

The Peter Schiff Show Podcast
Peter Schiff
Peter Schiff is an economist, financial broker/dealer, author, frequent guest on national news, and host of the Peter Schiff Show Podcast. The podcast focuses on economic data analysis and unbiased coverage of financial news, both in the U.S. and global markets. As entertaining as he is informative, Peter packs decades of brilliant insight into every news item. Join the thousands of fans who have benefited from Peter’s commitment to getting the real story out to the world.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 16, 2017 • 53min
Freedom of Speech vs. the Thought Police – Ep. 277
Press Wants Freedom of Speech as Long as It Fits Their Agenda
One of the few rights left to us in this country is the freedom of speech. If we don't defend speech that we find offensive, someone else will find your speech offensive and move to silence you. Political correctness, is evolving into the Thought Police via the mainstream media. In particular, President Trump's reaction to the events in Charlottesville is being portrayed as a defense of White Nationalists over Black Lives Matter. Nothing is President Trump's remarks supports this story. President Trump, in the lobby of Trump Tower, was subjected to an inquisition by the Press, who intended to entrap the President and further their agenda to mischaracterize him and anyone who supports him.
Disrespecting Donald Trump and the Office of the President
I know very few members of the Press respect Donald Trump; this is clear. But they need to respect the office of the Presidency. Could you imagine members of the Press treating President Obama the way they are treating President Trump? Can you imagine the cries of racism? Of course, no member of the Press would dare show that type of disrespect to President Obama.
Condemning Violence on Both Sides
President Trump is refusing to denounce only the violence perpetrated by the White Nationalists without also mentioning that the Black Lives Matter group, who assembled without a permit, also engaged in violence. The Left is saying that President Trump has not denounced the White Nationalists enough. What the President said was that he was condemning the violence on both sides and that angered the left. They hold that the President should only condemn violence committed by the White Nationalists. That would be hypocritical.
Background on the Event
To give you a little background, the park, formerly named Robert E. Lee Park, was re-named Emancipation Park and the city was going to tear down the statue of Robert E. Lee that had presided over that park. So there was a local protest that the statue was coming down. It was coming down regardless of local protests. A local group wanted to protest the fact that this was happening. This group eventually got a permit although it was initially rejected. So they engaged in a legal protest to exercise their First Amendment rights. The counter protesters, who came in from out to town did not have a permit landed first physical blow.
Freedom of Speech is there for the Offensive Ideas
Are the ideas that the White Nationalists offensive? Yes. But it doesn't matter, because that is Freedom of Speech. It is there because of the offensive statements. See, nobody cares if you say something that makes everybody happy and doesn't offend anybody - you don't need freedom to do that. The scenario that the left is trying to spin and the media is playing right into it is that America is afraid to go anywhere near anything that would draw the ire of the politically correct thought police. We have a very tenuous grasp on the right of freedom of speech, and there is no doubt in my mind that this right is going to go.
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Aug 14, 2017 • 48min
Bitcoin is a Digital Risk Asset, Not a Currency – Ep. 276
Speculative Asset
Bitcoin is a digital risk asset, not a currency. If you own bitcoin you have an asset, but it is not a safe haven. A safe haven is an asset that is not likely to go down in comparison to another speculative investment. Bitcoin has been extremely volatile; it happens to be going up, but the price is based on speculation. Does anybody believe that bitcoin has less downside risk than the stock market?
Not a Currency
Bitcoin is not used as currency. They trade in bitcoins for dollars or euros or yen to buy things, but very few legal goods and services are priced in bitcoin. Because the price is highly volatile and backed by nothing, it can not be used as a currency. It is being used as an asset. The number of top retailers who accept Bitpay is diminishing, not increasing. Merchants will try to make it easy to trade bitcoin for currency which would then buy goods and services. Most people who own bitcoin are not spending them; they are hoarding them because they think they are going to keep going up.
Just Noise
At the end of the day, the realized gains from speculation in bitcoin are going to be overshadowed by the speculative losses. All the rest of it is just noise. The realized profits will be concentrated on a small group of people, whereas the realized losses will be dispersed among a larger population.
