Hola,

How much attention does this guy get in the US? He seems to have a clue and predicted the crisis that we now are familiar with. He thinks it will get even worse from this point on. He basically says the US is bankrupt and the help systems from the gov. only digs a deeper hole.

"When Obama comes he's gonna put several nails in the coffin"

Peter Schiff in 2006.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

28 oct 2008.
http://www.europac.net/Schiff-Bloomberg-10-28-08_lg.asp

Those FOX clips are excellent examples of how the financial media abets the financial establishment in getting investors to buy at the top. Notice how Peter is outnumbered and his opinions are made to seem ridiculous when, in fact, he was absolutely right.

Now, that the market is bottoming, Noriel Roubini is on CNBC everyday and his opinions, that would've been laughed at a year ago, are revered, today.

You really gotta love Youtube. In the past, those morons goofing on Peter would've denied their actions or said they were misunderstood. Now, everyone can say, "Isn't that you in that clip?" The Ben Stein clip is a classic, "Financials are steal. They're giving them away." Hahaha. And, where does Fox get those other morons. You had one guy that looked like he got kicked out of a bad 80s hair band; another, who's the stereotype slick financial salesman with his overly greased hair and tight suit, and a clueless bimbo who should be working in the Bunny Ranch, "Peter, you're so negative."

Just because the other FOX correspondents were terribly wrong, and in comparison make Shiff look like a genius, he's was still wrong.

Shiff said oil was not a bubble, was going to keep going up.
Shiff said buy the dips on gold.
Shiff said Emerging markets and and Europe were going to decouple from USA and China was going to replace the USA.
Shiff said sell USD, buy the Euro.
Shiff said to buy utility companies.

Pretty much the ONLY thing Shiff got right was to be short US stocks.

The problem is that Schiff has an agenda, too. He's a hard asset/Foreign asset investment advisor. So, his investment advice is going to be biased toward those asset types. Unfortunately, Oil and Commodities were just as much of a bubble as housing.

Roubini, who also predicted the housing/credit crisis, is a college prof, and not an active investor. He said to simply hold cash.

roubini said he also is a passive investor and doesnt adjust to present conditions. he said (if i recall correctly) he has some sort of disbursed asset allocation including global equities. he's also recommended holding gold as a reasonable thing to do. im sure his portfolio is looking bad right now too.

to somewhat defend schiff, he doesnt advocate leverage. he has always said he has long term philosophies and this is money you just wanna put away and earn dividends on or preserve wealth for long periods. some of his short predictions have been wrong but he still may be right in the long run and that is what he positioned for. He is still right on a lot of his commodity holdings and definitely dollar shorts, have no idea about the specific equities he holds, considering most are still well above the levels they were purchased at back in 1999 when he said it was time to start positioning towards them.

Since when did commodities become a bubble? The fundamentals changed drastically and people had to liquidate, but it was not necessarily a bubble...?

Mort we finally agree on something here. I really think this is why the dollar has been gaining, why oil is down, why gold hasnt blasted off yet and why foreign stocks are doing as bad as US stocks.

Once the margin calls and liquidation are over and the big money begins to reinvest i see oil back up, foreign stocks making gains, gold blasting off and worst of all the dollar becoming worthless.

Since the speculative frenzy between July 07 and July 08

About a year ago, you had noobs coming here and asking how to buy commodities. At that point, I knew that market was doom. It's all the same. When the dumb money comes in, look out below.

Look, the fundamentals changed, but that does not necessarily make it a bubble. Do you guys think every market in the world was a bubble six months ago?
There are serious food shortages all over the world. Oil reserves are falling and most new oil fields are small and unproductive. Further it is super expensive to get the oil out of these fields.
There is a lot of positive fundamental changes taking place for commodities and I am 99% sure you'll do much better in commodities than any other market over the next 2-5 years.

I tried to explain this to my uncle who barely knows how to send an email, that the mere fact he was making a killing in munder-net-net (.com mutual fund) meant the end was very near. Not surprisingly he laughed at me, lost his shirt, and got really mad the one time I've tried to bring it up since.

I told him I was pulling my 401k out of stocks back in April, because I just didn't see much upside for a while. He called me a "market timer" and still treats me with scorn when I try to explain my reasoning behind it, or why I am not in the slightest panic to jump back in. Stocks always go up guys. Dips are always a good time to buy. LDO

Oil sure as hell was.

Look at this chart. Classic run up with a blow off top to get rid of the outside shorts, then, a pull back (120). The pull back is where most of the distribution takes place as the dumb money thinks they're getting a bargain. Of course, the inside money is short and the price plummets.

You can argue your fundamentals, just don't hold your breath waiting for oil to come back, soon. The circus has packed up and moved to another town.

To be fair, on the bolded ones he may yet be proven correct. These are all really saying one thing - that the U.S. dollar is way overvalued and that he expects the other shoe will have to drop. Intuitively, this makes sense given the run up in the money supply in the U.S. and the Fed's clear preference to continue to inflate their way out of the slump. If the dollar really does crash as hard as Shiff expects, then the U.S. economy could retract to the point that China will replace the U.S. as the world's most important market. It's not that much or a reach, and it's too early to declare that he was wrong.

In before John Kane.

You havent seen the bubble yet....just as commodities in general were getting onto their feet, albeit a long way from their inflation adjusted highs, the forced liquidation we've seen is wreaking supply destruction everywhere.

The fundamentals will be even better for commodities soon IMO.

Good post.

Funny I just had to watch a 9 min compilation of Schiff on youtube in my Money & Banking class today, and again in my Macro class.

seriously?


this makes me so happy

That graph is showing oil price in dollars which makes it pretty much worthless for determining an oil market bubble... It does do a good job of modeling the level of suck for Americans when filling up their cars though.

/edit I don't necessarily disagree. I just think that chart is a little deceptive.

Anyone know what type of performance numbers Schiff's firm is putting up in 2008? It doesn't look like they manage any publicly listed vehicles.

Oil is priced worldwide in dollars, what do you suggest we use, wampum?

You can only inaccurately value anything in dollars over the past year if not considering the huge swings in its purchasing power. As Schiff repeatedly relates, oil priced in gold is a more stable measure of its value.

The graph is obviously misleading.

Gold is priced in dollars as well, any other preferences?

I don't think anyone would deny a tech bubble took place in the late 1990s. Is this chart misleading, too? Should it be priced in gold?

Is it me, or does it look very similar to the oil chart?

god not opposed to schiff's views but the way he talks (mix between barney frank and a three year old) tilts me really hard. can't listen to him >3min.... he says the same **** over and over anyway.