Peter Schiff On Inflation, The Dollar, And Gold

[Lightfiend]

Peter Schiff On Inflation, The Dollar, And Gold

Is anyone here a fan of Peter Schiff? I seriously hope he takes the senate spot in Connecticut.

 

[Elutherian]

Schiff: 1,375
Bernanke: 0

 

[Toro]

I own a lot of gold so I half agree with Schiff. But I think he is an alarmist otherwise.

He lost his clients 40%-70% last year. Theory means nothing if you tank your clients.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I own a lot of gold so I half agree with Schiff. But I think he is an alarmist otherwise.

He lost his clients 40%-70% last year. Theory means nothing if you tank your clients.

And yet his clients are doing great this year.

 

[Toro]

I own a lot of gold so I half agree with Schiff. But I think he is an alarmist otherwise.

He lost his clients 40%-70% last year. Theory means nothing if you tank your clients.

And yet his clients are doing great this year.

So am I and I didn't lose 70% last year.

If you're down 50%, you have to double your money to get even. If you lose 70%, you have to triple your money. That's a long row to hoe.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I own a lot of gold so I half agree with Schiff. But I think he is an alarmist otherwise.

He lost his clients 40%-70% last year. Theory means nothing if you tank your clients.

And yet his clients are doing great this year.

So am I and I didn't lose 70% last year.

If you're down 50%, you have to double your money to get even. If you lose 70%, you have to triple your money. That's a long row to hoe.

What's the source for his clients losing 70%?

 

[Paulie]

Schiff's clients lost last year because he told them to get out of the dollar in all possible ways.

He didn't foresee the rest of the world debasing their currencies as aggressively as they did to save the dollar.

Had it not been for that, he'd have looked like a damn genius.

You don't ALWAYS win, but I think he and his clients learned a lesson. The Dollar is not as susceptible to complete collapse was had been thought. Not then, and probably not in the future either.

He did something that is considered a no-no in investing, and that's ignore diversification. He didn't recommend ANYTHING tied to the Dollar, and that was way too much of a gamble.

His strong points are his fundamental economic positions on fiscal and monetary policy. Forget about his investment opinions. It's his macroeconomics that interest me the most.

 

[Old Rocks]

I own a lot of gold so I half agree with Schiff. But I think he is an alarmist otherwise.

He lost his clients 40%-70% last year. Theory means nothing if you tank your clients.

OUCH!!!!! That kind of thing is not a good reccomendation for one's economic theories.

 

[Old Rocks]

Schiff's clients lost last year because he told them to get out of the dollar in all possible ways.

He didn't foresee the rest of the world debasing their currencies as aggressively as they did to save the dollar.

Had it not been for that, he'd have looked like a damn genius.

You don't ALWAYS win, but I think he and his clients learned a lesson. The Dollar is not as susceptible to complete collapse was had been thought. Not then, and probably not in the future either.

He did something that is considered a no-no in investing, and that's ignore diversification. He didn't recommend ANYTHING tied to the Dollar, and that was way too much of a gamble.

His strong points are his fundamental economic positions on fiscal and monetary policy. Forget about his investment opinions. It's his macroeconomics that interest me the most.

I am just an ignorant old millwright, but I have had degreed engineers tell me this something they built had to work because of theory. When it failed, they wanted me to repeat the mistake. Basically I told them to talk to my boss, because I was not interested in theory, but what worked for production.

When someone fails in a major way, and insists that the theory that created his failure is still correct, I have to wonder about that person's sanity, or connection to reality. If it doesn't work in the real world, it ain't worth spit.

 

[Toro]

And yet his clients are doing great this year.

So am I and I didn't lose 70% last year.

If you're down 50%, you have to double your money to get even. If you lose 70%, you have to triple your money. That's a long row to hoe.

What's the source for his clients losing 70%?

The 40%-70% was reported in the Wall Street Journal. I have posted it at USMB somewhere.

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Peter Schiff Was Wrong

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

So am I and I didn't lose 70% last year.

If you're down 50%, you have to double your money to get even. If you lose 70%, you have to triple your money. That's a long row to hoe.

What's the source for his clients losing 70%?

The 40%-70% was reported in the Wall Street Journal. I have posted it at USMB somewhere.

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Peter Schiff Was Wrong

To illustrate the flaws in my investment strategy the blogger has posted a client's statement that shows a loss in excess of 60%. In addition, he claims to know of other Euro Pacific clients who have experienced similar losses. The inference of course is that most, or all, of my clients must have suffered similar losses, and the existence of such losses proves that I am wrong. In fact, some have gone a step further, claiming that such losses prove that I am a fraud.

First let's deal with the one client's account. I have been following several key investment themes for the past ten years. The basis for my strategy is that recent U.S. prosperity has been false, and that the consequences of the bursting of our bubble economy would ultimately play out in a substantial decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, higher commodity prices, the re-monetization of gold, and foreign equities substantially outperforming U.S. markets. From an investment perspective, those themes played out extremely well in the eight years from 2000-2007. Recently we have seen a sharp, and I believe temporary, reversal of these trends. Those that came late to the party (at least based on where we are today) now have to ride out a particularly difficult correction.

For example, the account in question belongs to the son of a long-standing Euro Pacific client, who is still adding funds to his accounts. Without specially commenting on the performance of the father's account, it must have been compelling enough to finally persuade the son to come on board himself in early 2008. However, as is often the case, by the time he came on board, foreign stocks and commodities were about to sell off, and the dollar was about to begin its unexpected rally. Following such a sharp correction, the son now regrets his decision and must blame me for my part in helping him make it.

"A Response to My Critics" by Peter Schiff, FSU Editorial 01/29/2009

 

[Toro]

Kevin

I am a money manager and a former stock broker so I get the gist of his article.

However, he never denied that at least some of his accounts lost up to 70%, particularly his aggressive accounts. He says he had a lot of clients come in near the top of the market. And he admits that he was wrong about the market.

In my business, the only thing that matters is your numbers. You can have whatever theories you want, but if you say that one thing should happen and another thing happens and you lose your client a lot of money, everything else is irrelevant.