Reversing the Consequences
Bitcoin will end up achieving the opposite of its original goal, which was to challenge the power of central government, to disrupt money, that is would rein in government and have real commodity money in the same way FedEx upended the Post Office or Uber upended taxis. This is going to give more power to government, because when digital currencies collapse, the central bankers will say, "We told you so! This is what happens when you allow the free market to do what government should do. When the free market creates money it leads to disaster. You have to stick with currencies backed by government. "
No Joke
The original currencies that were created by the private sector, and not by government were issued by banks and backed by gold. Today, the private sector could issue digital currency backed by gold just like paper currency backed by gold. What gave the paper currency value was the gold backing. If any bank tried to issue paper currency backed by nothing, it would have been laughed out of existence. It would have been a joke, except now it's not a joke. People actually want digital currency backed by absolutely nothing.
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Aug 11, 2017 • 38min
Trump’s Saber Rattles Markets – Ep. 275
Fire and Fury Not Strong Enough
Donald Trump's saber-rattling against North Korea continues. Yesterday the President was asked to clarify his statement about the "fire and fury" and he came out and said that that wasn't strong enough; he was really sugar-coating it. What he really means is something worse - if anything his statement was not strong enough. Again, today Trump issued another threat that N. Korea had better be careful, if they say anything if they will regret it big time, so the level of rhetoric is rising.
A Legend in Trump's Mind
He was talking about the booming economy, the stock market at record highs, employment surging, all these jobs coming back. He is spinning this ridiculous phony story about a recovery that doesn't exist. Just as I pointed out he took credit for building up our nuclear armament to a level higher than it has ever been - all this is happening, unfortunately, in Donald Trump's mind.
Volatility Up
There was a big down day in the markets; it dropped over 200 points yesterday; there was a small bounce back today - the Dow was up about 14, not a major recovery, But if you look at the Vix, which is a measure of fear, a measure of volatility, it was near the lows, below 10 mid-week and it spiked all the way up to 16 yesterday, which is the highest it has been since April. It looks like it is above a key moving average on a weekly chart, so that shows a heightened risk in the market.
Dollar No Safe Haven
Interestingly enough, the dollar index closed near the lows of the day, just at around 93 even. It is down on the week. In fact, this is the lowest weekly close for the dollar index for the entire year. Now, you would expect the dollar to have some kind of a safe haven bounce with all of the saber-rattling - all of the worries about nuclear war. Typically, you would get money going into the dollar. I guarantee you, if the circumstances were the same a year ago, there would have been a big rally in the dollar this week. But not now.
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Aug 10, 2017 • 32min
Income Not Received Should Not be Taxed – Ep. 274
Elimination of Deductions for State and Local Tax - "SALT"
Tax reform is the one remaining 2018 Republican campaign issue, and the argument over "SALT", or the elimination of deductions for state and local taxes. In general that would be state income tax or state property tax. In some states that do not have income tax, you are allowed to deduct your sales tax, although that is a more complicated deduction. In the wealthier states on both coasts, tax payers rely on those deductions.
The Mortgage Tax Deduction Restricts the Free Market
No one wants to get rid of the home mortgage deduction, but that is a much better deduction to eliminate, as it does more damage to the economy. The politically popular mortgage interest deduction is aimed at altering behavior, rather than to let the free market work independently. The real beneficiary of the mortgage tax deduction is not the home buyer but the house seller. There are many predominately Democratic states with high taxes but I don't buy argument in favor of eliminating that deduction.
Why Should the Federal Government Subsidize the State Government?
The argument is, why should the Federal government subsidize state government? If a state wants to have a high income tax, then, its citizens get to deduct that income tax from their Federal taxes and therefore, they don't feel the full burden of the tax, because some of it is absorbed by the Federal government. As a result of this, tax payers in high tax states are more receptive to those high taxes because they get a tax break on their Federal tax returns. If they could not deduct these taxes, there would be a bigger pushback on the state level.
