quarter of 2010. On a national basis, home prices are 1.5% lower year-over-year, and 15 out of the 20 cities measured were down over the last 12 months. On a month-over-month basis, 18 cities posted a price decline in September, compared to 15 MoM drops in August, and just 8 cities experiencing price reductions in the July report. Therefore, home prices, which were already headed lower before this recent spike in mortgage rates, are set to take another tumble downward. According to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of conforming mortgages, the average rate on the 30-year fixed is at its highest level in six months. 30-year rates averaged 4.61% for the week ending Dec. 9, up from 4.46% last week. It’s the fourth week in a row that the mortgage rate has increased. The ramifications for the real estate market and bank lending are clear. Lower home prices will send more mortgages under water and force many more homes into foreclosure. Higher borrowing costs will lower the demand for borrowing and place more strain on the capital of lending institutions.

On top of that, household debt as a percentage of GDP still stands at a lofty 91%. It should be clear that with near double-digit unemployment, the last thing consumers can now tolerate is a significant increase in debt-service payments.

The rising cost of money is even worse news for the federal government and its chronically ballooning debt problem. According to the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds Report, total non-financial debt reached an all-time high of $35.8 trillion in the third quarter of 2010. In fact, household debt, business debt, and government debt increased at a 4.2% annual rate last quarter.

To put that record level of nominal debt into perspective: in 1980, the total non-financial debt-to-GDP ratio was 144%. In the height of the credit boom, at the end of 2007, that figure was 226%. Today, the figure stands at a mind-blowing 243%! So you can forget about all that deleveraging talk. The US is in fact still leveraging up, both in nominal terms and as a percentage of GDP.

I think the rising cost of money will become the story of 2011. Its effect on consumers, the real estate market, and government borrowing costs will be profound. Apparently, most major brokerage firms have no fear of soaring interest rates causing our economy to implode. However, it’s clear to me that the bond market has already started to crack due to inflation and massive oversupply from the Treasury. Prudent investors should think twice before overlooking what could be the initial holes in the biggest bubble in world history – the full faith and credit of the United States.

by Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, and host of The Peter Schiff Show

Today’s payroll report severely disappointed on the downside and left economists scratching their heads to explain the weakness. The explanation, however, is plain as day. As I have been saying for years, the US economy will not create jobs as long as the Fed keeps interest rates artificially low, and Congress keeps stimulating spending and consumer debt, punishing employers with mandates, regulations, and taxes, crowding out private investment with massive government borrowing, and preventing market forces from restructuring our out-of-balance economy.As new data comes in that continues to bolster my hypothesis, the politicians in Washington continue to follow the wrong diagnosis, while ignoring evidence that their policy prescription has failed. Rather than reassessing the effectiveness of their remedy, they are merely prescribing more of the same.

No doubt the 9.8% unemployment rate (17% when counting the under-employed or discouraged workers) will spark another extension of unemployment benefits, which will provide yet additional incentives for the unemployed not to work. In addition, we will likely get another round of stimulus – paid for with higher budget deficits – that will further hinder the capital investment and business formation necessary to produce sustainable jobs. Then, the inflation created by the Fed to finance those deficits will send consumer prices higher, making life that much harder for all Americans, regardless of their employment status.

All the talk in Washington that demand must be stimulated to create jobs is farcical. The news reports of mobs of shoppers trampling over each other to fill their carts shows there is plenty of demand. What is truly lacking in our economy is supply. Those mobs are still filling their carts almost exclusively with imported products. If it were true that demand creates jobs, we would be at full employment right now, but the truth is that demand is meaningless without the productive means to supply the goods.

It’s ironic that extending unemployment benefits, one of the reasons unemployment remains so high in the first place, is actually being touted as a jobs bill. Keynesian proponents argue that giving money to unemployed people will create jobs wherever they spend their government cheese. This is utter nonsense.

If printing money and dolling it out to the unemployed could create growth and jobs, why hasn’t it already worked? After all, we have already extended benefits to 99 weeks. Where are all the jobs? Also, if every dollar of unemployment benefits generates two dollars of growth, as our legislators claim, why not double or triple the benefits? In fact, why limit them to the unemployed? Just give the benefits to everyone – then we will really get this economy going.

Politicians cannot create economic growth at will simply by doling out money. If it could, the Soviets would have won the Cold War. Handing out cash does not create additional production, it merely changes who benefits from existing production. Transferring purchasing power from producers to consumers undermines economic growth and destroys jobs.

For now, production is being supplied from abroad. But this dynamic merely worsens our trade imbalance, putting our nation deeper into debt. As the dollar losses purchasing power, foreign goods will become more expensive and American living standards will plummet.

