Peter Schiff Cut Off By CNN for Speaking Truth

[littlemissbubbles]

Peter Schiff Cut Off By CNN for Speaking Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgWoECStxpI&feature=related


Peter Schiff Schools Mainstream Econohacks on Great Depression
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4kv6441Oyo&feature=related

[plank]

Peter Schiff has been right about almost everything. and if he continues to be proven right, America is f*cked.

[jackinthebox]

What this guy has to say is pretty scary!   :-(

I hope he doesn't know what the hell he is talking about, but I have the awful feeling that he may be the only one who's talking straight.  And in that case, I better start investing in gold and get the hell out of the service industry!

[merm]

Schiff has been right, but he wasn't the only one who was raising red flags about the housing market bubble. Also, he isn't always right. However, on the housing bubble he got it right for sure - but he was also saying we'd have massive inflation, and he couldn't be more wrong on that - we are in massive deflation at the moment, which coincidentally is even worse.

[neo11]

Are we really in massive deflation?  It seems that other than the precipitous decline in oil prices, prices for most other commodities are continuing to go up.

[ddanny999]

For years, I used to participate in Buy Nothing Day (the opposite of Black Friday) events and got ridiculed by shoppers in Manhattan.  This year, I didn't go.  I didn't have to.  The sky fell.

Many New Yorkers have no net worth, instead owing thousands on credit card debt and having to service that debt with high interest rates.  That financial "fractal" reflects in our city budget, state budget and national budget.  As individuals and as a nation, we are built on debt and why we are in a crisis.  It will get worse.

If you are in debt, get of debt and start to build a savings account.

1.
Cancel your cable or satellite and/or Netflix.  You can get all the shows and movies you want from hulu and the library.  Get a good roof antenna ($300 one time investment) and a digital converter box (free) if your TV is not yet enabled for digital.  $60 month cable / satellite + $15 month Netflix x 12 months = $900 saved.

2.
Invest in appliances and use it.  I have a rice cooker ($90) that makes perfect rice, and saves me $2 each time I order Chinese or Spanish food takeout as I spend less on each meal (paid for itself in less than a year).  A bread maker saves money too.  A deep fryer makes french fries as good as the restaurant.

3.
Coffee at Starbucks is throwing money away.  Get a good coffee maker and a travel mug.  $3.00 Starbucks coffee x 5 day week x 52 weeks = $780 saved.

4.
Learn to cook your own meals at home and eat out less.  Water down milk and orange juice (you're not going to starve to death nor is it a mark of shame).  Do not water down baby formula, however.  Eat crackers instead of white bread with meals.  Sign up at manufacturers websites (Dunkin Hines, Keebler, General Mills, Kraft, etc.) and get store coupons mailed to you each month along with free samples.

5.
If you have more than one phone line, get rid of the other.  For years I had two phone lines (one for voice and the other for a modem dial-up) and was too lazy to get rid of the other line even though I upgraded to DSL.  I bought a cordless phone so that one line can be shared with my family and told Verizon to disconnect the other line.  Saved $400/year doing that.  If you have a cell phone, you probably do not need a landline anyway.

6.
If you have a car in NYC, get rid of it.  The cost for gas, inspections, registration, insurance, tolls, repairs, garage, parking tickets and alternative side of the street parking is a nightmare.  I had a car for many years and the day I sold it, it was like losing a member of the family.  I got over it.

7.
If you have things in storage, get your things out of it and sell / give it away.  Storage room rental $140 month x 12 months = $1680 saved.

8.
Never buy new video games, books, CDs or DVDs.  There are websites that you can trade them for the cost of postage, such as swaptree.  Other sites like Half.com have good deals.

9.
Make a space for a well-sized panty in your apartment if you do not already have one.  When things are on sale at the supermarket, buy in bulk.

10.
You honestly do not need a flat-screen HDTV if your standard tube TV still works.  You probably do not need a quad-core Intel processor.  A 10 megapixel camera will not make you a better photographer than a 4 megapixel camera.  You do not need to carry around 32 gigs of MP3s with you when a 2 gig music player will do.  Ubuntu Linux + Star Office (free) is about as good as Windows + Office + Virus Protection or Mac + Office ($150 to $450 saved).

11.
Cancel your gym membership.  A good hearty one-hour walk a day and a decent set of dumbbells ($100) is even better.  Gym membership $60 month x 12 months = $720 saved.

12.
Don't shop at warehouse clubs, it will not save you money.  You do not need 24 muffins or a 2 gallon size maple syrup.

[merm]

Are we really in massive deflation?

Yes, check your 401(k), your company payroll, your parent's house value, FDIC capitalization (lack), NYC and NY state budget shortfalls etc etc. Food is only expensive as a lingering reminder of $147/barrel oil, soon even that will be cheaper however. T-Bills are yielding 0%. All signs of deflation, not inflation.

Went to look for an apartment today in a building. One of the very nice residents stopped by the unit I was looking at and asked "how much are they advertising it for, $2700? $2800?". "$2200 I think" I responded. That's impossible, I'm paying $2600 for this exact same unit. "I could be wrong, I've looked at so many," I said. The listing is actually for $1995. Even the Manhattan rental market is in deflation.

If you are in debt, get of debt and start to build a savings account.

In a normal economic environment you need 3 months salary in savings, now days you need 12+ months. I agree that we all need to save more. This isn't going to be pretty imho, we aren't even half way done with this thing yet.

[CW]

Are we really in massive deflation?  It seems that other than the precipitous decline in oil prices, prices for most other commodities are continuing to go up.