Federal Government Taxing Unearned Income
If we are going to have an income tax, we have to tax the actual income. For example, if you earn $100,000, and let's say you live in a state with a flat 10% income tax, then they pay $10,000 in taxes. Did they earn $100,000 for $90,000? I would say they earned $90,000. Now if the Federal government does not want to give a deduction on the state income tax, they should not tax you on income you never earned. I don't think that's Constitutional. You can't be taxed on money that didn't come to you. The money paid to the state in taxes is not a voluntary donation. It is taken by force.
No Double Tax
If you go back to the origins of the first Federal income taxes exempted tax paid to the states, it was because the Federal government respected the sovereignty of the states to tax the people first. If you allow the Federal government to ignore state taxes, theoretically they could place an income tax so high that you would have nothing left between the state and Federal tax burden. I would not allow the government to double tax anything, because it is diminishing the power of the state.
Defer Income Tax to Employers
Here's another thing that no one in Congress is addressing: the states can get around this. Let's say they pass a law that says you can't deduct your state income taxes from your Federal income tax. In the previous example, the taxpayer pays taxes on $10,000 he never earned. What if the state then repeals the state income tax on wages and salaries and in its place, imposes a payroll tax on employers? So that, instead of an employee getting paid $100,000 and paying $10,000 in taxes, the payroll tax causes the employer to pay a state tax that would then reduce the salary of the employee by that much. That payroll tax would be deductible for the employer as an expense. So all the states would have to do is change the way they tax wages and salaries and the net effect would be no change for the individual worker. This would deprive the Federal government of all the extra money they think they are going to get by removing the state income tax deduction.
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Aug 5, 2017 • 32min
Trump Hypocrisy on Jobs Raises Concerns – Ep. 273
Trump Jumps to Tweet on Mediocre Jobs Numbers
This morning the Labor Department released the July Non Farm Payroll numbers and Donald Trump tweeted,"Excellent Jobs Numbers just released - and I have only just begun." Many job stifling regulations continue to fall. Movement back to USA!" What is excellent about these numbers? If you look at the household survey reveals that we created 393,000 part time jobs during the month, and we lost 54,000 full time jobs. Candidate Trump complained about these types of numbers. He talked about the proliferation of part time jobs and the loss of full time jobs on the campaign trail, yet now, it's "excellent news!".
Small Rise in Manufacturing Jobs
Although the report was not a disaster, it was not greater than many we've seen under the Obama Administration. The expectation was for a gain of 178,000 and we beat it. We came out with 209,000, which is really not a lot of jobs. Given the size of the American economy, creating 200,000 jobs in a month is really not a lot of jobs. But exceeding this rather low bar gives rise to over-exuberant headlines over a strong jobs report. In fact they did revise last month's gain of 222,000 up to 231,000 and this month's was better than estimates. The unemployment rate did tick back down to 4.3; remember it jumped up to 4.4 and now it's back down to 4.3. We did gain 16,000 in manufacturing jobs and they did revise upward last month's gain from 1,000 to 12,000, so that is somewhat good news, although as a percentage of the overall jobs, it is small.
What's the Real Unemployment Rate?
The Labor force participation rate did ratchet up one tenth, back to 62.9; still very low. Wages rose .3% meeting expectations, and most numbers remained status quo. It's not a disaster of a report but it is not spectacular. We had plenty similar reports under Obama, which were previously labeled "fraud". The unemployment rate is low, and candidate Trump was saying, "The real unemployment rate is closer to 49%". What's the real unemployment rate now?
Are the Numbers B.S.?
The question is, "Was candidate Donald Trump being honest? Did he really believe the numbers were phony or was he just saying that?" Or, was he being dishonest as a candidate and is he being honest as a president? Was he and honest candidate or was he being dishonest? Does he realize that these numbers are B.S. yet embracing them anyway to feather his own nest, when the economy is behaving exactly as it did when Obama was President.