What will it take for our leaders to realize that their solution is exacerbating the problem they are trying to solve? Unfortunately, I doubt they will learn until the situation becomes intolerable for the majority of voters. These jobs numbers bring us one step closer to that critical mass.

Unless politicians can be roused from their stupor, we will soon confront an imminent sovereign debt and currency crisis that will make the credit crisis of 2008 look like a happy interlude. Hopefully, when the first major shock strikes in the US, as is currently happening in Ireland and Portugal, it will finally provoke a 180-degree change of policy in Washington. Hopefully, it won’t be too late to spare millions from a life of subsistence, or worse. These are my hopes, but my fear is that we are on the cusp on the largest economic downfall in modern history.

Peter Schiff is president of Euro Pacific Capital and host of The Peter Schiff Show.

by Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, and host of The Peter Schiff Show, broadcasting live from WSTC Norwalk CT from 6pm – 8pm Eastern time every weeknight, and streaming at

Given the opposing views of the potentially parsimonious new Congress and the continuously accommodative Federal Reserve, there is a movement afoot among Republicans to eliminate the Fed’s “dual mandate.” Prior to 1977, the Fed only had one job: maintaining price stability. However, the stagflation of the 1970s inspired politicians to assign another task: promoting maximum employment. This “mission creep” has transformed the Fed from a monetary watchdog into an instrument of social policy. We would do well to give them back their original job.

The imposition of the “dual mandate” was informed by the Keynesian belief that inflation and unemployment don’t mix. An economic concept known as the ”Phillips curve” postulates that low levels of one cause high levels of the other. But, like many things in modern economics, the curve is a fiction. There is no real reason why low inflation would produce unemployment or full employment would create inflation.

On paper, at least, the Fed has appeared to strike the balance that Congress demands. But this is a fool’s errand. The Fed’s dual mandate is the equivalent of asking a corporate CEO to maximize shareholder value by giving away as many free products as possible to consumers.

The best way for the Fed to ensure maximum employment is to focus on its one true job – creating price stability. The irony of the dual mandate is that by trying to satisfy both, the Fed ensures that we will get neither.

While it is true that increases in inflation may occur concurrently with drops in unemployment, there is no logical causality that can be implied. Any correlation simply results from inflation lowering the real cost of employment. Put simply: because inflation reduces wages in real terms, employers can afford to hire more people. So it’s lower wages, not inflation, that puts people to work.

Inflation does nothing to alter the structural issues that cause unemployment. Like everything else, the labor market is governed by the laws of supply and demand. High unemployment results from a wage structure that is too high relative to demand. Demand for labor is a function of productivity, or more accurately, profitability per worker. Absent higher productivity, which takes time to develop, the only way to clear the imbalance is for wages to fall. However, government and unions typically prevent this from happening. Economists describe this as wages being “sticky” on the downside.

Over-taxation and over-regulation further restrict demand and add to unemployment. On that front, one of the worst offenders is the minimum wage law. It doesn’t actually raise wages for anyone, but simply renders unemployable many low-skill workers. By creating inflation, the Fed effectively lowers the minimum wage. Another cause is extended unemployment benefits. Since these payments narrow the disparity between employment and unemployment, and in some cases may even be preferable to accepting a low-paying job, workers are incentivized to reject employment opportunities that they might otherwise accept.

To get around these roadblocks, the Fed lowers the cost of labor through inflation. However, this inefficient solution to a simple problem creates negative consequences for the economy. While wages may go up with inflation, goods prices usually rise faster. The net result offers no benefit for workers. By tricking workers into accepting lower wages, the Fed allows politicians to claim meaningless victories.

In addition, wages are only one cost of employment. Even as inflation lowers real wages, other factors can work to increase employment costs. In the current environment, higher payroll taxes, new health care mandates, economic uncertainty, and the potential for even higher future taxes to fund large budget deficits are all offsetting the “benefits” of lower wages. On top of that, large current budget deficits are crowding out small business credit. The result is that employment costs are rising despite lower real wages. Taken together, these policy mistakes are creating a toxic, job-killing mix.

The other fallacy of the dual mandate is that a fully employed workforce demands higher wages, forcing business to raise prices. More employment increases the supply of goods and services. Yes, employment raises demand, but that demand is satisfied by the additional supply created by a productive economy.

Since wages are the price of labor, wages are themselves prices. To say that rising prices are caused by rising prices makes no sense. Workers cannot demand higher wages unless the increases are justified by higher productivity. If they are, such wage gains will not result in higher goods prices.

The real reason that prices rise, for both goods and wages, is that the Fed creates inflation. This policy undermines the economy by destroying both current savings and the incentives to accumulate future savings. Since savings finance capital investment, lower savings equal weaker economic growth.

