Peter Schiff

Peter Schiff
Nationality	United States
Academic career
Field	Macroeconomics
Institution	Ludwig von Mises Institute (1999–present)
School or tradition	Austrian School
Alma mater	California
Influences	Irwin Schiff, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand

Peter David Schiff (born March 23, 1963) is an American economist, author, commentator and popular video blogger who regularly appears in the role of a bearish pundit on numerous financial news networks. Schiff, a licensed stock broker, is the president of Euro Pacific Capital, a brokerage firm founded in 1980 and later reincorporated in 1996, now headquartered in Westport, Connecticut. Schiff's rise to fame late 2008 came when a video collage of his media appearances predicting the United States housing bubble, subprime mortgage crisis and overall economic meltdown expressed in sequential details surfaced on YouTube rapidly rising to 1 million views in a short period of time. The "Peter Schiff was Right" video led to a user trend on YouTube of uploading videos clips and collages of Schiff's other media appearances to the popular video sharing website.

Peter was also an economic adviser for Ron Paul's campaign in the 2008 Republican Party primaries, through which Schiff also expressed support for sound money, limited government, and free-market capitalism. Peter was strongly influenced by his father Irwin Schiff's libertarian work and fiscally conservative views, becoming a vocal supporter of the Austrian School of Economics and the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

In response to an online grassroots movement in early 2008 dedicated to drafting Schiff for U.S. Senate, Peter began considering a run for the Republican nomination to challenge Democrat Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut's five-term senior senator, in the 2010 U.S. senate election and on 9 July 2009 formed an exploratory committee to solicit contributions and general feedback. Schiff officially announced his candidacy on Sept. 17th, 2009, on the MSNBC Morning Joe show.

Personal life

Peter Schiff was born to Jewish parents in New Haven, Connecticut and was raised in Manhattan and Miami. His father Irwin Schiff was a notable American tax protester. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 with a degree in finance and accounting.

Career

Schiff began his career in brokerage with Shearson Lehman Brothers. He launched Euro Pacific Capital in 1996 when he bought a broker-dealer in Florida without clients or revenues and then reincorporated the business in California. In 2005, Schiff relocated to Darien, Connecticut in order to find brokers "who think like him" according to an article in The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut. The New York Metropolitan Area, he said, has the biggest concentration of brokers in the country, making it easier to recruit them.

The company retains an office in Newport Beach, California as well as in Scottsdale, Arizona, Palm Beach, Florida, Los Angeles and Manhattan.

Euro Pacific Capital typically recommends an investment strategy which accords with Schiff's view of the U.S. economy, focusing heavily on non-U.S. stocks and precious metals (specifically gold and silver).

Euro Pacific Capital holds the exclusive rights to broker certain Perth Mint products in the United States.

Schiff makes frequent appearances on television shows. He also has his own internet radio broadcast, and has appeared on Jim Puplava's internet radio show numerous times.

Economic views

In an August 2006 interview Schiff generated controversy when he repeated his long-held investment thesis: "The United States economy is like the Titanic and I am here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship... I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States." On Dec 31, 2006 in debate on Fox News, Schiff forecast that "what's going to happen in 2007" is that "real estate prices are going to come crashing back down to Earth". In fact, the median price of an American single-family home did fall in 2007, for the first time in decades. As part of these exchanges on Fox News and his repeated appearances on financial news network CNBC, Schiff had mentioned factors such as speculators and "the absence of lending standards" which are now seen by many to indeed be contributing factors to the "housing crisis" of 2007-2009. On December 13, 2007 in a Bloomberg interview on the show Open Exchange, Schiff further added that he felt that the crisis would extend to the credit card lending industry. Following this observation, it was soon reported on December 23, 2007 by the Associated Press that "The value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 percent to $17.3 billion in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the AP... At the same time, defaults -- when lenders essentially give up hope of ever being repaid and write off the debt -- rose 18 percent to almost $961 million in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the Securities and Exchange Commission."

Schiff also discusses the role of the U.S. consumer in the world, saying that the U.S. consumer thinks he's doing the world a favor by consuming what the rest of the world produces. He is quick to point out that this relationship will come to an end much sooner than people imagine, and with negative consequences for the U.S. Schiff has been quoted as saying: "Consumption is its own reward for Production"—meaning that without production, the US cannot indefinitely sustain its ongoing consumption. Schiff, and other adherents of Austrian economics, promote savings and production as "the engine of economic growth—not consumption".