Counting Jobs Twice
If you look at the jobs, about 40% of the jobs created were in leisure and hospitality, which was the #1 category, and then healthcare and education. We have record numbers of people now tending bar and waiting tables, although these are probably part time workers being counted multiple times as Obamacare drove away full time employment.Our Sponsors:* Check out FRE and use my code LISTEN20 for a great deal: https://frepouch.com* Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD* Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Aug 3, 2017 • 34min
Dow Tops 22K but Market’s Foundation Has Cracks – Ep. 272
Trump Takes Credit for Dow Jones 22K
We have an all-time high in the Dow Jones today, closing above 22K for the first time ever. Donald Trump did not tweet about this today, although yesterday he did put out a tweet that the market was about to hit 22,ooo; of course he is claiming credit for it. In fact he pointed out in his tweet that when he was elected, the Dow was 18,000 and not it is 4,000 points higher and of course he is claiming credit for it. He says the media is ignoring it. They are reporting on the record highs, but believe me, when the Dow starts falling the media is going to pay a lot more attention to the declines than they do to the rises, especially when the Dow starts falling the media is going to pay a lot more attention to the declines because Trump has already branded this market with his moniker.
Bad Economic News Did not Dampen Stock Market
Donald Trump did put out a tweet in which he was bragging about wages rising. I don't know what Donald Trump is looking at - we got the personal income and spending numbers yesterday, and June income was flat. They were looking for a gain of .4 and instead they got a flat number. That was the weakest number for personal income growth since November - the month Donald Trump won the election. He's talking about the wage gains, where are they? They don't show up in personal income, and most people's income is comprised of wages.This weak economic news didn't stop the stock market from making new highs today. Of course, Apple was the main reason - it had almost a 5% gain.
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Jul 29, 2017 • 45min
Skinny Repeal was a Fat Lie – Ep. 271
Obamacare Repeal Charade Over
The whole charade surrounding the repeal of Obamacare is finally over. The most recent attempt, labeled "Skinny Repeal" was a big fat lie. They weren't really repealing anything, leaving the essence of Obamacare and accelerating Obamacare's death spiral. If Congress had repealed the employer mandates and the individual penalties but left everything else the same, then the number of healthy people making the irrational decision not to buy insurance would skyrocket and the sick people who would still be buying, would be facing higher and higher premiums and costing insurance companies bigger and bigger losses to be subsidized by the taxpayer.
Let the Democrats Own the Disaster
Many Republicans are upset with John McCain, for being one of the 3 Republicans to join all the Democrats in opposing the bill. I think McCain did the GOP a favor. This bill, if passed, would have let the Democrats off the hook. They would have not owned Obamacare, and they would be responsible for its failure. Now we all know Obamacare is still there, it is exactly the way it was passed, the bill President Obama championed and signed, the one that Nancy Pelosi said, "We have to pass it to see what is in it." We passed it, we know what is in it (although most people do not understand what is in it) and it is a disaster.
Late last year most people thought the Republicans were going to repeal it - everybody but me. I didn't think that they had the guts to do it. I had this interview on Russia Today in mid-January, it's up on my YouTube Channel; the title is, "Peter Schiff Very Skeptical of Obamacare Repeal". If you watch that video you will see that I say, "I don't think they're going to repeal it."
No Guts to Repeal
Of course, everybody thought, "of course they are going to repeal it. They've been campaigning on it for years!" The President promised it. Everybody who has run for office as a Republican says, "Elect me and I am going to get rid of Obamacare!". They voted to repeal it many times when Obama was still President. And, of course, every time they voted to repeal it, Obama vetoed it, which of course, the Republicans knew was going to happen. As it turns out, that was the only reason they had the guts to repeal it because they knew it wouldn't actually happen. I knew that the Republicans would have a tough time taking away the free lunch. I knew that a lot of them were promising to repeal but keep the ban on pre-existing conditions and I knew that was impossible. Pre-existing conditions is the very essence of Obamacare. You can't repeal it and preserve it at the same time.
The Stock Market Has Not Gotten the Message
The stock market, however, still doesn't understand the significance. It hit another record high again today. The Dow was up, it closed at a new high today. The NASDAQ and the S&P were down. The transports managed a slight bounce from yesterday's drubbing. Transports were down around 300 points yesterday. Again, more cracks in the armor for the stock market. Look at what happened to Starbucks today. The latest victim of declining retail sales; it was down around 9% today. They reduced their guidance based on a drop in sales, now I don't know if you can blame this on people buying their coffee on Amazon.