So, the best way for the Fed to create maximum employment is to focus on the single mandate of price stability. While a few elected officials seem to be figuring this out, most are just as clueless as the Fed. Unfortunately, even if Congress succeeds in changing the Fed’s mandate, there is not much chance that monetary policy will change significantly. Keynesian thinking is so ingrained in Bernanke and his colleagues that they will exploit any wiggle room in their directives to jump back in the driver’s seat and send us ever faster toward the edge of an economic cliff.

Peter Schiff is president of Euro Pacific Capital and host of The Peter Schiff Show.

by Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of the new best-selling economic fable, How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes

Since the US economy has failed to recover as widely predicted, pressure on the Federal Reserve to conjure a solution has increased. In fact, the Fed now faces the hardest choices in its history. It can either redouble its past efforts to re-inflate America’s bubble economy (risking the destruction of the US dollar) or it can stop pumping and let the economy deflate to a self-sustaining level. Unfortunately, both choices guarantee severe economic pain – but only one offers the possibility of ultimate success.

Today’s news that the economy lost 95,000 jobs in September confirms that record doses of stimulus have failed to create a real recovery. The loss of 159,000 government jobs in the month could have been a positive if those lost positions had been replaced by wealth-generating private sector jobs. But the 65,000 jobs generated by businesses didn’t come close. Worse still, most of these jobs came from the goods-consuming service sector rather than the goods-producing manufacturing sector (which lost another 6,000 jobs). The unemployment rate has now been above 9.5% for 14 consecutive months, the longest such streak since monthly records began in 1948. More importantly, the real unemployment rate, which factors in discouraged and under-employed workers, rose from 16.7% to 17.1%.

Armed with this weak jobs report, the Fed seems poised to make good on its plan for other round of quantitative easing (in English: printing money). Recent statement from top Fed governors have made that sentiment clear. Apparently they feel that they must do something, even though Fed inaction would be far better for the economy. At a time when we should be trusting the markets to grind out three yards in a cloud of dust, we have put our faith in the Fed’s ability to fling a Hail Mary pass, even though all previous attempts have failed.

Most people assume that the “crash” I referred to in my 2007 book “Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse” occurred in 2008. Those who actually read the book know otherwise. The financial crisis that resulted from the bursting of the housing bubble, accurately foretold in my book, was not the crash itself, but merely the overture to a much more tragic economic opera for which the curtain is just now rising.

I argued that the housing bust would threaten the financial system with collapse and that the government would react with stimulus and bailouts – thereby making the situation much worse. That is exactly what happened. I did not believe then, and I don’t believe now, that the process of liquidating bad debt would kill us. But I do believe we will succumb to Washington’s “cure” of endless stimulus.

Many now claim that government deficits and Fed easing prevented a repeat of the Great Depression. From my perspective, calamity was not averted but merely delayed. The price for the reprieve will be a far more severe downturn, which I now think will surpass the Great Depression.

In Crash Proof, I talked about how our economy suffered from the co-morbid diseases of asset bubbles, excessive debt and consumption, and insufficient savings, capital investment, and production. These conditions did not arise as a result of market forces, but from foolish monetary, fiscal, and regulatory policies that distorted market forces. The proper cure would have been to remove the distortions and allow the markets to correct.

Unfortunately, as I forecast, the opposite occurred. Washington lacked the economic understanding and the political will to allow for a painful adjustment to take place. So, instead, they cranked up the printing presses and administered the equivalent of economic heroine. The drugs succeeded in postponing the pain, but at the expense of exacerbating the underlying condition. As the high wears off, a more debilitating hangover will set in.

By electing to bail out the financial sector, prop up housing prices, allow excess spending and borrowing to continue, and maintain superfluous government and service-sector jobs, the government has pushed our economy to the edge of a very dangerous precipice.

The right choice is to admit past mistakes and reverse course. The Fed must raise interest rates aggressively, shrink its bloated balance sheet, and allow the real recession to finally run its course. It will be much more painful now than it would have been in 2008, but at least this time the pain will end and real recovery will take hold. By forcing the federal and state governments to slash spending, sound monetary policy will allow market forces to rebuild a solid foundation upon which future prosperity may be built.

The wrong choice is for the Fed to continue quantitative easing as planned, allowing the government to grow at the expense of the economy. This will widen the economic imbalances that lie at the root of our problems. As a side effect, the US dollar will continue spiraling downward as it becomes clear to foreign creditors that the Fed has no interest in protecting their investments. A weaker dollar will lead to higher inflation and higher interest rates, which will make the Fed’s task that much more difficult.

In the end, our bubble economy will not just deflate, it will burst. The dollar will collapse, consumer prices will skyrocket, real credit will completely evaporate, millions more will lose their jobs, and our economy will change in ways few of us can imagine. Our standard of living will plummet and legions of middle- and upper-class Americans will be impoverished. It is not a pretty picture, but unfortunately, it’s the one our government is painting. Unfortunately, we are running out of time to change artists.

