Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

The Fed's Last Hurrah

Politics / Central Banks Apr 01, 2010 - 04:34 PM GMT

By: Peter_Schiff

Politics

During the 1990s, inflationary Federal Reserve policy fueled a tech stock bubble. When that bubble burst, the Fed inflated a larger one in real estate. Now that the real estate bubble has burst, the Fed is inflating the biggest bubble of them all - a bubble in government. While the earlier booms at least provided the illusion of prosperity and some fun while they lasted, the government bubble will cripple the economy and deliver widespread misery to the vast majority of Americans.


Of course, there will be winners in the government bubble, at least for a while. As was the case with the stock and real estate bubbles, plenty of money will be made by the well-connected and parasitic classes. Government employees will continue to enjoy pay raises at our expense, as will anyone benefiting from the new wave of subsidies, such as Wall Street investment bankers, financial speculators, and those working in health care or education.

These gains will come at the expense of the taxpayers who foot the bill and the consumers who face higher prices. As government grows, it deprives the private sector of the resources it needs to survive and grow. The result is a lower overall standard of living. Not only are government jobs less productive than private sector jobs, but bureaucratic interference actually makes the remaining private sector jobs less efficient as well.

Our economy is being transformed from a mostly capitalistic one to a mostly socialistic one. More decisions are being made by politicians and lawyers in Washington and fewer by entrepreneurs. The motivation behind this shift is the mistaken belief that the financial crisis of 2008 was caused by too much capitalism and a lack of proper government oversight. This conclusion is self-serving for those in power, and couldn't be more economically misguided. Through corruption or just plain ignorance, Congress and this Administration have embraced an ideology that has failed every time it has been tried.

Take the recent student loan reforms that were slipped into the health care bill. Obama wants to reduce the cost of providing student loans by taking the profits out of the industry. According to Obama, student loans are too expensive because banks profit from making them. If the government nationalizes the function, we would apparently bring down costs by eliminating those pesky profits.

This is a Marxist argument, pure and simple. If true, it would apply to all industries, not just banking. States like Cuba and North Korea would be the envy of the world, as they prohibit profits across the board. The truth is that profits, earned from free-market competition, keep cost down. By taking the profits out and putting the bureaucrats in, any incentive to provide better service or lower costs is eliminated. It's not hard to predict that student loan costs will now rise faster than ever.

That is clearly not the result we want. To solve the problem, people must understand that college tuitions are so expensive specifically because the government has guaranteed student loans (see my video blog on this topic for a detailed explanation). Guaranteed loans don't mean more access to education, but rather that universities are free to charge more per pupil than if their customers were paying out-of-pocket.

Obama's plan only serves to remove more market forces and creates an even bigger moral hazard. Under the new rules, students will be required to repay a much smaller portion of what they borrow. As a result, students will be willing to borrow even greater amounts of cash to pay inflated tuitions, making it that much easier for colleges and universities to raise them.

Also, since the government will actually be loaning the money directly, rather than simply guaranteeing private-sector loans, the Treasury will actually have to borrow the money itself before it can re-lend it to students. I suppose the irony of going into debt to loan money never registers in Washington. Further, as this bill will cause tuitions to rise even faster, it will necessitate even larger loans that will produce even greater taxpayer losses when the loans end in default or forbearance.

Whether it is in education, housing, health care, automobiles, insurance, or banking, greater government involvement in the economy means higher prices, lower productivity, more bailouts, bigger deficits, increased taxes, diminished industrial capacity, fewer private sector jobs, less freedom, and a falling standard of living.

In the end, when runaway inflation and skyrocketing interest rates burst the government bubble, there will be no more bubbles to replace it - just one hell of a hangover.

For a more in-depth analysis of how the weaknesses in the U.S. economy could threaten dollar-based investments, subscribe to The Global Investor, Peter Schiff's free online newsletter. Click here for more information.

Regards,
Peter Schiff

Euro Pacific Capital
http://www.europac.net/

More importantly make sure to protect your wealth and preserve your purchasing power before it's too late. Discover the best way to buy gold at www.goldyoucanfold.com , download my free research report on the powerful case for investing in foreign equities available at www.researchreportone.com , and subscribe to my free, on-line investment newsletter at http://www.europac.net/newsletter/newsletter.asp

Peter Schiff Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in