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Jul 27, 2017 • 31min
Dollar Falls as Balance Sheet Shrinkage Doubts Rise – Ep. 270
Summary:
The Dow and the NASDAQ set new record highs today as the dollar sold off near the end of the day to close at yet another low for the year. Remember, the dollar index rallied 6% between the election and the Trump inauguration. It has now fallen more than 10% since inauguration. Many currencies are at two-year highs. The Australian dollar is at a 2-year high, certain commodities are at a 2-year high, copper broke to a 2-year high; oil prices have been strong. Oil was up about $.80 today after being up about $2 yesterday. We're now above $48.50. Getting close to $50/barrel again.
Federal Reserve: "No Hike"
One of the reasons for the strength in commodities is the weakness in the U.S. dollar. The catalyst for the weakness in the dollar today is the Federal Reserve, the FOMC, concluded their 2-day meeting today; their press release came out at 2.30pm ET and they announced that they did not decide to raise interest rates during this meeting. Nobody expected the Fed to raise interest rates, which is one of the reasons why they didn't.
Balance Sheet Normalization?
There was some anticipation that the Federal Reserve may be more specific concerning when it might start quantitative tightening or 'balance sheet normalization' as they call it. So people wanted to know when that would start, and by how much are they going to let their balance sheet to run down but the Fed did not allude to any specifics. All they said is that the process will begin relatively soon. Now the last time they put out a statement, they said it would begin this year. Now they are saying it will begin 'Relatively soon'. Why didn't they leave it at "this year"? Because "this year" would be within the next six months. "Relatively Soon" leaves the statement comfortably vague enough to fit within the Fed's slippery parameters.
Gold Hanging In There
The markets didn't know what to do for the first half hour, but eventually the dollar broke, and gold finally popped up; it was up around $11-12. It was about unchanged going into the announcement and the knee-jerk reaction was a $2-3 selloff, then it came back to unchanged and then we had the rally. Gold stocks had a pretty good day today; the GDX up about 2.5%; the junior minors doing a little bit better. Yet these stocks have barely moved this year, but this is just getting started.
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Jul 25, 2017 • 36min
Lessons From Vegas Don’t Stay in Vegas – Ep. 269
Summary:
My recent trip to Las Vegas for The Freedom Fest provided some interesting lessons. My observations that we are paying more for less were illustrated by the theft of my luggage, as there are no more luggage security checkers in baggage claim exits. Also, for the first time, major Las Vegas hotels are charging from $15 - $18 for parking. This is causing hotel valet workers to lose money, as customers are less likely to leave a generous tip (or any tip) if they are already paying quite a bit to park. So the Las Vegas experience is changing; we're getting less for more money. Prices are going up and wages are going down.
Taking Credit for Phony Statistics
This is the real U.S. economy. Forget about all these phony U.S. statistics. The real world reflects the truth about the economy and why Donald Trump is President. I wish candidate Trump would come back; I would rather see the President questioning phony government statistics instead of embracing them. I'd like to see the President talking about the stock market being a bubble rather than a bull market and claiming credit for the increase.
Weakness in U.S. Dollar
The big story is the continued weakness in the U.S. dollar, in fact this morning the dollar index hit a new low for the year. It's now back in positive territory as I am recording this podcast, but the low this morning was 93.64 on the dollar index. Remember, the dollar index rose about 6% between the election of Donald Trump and the Inauguration, and the reason for the rally was the optimism for economic growth as a result of tax cuts, de-regulation, fiscal stimulus and a tighter Fed.
Senate Backing Away From Repeal
At the time, I argued that that was nonsense, and so far I am being vindicated. We're six months into the Trump Presidency and nothing has happened. They haven't even been able to repeal Obamacare, nor are they going to. The Senate already backed away from the version that I said would not work. Trump did a press conference yesterday talking about Obamacare, assuring everybody that pre-existing ban is going to stay. The very essence of Obamacare is that insurance companies can't charge sick people more for insurance than they charge healthy people. That's the essence of Obamacare that doesn't work and that's what Donald Trump and many Republicans want to preserve.