The only thing stopping the massive deflation is the massive amount of dollars that the Fed is pumping into the system.

[essen]

Never buy new video games, books, CDs or DVDs.  There are websites that you can trade them for the cost of postage, such as swaptree.  Other sites like Half.com have good deals.

This is kind of a sad thing to hear for people who are artists, authors, programmers, or are otherwise involved with the entertainment/media industry. How do you expect those things to get made if nobody buys them? Good deals for the customer generally means a shat deal for the artist.

Make a space for a well-sized panty in your apartment if you do not already have one.

I don't need any well-sized panties.

Cancel your gym membership.  A good hearty one-hour walk a day and a decent set of dumbbells ($100) is even better.  Gym membership $60 month x 12 months = $720 saved.

Sure, if all you want to do is become a good walker and build up arm muscles.

I'm all for people getting out of debt and saving money, but just because these particular lifestyle choices work for you doesn't mean they should be aimed at everybody else. Everyone has different priorities. It's just a matter of being able to work with those without going overboard just because the credit card company allows you to. Unfortunately, a lot of people are so far into debt, between credit card debt and student loans among other things, that they have no hope of getting out for years even once they do start to chip away at it.

My spending mottos are "If you can't afford it, don't buy it," and "Just because you can afford it doesn't mean you should buy it." There's been such an emphasis on mindless spending in this country for so long that I wonder what the commercial landscape is going to look like once the majority of people shift gears and start saving more.

[johnny4evah!]

Isn't that what the Fed is trying to do by cutting the interest rate continually? Get us to spend more money to help the economy? And make us go into deeper debt-assuming our credit cards aren't already maxed out? Isn't that what caused all the problems-easy credit? Buy, buy, buy! Buy a second or third house, buy a third car, buy more and be happy! Still not happy? Buy even more! Ridiculous! So now the savers are getting punished further, while the Fed is furiously printing dollars. So what's next? Hyperinflation? I'm confused- not to say upset!! Maybe a little hardship would be good for us- but, it sure is a bitter pill to swallow!

[AlexNYC]

I think Peter Schiff was pretty much giving the worst case scenario, and not the most likely shape of things to come.

[merm]

Just read an excellent blog post about Peter Schiff.

He was 25% right, but unfortunately his clients lost even more money than if you had just been invested in the S&P index.

[TRX]

I do think it is a good idea to hear contrarian points of view. And as long as a flock of black swans dont cover the sky, I will aim to stay steady.

Just looking for a place to ask, what is going on with the markets this morning?
Folks trying to digest things? What kind of bailout were investors hoping for?

***
I wonder if Colbert would have fun with -

http://www.wikinvest.com/

[Harlan]

Hard to know, of course. I wonder if people are concerned that any effort to buy off toxic debt will fail (because there's no way to price them, which is the trouble in the first place), and that as a result the government will end up having to force the banks into bankruptcy and restructuring at some point in the future, which will wipe out current investors and also slow lending during the restructuring phase. Or maybe they're just bummed about A-Rod.

[Harlan]

From Salon:

[T]he speech was short on details -- and no more so than on the critical question of how the government will address the problem of dealing with the toxic assets that have effectively rendered large portions of the nation's financial system insolvent.

If there was a moment during the speech when investor sentiment crystallized, it came when Geithner announced that "we are exploring a range of different structures" to deal with precisely that issue.

At this point in the game, that kind of vague assertion simply won't fly. It's all fine and good to declare that there is a plan for encouraging private capital to reenter the markets, with assistance from government, and somehow remove the busted mortgage-backed securities from the balance sheets of financial institutions. But similar assertions have now been made for many months, without any practical plan emerging for accomplishing such a task. When Geithner said "we are exploring a range of different structures" he was essentially admitting that we still don't have a clue how to do this. And that's why Wall Street is panicking, again.

[TRX]

Or maybe they're just bummed about A-Rod.

thx

So economic rallies are tied to baseball and/or Santa Claus?

http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/23/girouard-stocks-bonds-financial-adviser-network_returns.html

I liked seeing some basics covered here.

Let's Bury The Myth Of Averages

Here are some old lessons for the new post-mythology era:

1. Stocks and bonds are not investments to be judged on a daily, monthly or even yearly basis. The question should be: Is this a good decision for 10 or 15 years from now? That's true financial planning.

2. Stock and bond investments should not be made with money you might need in the next three to five years. That money should be socked away in a cash-equivalent vehicle, which can range from plain-vanilla bank CDs to cash-value mutual life insurance.

3. Buying a home should be seen as a long-term forced savings plan that grows at about the rate of inflation, not as a speculative investment.

4. Like the proverbial watched pot that never boils, our addiction to television financial news and online portfolio tracking does not help us grow wealth. It distracts us from the rest of our lives at best; at worst it makes us vulnerable to making emotional decisions fanned by fear or greed that could invariably sabotage our futures.

5. It is educational to look at statistics, past performance, charts and other tools that measure where we've been. But it's important to remember that you can't drive a car while looking in the rearview mirror.

[TRX]

http://www.amazon.com/Race-between-Education-Technology/dp/0674028678

While enjoying some entertainment, I was surprised to hear a serious recommendation of an education/econ book.
Curious now. It sounds like a textbook, has anyone come across



The Race between Education and Technology

[Sweeper]

Looks like Peter Schiff might make a run for the Senate in CT.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/eyeon2010/2009/06/investor-and-financial-comment.html

I hope he does, if only to make the debate more meaningful