Schiff has said on numerous occasions that the current economic crisis is not the problem; it is the solution. He claims the transition from borrowing and spending to saving and producing cannot be accomplished without a severe recession, given the current imbalances of the U.S. economy. But according to him, that transition needs to happen. He also thinks the government is doing no one a favor by trying to "ease the pain" with stimulus packages, bailouts and such. Schiff believes these actions will only make the situation worse and possibly result in hyperinflation if the government continues to "replace legitimate savings with a printing press."

Schiff is a firm believer in reducing government regulation of the economy. Schiff worries that Barack Obama will increase such regulation.

Schiff points to the low savings rate of the United States as its worst malady, citing the transformation from being the world's largest creditor nation in the 1970s to the largest debtor nation by the year 2000. The low savings rate can be attributed commonly to higher inflation and artificially low interest rates by the Federal Reserve.

In a March 2009 speech in Omaha, Nebraska, Schiff stated that it was impossible for the massive US debt to China to be repaid unless the US Dollar's value was substantially diluted by creating ("printing") new dollars.

Responses

In January 2009 financial blogger Mike Shedlock claimed that Peter Schiff's investment strategies have resulted in some of his Euro Pacific Capital account holders losing 60% to 70% of their value in 2008, a claim Shedlock made based on a single client's results. Schiff responded to this claim by stating, "to examine the effectiveness of my investment strategy immediately following a major correction by looking only at those accounts who adopted the strategy at the previous peak is unfair and distortive." He adds that losses were felt mostly by recent clients and not by his long-standing investors.

In an interview on Yahoo Tech Ticker on February 6, Schiff's position was summarized as a nonpartisan critique of American policymakers, comparing former President George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover and President Barack Obama to FDR, and neither in a favorable way.

In The Wall Street Journal, on February 11, Schiff responded to his critics:

"My central investing premise, a weakening dollar and safety in gold, commodities and foreign stocks, didn't materialize in 2008. But all the ingredients were (and remain) present for those movements to occur. Over the past year, market reactions that I didn't foresee—massive global deleveraging, a knee-jerk 'flight to quality' into U.S. Treasuries and a sharp counter trend rally in the U.S. dollar—have kept the scenario from playing out."

On February 13, 2009, nationally syndicated newspaper columnist Eric Tyson analyzed Schiff's recommendations from a U.S. News & World Report magazine interview from May 2008 as well as other Schiff recommendations. The article assessed how Schiff came to hold his economic views.

Political activity

Schiff was an economic adviser to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. Schiff made the following statement concerning Paul's economic revitalization plan: "We need a plan that stimulates savings and production not more of the reckless borrowing and consumption that got us into this mess in the first place. Ron Paul's plan is the only one that amounts to a step in the right direction. If you want meaningful change—for the better that is—Ron Paul is the only candidate capable of delivering it."

Schiff also endorsed Murray Sabrin for the US Senate seat in New Jersey.

In December 2008, some fans of Schiff put up a website to encourage Schiff to challenge incumbent Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd. On February 21, 2009, a moneybomb raised over $20,000 for the grassroots movement.

In a May 2009 video blog, Schiff told his supporters that he is seriously considering a run for the senate. On May 26, when questioned by a Washington Post affiliate about the likelihood of his running, Peter revealed that “It’s better than 50-50," and that he’d decide soon. On June 9, 2009 as a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Schiff again mentioned that he was considering a challenge to Sen. Chris Dodd in Connecticut.

On July 1, 2009, a poll commissioned by Schiff showed the political novice slightly trailing the veteran Dodd. On July 9, 2009, Peter Schiff announced in a video blog the launch of his senate exploratory committee and an official website. He has begun accepting donations in an attempt to see if "people who really believe in freedom, liberty, sound money and the constitution are prepared to support that with an actual political contribution or to volunteer their services and work on this campaign." Schiff has promised that if there is sufficient support he will indeed run for senate. Otherwise, he will refund all donations.

Writings

Schiff is the author of two books:

• Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse, February 2007, ISBN 978-0-470-04360-8
• The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets: How to Keep your Portfolio Up When the Market is Down, 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-38378-0

He is currently working on:

• Crash Proof 2.0: How to Profit From the Economic Collapse, 2nd Edition, September 2009 (preliminary), ISBN 978-0-470-47453-2

External links

• Euro Pacific Capital - Official site of Peter Schiff's brokerage company
• Weekly essays by Schiff
• Wall Street Unspun, a weekly radio show by Peter Schiff
• Schiff for Senate - Official website

Social Media

• Peter Schiff's Official YouTube channel
• Peter Schiff's Official Facebook page
• Peter Schiff's Official Twitter