Preserving the Essence of Obamacare
Of course, in order to achieve that goal, they had to have employer mandates and penalties. These are the only things the Republicans want to get rid of. But they want to preserve the very essence of Obamacare and that's the mandates and penalties were designed to deliver. So now they have to come up with another way to deliver the promise of Obamacare.
Currency Markets Get the Message
The point is, the currency markets have figured this out. The dollar has dumped better than 10% since the Inauguration, but the stock market has made new highs. The Dow Jones is at a new high today; the NASDAQ hit a new high yesterday, so it's a disconnect. The initial rally in the stock market happened for the same reason the dollar rallied. The currency traders have connected the dots. What's the problem with the stock traders? Why are they oblivious?
Dollar Weakness Spark Commodities
The weakness in the dollar is also sparking a rally in multinationals, in commodities. Look at the move today in Freeport-McMoRan a major copper producer; that stock is up better than 13%. Oil prices are coming back up; oil is up better than a dollar today. Emerging markets are strong.
Bullish Conditions for Emerging Markets
I have been saying that a weak dollar is extremely bullish for commodities. Why?Our Sponsors:* Check out FRE and use my code LISTEN20 for a great deal: https://frepouch.com* Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD* Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jul 15, 2017 • 31min
Weak Data Sinks Dollar But Floats Stocks Ep. 268
Summary:
More weak economic data today sent the U.S. stock market to record highs; at least the Dow and the S&P hit new records. NASDAQ not quite, but very close. The dollar hit a new low for the year. The dollar index, settling in at 95.10, right on the low for the day. That's down .63. Some of the other currencies are strong.
Aussie Dollar Strong
The Aussie dollar was up about 1.3% on the day; one of the strongest of the currencies today. The Aussie dollar is very close to a 2-year high. The Canadian dollar was very strong this week on the back of a rate increase by the Bank of Canada. But the dollar falling across the board.
Foreign Stock Gain
Foreign stocks did better than U.S stocks, given their tailwind from appreciating currencies. Gold prices were up just over $11. Given the weakness in the dollar and the weak economic data, gold should be moving up a lot more than it is; I still think there is still a lot of short selling going on, but I smell the mother of all short squeezes coming. Silver is up about .30; back up to $16. remember was a low as $15.10 earlier in the week.
Dollar Index Weakening
The dollar index index at 95.10, just down over 7% on the year. It ended last year just above 1.02. In fact, in January, hit almost 1.04, so we're down 8-1/2% since the January high, and the year is only half over. So I think there is a lot more momentum coming, especially in light of the economic data I'm about to get to.
Retail Sales Disappoint
The big report was the Retail Sales numbers, were supposed to bounce back from May's -.3, and they did manage to revise that to down only .1%;but instead of getting a .1% rebound we had another drop. We had -.2% in June, so that is back-to back declines. In fact that is 3 consecutive months of falling retail sales. The picture gets worse when you strip out car autos. Last month, we got -.3%. That was unrevised. They were looking for June to be +.2% - instead we were down another .2%. And if you strip out gasoline, it's even worse than that. They were looking for +4% and we got -.1%. So very very weak retail sales. This was supposed to be the quarter of the big bounce back! How are we going to bounce back in GDP without retail sales?
Consumer Prices Weaker
We also got consumer prices that actually came out weaker than expected. That is supposedly bad news, the way the Fed spins it, because the Fed's trying to get higher inflation, at least the way the CPI measures it. They were supposed to get an increase of .1% for consumer prices following last month's .1% decline and instead we came in unchanged. Year over year CPI, up 1.6% vs an estimate of 1.7%, and core, stripping out food and energy, they were looking for +.2%. instead we were up .1%
Janet Yellen Wants More Inflation
So when Janet Yellen testified before Congress earlier in the week, the only thing she expressed concern about is that inflation is not high enough. She does not seem concerned at all about the weakness in the economy.Our Sponsors:* Check out FRE and use my code LISTEN20 for a great deal: https://frepouch.com* Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD* Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy


