Obama’s State of the Union Address | Peter Schiff and Stefan Molyneux

United States President Barack Obama delivered just his final State of the Union address – but unfortunately the facts don’t serve his fictional narrative.

Stefan Molyneux and Peter Schiff go through Obama’s address and discuss the state of the economy, the stock market crash, misleading unemployment numbers, the illusion of job creation, Federal Reserve interest rates, climate change talking points and much much more!

Peter Schiff is an economist, financial broker/dealer, author, frequent guest on national news, the host of the Peter Schiff Show Podcast, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital and the Chairmain of Schiff Gold.

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Fed's Next Move Will Be More Easing Once Recession Hits

Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, warns investors not to believe the hype that the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hike reflects confidence in a strengthening economy.

No, just the opposite, he told Newsmax TV.

“The next recession is about to begin and there's a good chance that it's already here or it will begin early in 2017,” he told Newsmax TV’s “The Hard Line.”

The Fed on Wednesday lifted its key interest rate by a quarter point to a range of 0.25 to 0.5 percent, up from near zero for the first time since December 2008.

“The only reason the Fed is raising rates is to try to show that they have confidence in the economy, but the reality is they have no confidence in the economy and they're trying to cover up those fears with this symbolic rate hike. But they're going to have to figure out how to reverse course unfortunately. They're going to be doing QE4 next year, they're not going to be raising rates again,” he said.

To be sure, Fed policymakers have slightly lowered their projections for short-term interest rates over the next three years, a sign that policymakers may move slowly after their first rate increase in seven years, the AP reported.

More Fed policymakers now expect the short-term rate will be 1.38 percent or below at the end of 2016 than in previous projections in September. And they forecast the rate will be 2.38 percent at the end of 2017 and 3.25 percent at the end of 2018, both a quarter-point lower than in September, according to projections released Wednesday.

Still, the Fed's forecasts for the U.S. economy and interest rates have proven too optimistic for most of the recovery from the Great Recession. A year ago, for example, their projection for short-term rates at the end of 2016 was nearly double what it is now.

But Schiff doesn’t see it that way at all.

“I don't think this is the beginning of the hiking cycle. This is the end of it. See, normally when the Federal Reserve begins to raise interest rates, they do it early in the recovery. The economy still has a lot of upward momentum, but the Fed has waited so long, this recovery is almost over,” he said.

“I mean we're still practically at 0 and that shows you how little confidence the Fed has in the economy that after supposedly seven years of recovery, that's all we get. And again, we're going to go back to 0 very quickly,” he said.

“In fact, they may bring rates negative. That's what might be in our future. Not only negative real rates, which we've already had because the rate of inflation is higher than the rate of interest, but we might actually have negative rates the way they have them now in parts of Europe and again, they're going to do another round of quantitative easing. It's unfortunate,” he explained.

“Cheap money isn't coming to an end, we're about to be showered with it. QE4 could be bigger than QE1, 2 and 3 combined. And it's not because this helps. It doesn't help. We would have been better off had the Fed never done any of this," he explained.

"We don't have a real recovery. All we have is a bubble and that bubble prevented a legitimate recovery and so now the U.S. economy is in much worse shape economically than it was just prior to the 2008 financial crisis and so now the next financial crisis, which the Fed has created, is going to be much worse than the last one.”

- Source, NewsMax

Deja Vu All Over Again

I forgot to mention that in 2001, before the Dow and the S&P collapsed, there was so much evidence that the market was in trouble as the Dot com bubble had already burst the year before, taking most tech stocks with it. But the rationalization at the time was that the problem was "contained" to that one sector.

Sound familiar? I also miss spoke when I said it was different in 2001. Actually it was very similar. It was 2008 that was different. I was referring to the dollar, oil, and the global economy, and I meant to say that while it was different in 2008 in that the dollar was at record lows and oil at record highs, 2001 was very similar to today, with the dollar very strong, oil very weak, and most of the concerns being about the global economy rather than the domestic.

But regardless of the similarities or differences, the outcomes where the same, just progressively worse. In that respect, history is about to repeat!