A few weeks ago Nouriel Roubini, widely regarded as one of the more pessimistic figures on Wall Street, made headlines by raising his forecasted likelihood of a “double dip recession” to a terrifying 40%. The vast majority of “mainstream” economists (although I would argue Roubini himself is part of that pack) described these predictions as far too gloomy.

Although there are some dubious current statistics that the desperate could cite to make an optimistic case, many simply are falling back on the extreme rarity of past “double dips.” But, in an unprecedented time, the lack of historical precedent hardly seems to matter. What is far more significant is a raft of new data that point downward.  As the high from last year’s monetary and fiscal stimulus wears off, there is a good deal of evidence that shows the U.S. economy plunging into an abyss.

Unemployment continues to batter the nation. Last week alone, the Labor Department announced that initial claims for unemployment benefits fell to a mere 473,000. While US stock index futures rallied briefly on this news, these numbers are not far off the peak of the 2001-2002 recession.

We’ve spent trillions of dollars on bailouts, stimulus programs, and Cash-for-You-Name-It programs, and we still have nearly half a million new people filing for unemployment every week. As Billy Joel would have asked:  Is that all we get for our money?

Of course, unemployment typically lags in an economic recovery. But the forward looking signs are no better.  Recent data clearly demonstrates that GDP growth is decelerating. After posting a stimulus-inspired 5%+ growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009, GDP growth slowed to 3.7% in the first quarter of this year, and then puttered to 2.4% in the second quarter (which was more recently downgraded to a much more tepid 1.6%).

But even though GDP growth was marginally positive in Q2, the growth rate of the ECRI’s Weekly Leading Index (which measures the prospects for future economic activity) just fell to -10, a level it last hit at the end of 2008 – that is, during the depth of the Great Recession when GDP fell the fastest. Even during the second economic dip in the early 1980s, this measure did not revert to this low level. Any objective view of this data can only lead to one conclusion: this economy is sinking fast, and all the government spending in the world won’t keep it afloat.

Under these circumstances, the Federal government would ideally cut its size, in an effort to put more capital into the hands of the private sector, thereby fostering more investment, production, and ultimately more jobs in the economy. Regrettably, the Obama Administration is preparing to do the opposite – the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 are set to expire next year (effectively raising taxes), and the economy will likely suffer as a result.

According to projections from the Congressional Budget Office, higher taxes will raise an average of $380 billion per year over the next 10 years; this translates into well over 2% of GDP annually, at a time when nominal growth is decidedly below that mark. Even an elementary school student can do the math – we’re getting ready to raise taxes by an amount more than the entire growth of the economy; a renewed contraction should not surprise anyone.

With unemployment still high, growth slowing, leading indicators signaling further weakness, and higher taxes on the horizon, the only real hope for escaping a double-dip recession lies with exports. If we were to experience a surge in our export sector (while simultaneously holding steady or even reducing our imports), our trade deficit could turn into a surplus, thereby bringing growth to the economy. Indeed, President Obama himself recently called for a doubling of US exports over the next five years.

But once again, the outlook for this sector of the economy is bleak. Despite an improved July report released this week, the overall drift of trade data for 2010 has not been encouraging.  At a time when the US badly needs trade surplus, monthly deficits continue to average well north of $40 billion dollars. Unfortunately, based on government policies that prevent industry from operating more efficiently, export-led growth does not look to be in the cards.

But, despite these clear and dramatic signs of mounting malaise, most economists continue to forecast relatively solid economic growth both now and in the future. According to the Third Quarter 2010 Survey of Professional Forecasters (released in mid-August by the Philly Fed), economists expect real GDP to grow by 2.9% this year, 2.7% next year, and will accelerate to 3.6% in 2012. Given that first half GDP is already well below their forecast for the year as a whole, these economists are therefore predicting a much better second half. If anyone knows where this momentum can be found, please let me know.

But in my view, these economists are way off the mark. In reality, the US economy is weak and deteriorating, and a renewed contraction in GDP – whether officially labeled a “double-dip” or not – is a near certainty. This is not your garden variety recession. Don’t expect it to behave like one.

Neeraj Chaudhary is an Investment Consultant in the Los Angeles branch of Euro Pacific Capital. He shares Peter Schiff’s views on the US dollar, the importance of the gold standard, and the rise of Asia as an economic power. He holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

There is overwhelming agreement among economists that the Second World War was responsible for decisively ending the Great Depression. When asked why the wars in Iran and Afghanistan are failing to make the same impact today, they often claim that the current conflicts are simply too small to be economically significant.