Economist Peter Schiff Talks the 'Tip of the Iceberg' With Inflation

Automatic TRANSCRIPT

Now the reason that I think we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg here when it comes to price increases is because we have had the most inflationary monetary policy in U.S. history. It got even worse during COVID. I mean, that just took it to a whole new level of absurdity. But even before COVID, QE one, two and three, there was a lot of inflation created. We just created a lot more of it with QE four following the outbreak of COVID. But as a result, there is tremendous inflation already built into the pipeline. And as that inflation entered the economy, a lot of the increases originally showed up in financial assets. So stock prices went up. Real estate prices went up. Bond prices went up. Prices for a lot of things went up. Cryptocurrencies, you know, just one category. But everything kind of went up. And when inflation is causing asset prices to rise, there's generally not a lot of problems. People don't push back because they like that. Oh, I'm getting richer. Now, sure, if you need to buy a house, the house is more expensive. But if you already own the house, you think, well, I'm richer now. My house was worth more. I could take out a home equity loan and buy more stuff. So people like it. And when interest rates are low or asset prices are going up, people are more willing to spend because they think they have greater wealth. So it's initially not objected to. But it should have been. And I was for years warning about the ultimate consequence of this inflation and that we should not be happy just because it starts out in financial assets because it always ends up in consumer goods.

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