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Fed is playing a "dangerous" game: Schiff

The Fed funds futures are now pricing in a nearly 70 percent chance of a December rate hike, but one market pundit insists it's not going to happen.

On CNBC's "Fast Money," longtime Fed critic Peter Schiff said Janet Yellen is doing nothing more than kicking the can down the road. He spoke after the release Wednesday of the minutes from the Fed's October meeting. The minutes signaled hawkish sentiment for a rate hike next month.

"According to the minutes, a rate hike has been a possibility all year long and it hasn't happened," Schiff said. The statement put a particular emphasis on economic data between now and the next meeting. "I don't see how that's any different than anything they've said all year round and how people could read those minutes and jump to the conclusion that a rate hike is a lock."

Instead, Schiff believes that the Fed is simply suggesting it will hike because Yellen does not want to admit that the "economy is decelerating." The contrarian pointed to weak earnings from major retailers as just one indication of an economic slowdown.

- Source, CNBC

Cost of Government Is Not What It Taxes, But What It Spends

American Exceptionalism on Display

Myths About Economic Collapse | Peter Schiff and Stefan Molyneux

Did government deregulation cause the financial crisis? Did the partial repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act lead to America's banking crisis - and to massive government bailouts? Stefan Molyneux speaks with Peter Schiff about the persistent myth of financial deregulation and the true cause of the economic crisis!

Peter Schiff is an economist, financial broker/dealer, author, frequent guest on national news, the host of the Peter Schiff Show Podcast, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital and the Chairmain of Schiff Gold.

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Political Prisoners, Economic Delusions, and Escaping the Next Crisis

Gold (coin) bugs: No, we're not crazy for buying

Even in the face a steep price swoon and a variety of other factors that seem to be lining up against the yellow metal, true believers have been stepping in to buy physical gold at a robust pace.

But before you start fitting them for tinfoil hats — the kind that folks who fear alien invasion and the end of times might wear — consider that gold advocates believe their reasons are sound and not based on preparing for the apocalypse.

"That's not why I buy it. It's got nothing to do with the end of the world for me," said Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital and perhaps the most prolific standard-bearer of the gold crowd. "If the world's going to end, gold's not going to do you any good, either. I'm buying gold because of its monetary properties."

- Source, CNBC

Did The Fed's Luck Run Out On Friday The 13th?

Weak Holiday Sales Confirm the Best Bargain is Gold

Peter Schiff - It's Going to Be a Horrible Christmas

Thursday, the contrarian investor said that while Americans are wrapping presents this holiday season, they should instead brace themselves for "a horrible Christmas" and possible recession.

"I expect [job] layoffs to start picking up by the end of the year," Schiff said, pointing to retailers as the first victim. "Retailers have overestimated the ability of their customers to buy their products. Americans are broke. They are loaded up with debt," he said. "We're teetering on the edge of an official recession," and "the labor market is softening."

For Schiff, there is no one else to blame but the Federal Reserve. As he sees it, the central bank's easy money policies have created a bubble so big that any prick could send the U.S. economy spiraling out of control. And that makes the possibility of hiking interest rates slim to none.

"The Fed has to talk about raising rates to pretend the whole recovery is real, but they can't actually raise them," said the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital. "[Fed Chair Janet Yellen] can't admit that she can't raise them because then she's admitting the whole recovery is a sham and that the policy was a failure."

According to Schiff, the recent rally in the dollar is "the biggest bubble that the Fed has ever inflated" and "it's the only thing keeping the economy afloat." The greenback hit a three-month high this week after Yellen said a December rate hike was a "live" possibility.

"[The inflated dollar] is keeping the cost of living from rising rapidly and it's keeping interest rates artificially low. It's allowing the Fed to pretend everything is great," Schiff said. "Eventually the bottom is going to drop out of the dollar and we are going to have to deal with reality," he added. "That reality is we are staring at a financial crisis much worse than the one we saw in 2008."

Schiff, a longtime Fed foe, has been doubting a rate hike for some time. And while his predictions for a stock market and dollar crash have yet to pan out, he has maintained his stance that the Fed's hands are tied.

- Source, CNBC