1. Schiff's father is in JAIL for his principles. But Peter is all in it for the money? Why aren't you more careful with such statements?

2. No, I don't think my economic philosophy is similar to Mish. When asked what the govt could do to make things better, he mentioned less military spending overseas, but otherwise he said that we could only wait. If you don't recognize the mountain of things the government could do in freeing up markets then your economic philosophy is fundamentally different from mine.

1. Schiff's father is irrelevant to this conversation.
2. He wants to abolish the Fed and ban fractional reserve lending. He wants the government to get out of interfering with markets. I'm not sure what you're talking about.

LOL I had no idea Schiff's father was a "tax protester "conman. That explains quite a bit.

Conman?

You didn't answer my question.

1. Why aren't you more careful with such statements?

Cite?

Most of the tax protester types sell books and the like advertising their various schemes while being aware that their schemes are at best ******ed and at worst criminal. Charging someone money for your tax advice when that advice will lead to jailtime is pretty close to conman behavior.

Wait, is calling tax protesters dumb considered trolling in this forum? I don't want to ruffle any feathers.

knee-jerk defense ITT

EDIT: this is reasonable:

Does anyone even pay attention to you?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...odd/index.html

Edit: Not to say this this won't be an obvious tagline in a Senate race (although I'd have to imagine there are better places than Connecticut to rail against executive compensation).

I didn't realize this either. lol

If you decide to stay in US equities and dollar denominated assets, your portfolio might outperform one with Schiff's approach for the next 2-3 years (or it might not, as his strategy has been robusto in 2009, but thats irrelevant). Hypothetically, say you gain 10% a year for 3 years while he loses 5% each year. The problem that you have is that at some point you are going to have to cash out your gains, and convert your stock holdings to cash or real assets. While many investors will have thought they had a good 3 years of returns, very few of them will actually be able to monetize returns. A good analogy is musical chairs- in terms of dollar denominated assets, there are far fewer chairs to sit in when the music stops. The music may not stop for a few years, but this doesn't matter. If you are a typical investor, it does not make sense to hold on for a few more years, earn returns, and time the collapse. You are going to get screwed.

Anyway, think about how much the debate has changed in a year. Today people aren't really even disputing whether his overall thesis of collapse is right or wrong, people who argue against him are clinging to the fact that he had a bad 2008, despite the fact that he has regained far more of those losses than someone who bought a dow index. In 6 months or a year, he is just going to look more right, and the people criticizing him are just going to look stupid and stupider. People used to say he was nuts for predicting a mortgage bubble, then it happened. People used to say he was nuts for predicting the collapse of the dollar, and now they are just saying that it won't happen in the next 2 years.

Most of the people arguing against him in this thread aren't arguing over the substance of his analysis, just finding whatever they can, taking it out of context, and making potshots at him, its pretty much pathetic. I dont agree with everything he says and I thought the hyperinflation comments were kind of dumb, but one mistake like that does not outweigh all the other valuable and insightful things he did. For the people who think he is a dumbass for saying those things and having a bad 2008, who are some people who have a better understanding of what will happen next?

The day that I ignored him was the best day on the forums since Taso nudie pics.

Interesting. Who else do you have on ignore?

Not a soul in just under 3 years.

Strong sporting events poster seems to have a strong correlation to good politics poster imo. There is very little data in these accusations.

Even if anyone could produce some rock solid evidence of poor results that would satisfy you, would a single person defending Schiff ITT change any of the responses that Schiff's poor performance should be excused, it's a small sample size, making any conclusions is results oriented thinking, etc? Raise you hand if you're one of those people who's opinion would change if such data existed.

I still don't think that it has anything to do with his Senate run. The ideas that he expresses and the direction that he wants the government to go are the correct (imo) views. This is totally independent of his current job and how well or badly he does at it.

Such data would of course change my view on him AS AN INVESTOR, but I'm not exactly in a position to put my money into investments anyway. And if I were, I would still look for a sensible strategy to insure myself from a loss of purchasing power of the dollar. (Just not perhaps with him)

Note that my comment had nothing to do with his Senate run either:

Really? Because it's not as if Euro Pacific Capital is denying the bad year:

http://selfinvestors.com/tradingstoc...40-70-in-2008/

So it's really just a matter of degree. Schiff took a bath just like everyone else. How bad would Schiff's losses have to be before you would lose confidence in his predictions about the coming collapse? You already told me!:

You already think he's right, and it doesn't appear anything is going to disabuse you of that.

The quest for the "actual data" which we all know is not public is just a red herring. Even if it existed, the same apologists would just say it's irrelevant and that Schiff is right, because "humans act" and from that we can intuit Schiff is right blah blah meow chow and the 101 ACist Logical Conclusions, or because Schiff sees X Y and Z happening, and that's all been observed and is unavoidable, etc. Or whatever your reasons.

I just want to establish that even if someone could prove Euro Pacific Capital took the worst kind of bloodbath last year, worse than Mish and the critics say, that no one's tune here would really change one bit. It would be called results orientated thinking, that Schiff's past bad moves aren't indicative of future successful prognostications. By your own admission! You told me that you're giving him credit for things that haven't happened because "we realize that they are GOING to happen." Okay. So then WTF does getting the ACTUAL data on EPC's books matter? You've come to your conclusion.

Great we agree

There is no data that would convince me that there's not a coming collapse. I thought this long before I had heard of Peter Schiff. There's no indication that we're going to reverse course.

Sure, but that's not because of him. It's because I can see what's going on around me.

That's what I'm saying. EPC's performance doesn't matter one difference to me about the future direction of the value of the currency. It may make me think twice about INVESTING with him (if I were in a position), but to be convinced that the direction of the country is going to change, I would need evidence of that fact through regular government officials. (IE if Obama came out tomorrow and said we're ceasing all overseas expenses, that would give me a good shot of Hope and Change©) EPCs books have nothing to do with the future direction of the country.

it's not considered trolling, its just a worthless statement. Saying "that idea is dumb" is incredibly useless. The "why" you think its dumb might be useful. If you want to just call things dumb you might as well post "first", "2nd" "wat", etc, and if thats your goal, I suggest bbv4l.

I shouldn't really need to elaborate on what could be considered dumb about a man who is spending his retirement in federal prison because of aggressive illiteracy.

Why the heck are you in a politics forum if you aren't interested in explaining your view on this sort of thing? If you just want to assert something, assume you are right, and then not explain your reasoning in order to allow others to engage with you, I don't see wtf you are here.

Peter Schiff on Irwin Schiff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiMz43zdE8k