Peter Schiff Issues a Dire Warning
Peter Schiff, a top Libertarian economic forecaster, predicts that the Federal Reserve will go back to zero interest rates before the upcoming presidential elections, which will send the gold price and silver price skyrocketing.
He made the prediction during an interview with Rick Wiles of TRUNEWS on March 7. (Source: “Schiff: Zero rates, QE4 by election, and real estate crash looming,” TRUNEWS, March 7, 2016.)
“I think we’re going to see much higher prices as the year progresses,” the head of Euro Pacific Capital, Peter Schiff, said.
He believes the Fed will go back to zero interest rates and quantitative easing (QE) before the elections, due in November, which will “really push commodity prices up even faster.”
Since the beginning of the year, gold has rallied 17.3% and silver has strengthened 10% because concerns over a serious economic slowdown in China, the world’s second-largest economy, and plummeting crude oil prices have triggered a flight to safety away from riskier alternatives.
Schiff, who is also a stockbroker, blasted the U.S. central bank for promising several hikes in 2015 and executing only one in December, which he said caused huge damage to the world’s largest economy.
“The [U.S.] stock market was off to its worst start in history,” he mentioned. The three major indices earlier this year fell more than 10% year-to-date before paring these losses.
On Thursday, the European Central Bank (ECB) cut its key lending rate, known as the refi rate, from 0.05% to zero to add stimulus for the eurozone economy. Japan was the most recent economy to adopt negative interest rates in January.
The one-time Senate candidate slammed the mainstream narrative that hailed last week’s jobs report, which showed that the U.S. added a more-than-expected 242,000 jobs in February, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.9%.
“Everybody wants to pretend that there was such a great report; it was a terrible report,” said Schiff, adding that 90% of those jobs created were part-time jobs. “People want full-time jobs; they don’t want part-time jobs.”
Furthermore, 80% of these jobs were low-wage or minimum-wage jobs.
Schiff expressed hope that people will rise up and start going to buy silver and gold, forecasting a surge in their prices: “We’re getting close to $1,300 an ounce and I think that’s going to be a key level. Once we get above there, I think it could be a pretty quick shot up to $1,500 to $2,000. The high from 2012 was about $1,900 an ounce. I think we’re going to take that out by next year and I still think $5,000 gold is coming.”
April gold hit a 52-week high of $1,280 an ounce on March 4 and was trading at $1,264 on Thursday.
On the presidential candidates, Schiff said Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders will not win because African-American voters are resoundingly supporting Hillary Clinton, primarily due to President Barack Obama’s link with the African-American community in the U.S.
Sanders would win if African-American voters actually studied and voted for the candidate that actually represented the beliefs they support, Schiff said.