Peter Schiff - make the poor pay all the taxes!

[renzo_novatore]

This guy is making me insanely angry. In this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ZS0oleO3U - he actually said that the poor choose to be poor, that they took the easy way out, while the rich suffer and struggled to create so many jobs and are doing such a great public service - and so because the poor are all subhuman-non-job-creators - they should pay all the taxes and the rich should pay nothing at all! Because that will allow them to create jobs! So that the poor can have money to pay their taxes (and fund their wars - oh yeah, the government does everything for the poor and nothing for the rich)! :mad: One wonders what will happen to consumers and demand in an economy like that.

Anyone want to comment? Get angry? Write to peter schiff? This is by the way someone who regularly appears on national television. Is good friends with ron paul. And apparently an apologist for social darwinism.

[jake williams]

Peter Schiff is a total fuckbag. Not a lot you can do though.

[Rafiq]

Bill Maher is a douchebag, although I liked his response.

[RichardAWilson]

Hmmm. A Wall Street Guru that got us in this mess? Yeah, I trust his economics, just like I trusted Bush's. Trickle-down tax cutting + corporate welfare spending = Mess.

I believe it makes more sense listening to Warren Buffet, who actually knows how things work and function in the real world.

[jake williams]

Hmmm. A Wall Street Guru that got us in this mess? Yeah, I trust his economics, just like I trusted Bush's. Trickle-down tax cutting + corporate welfare spending = Mess.

I believe it makes more sense listening to Warren Buffet, who actually knows how things work and function in the real world.
Peter Schiff is not taken seriously either by "other economists" or by other finance capitalists. What he does is make horrible predictions about the US economy. Since the US economy is absolutely shitfucked, any given horrible prediction about the US economy is reasonably likely to be true. Since people don't understand that the US economy is absolutely shitfucked, they decide Peter Schiff is a prophet for pointing it out.

Apparently though as an actual investment advisor (his day job) he gives awful advice and mostly spends his time losing his clients' money. Whether or not he's dumb enough to follow his own advice I don't know.

[Os Cangaceiros]

He's an economic apocalypticist who's financial advice can be sumed up into two words: buy gold.

And, y'know, with a continually devalued dollar, if you're an investor there's probably worse advice. Goldbugs have an almost mystical value of gold, though.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I've never understood the exhortation to "buy gold". If fiat currency collapses, then canned food and similar supplies would be far more useful than a load of shiny metal which looks pretty but isn't good for much else.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think the rational is more that gold will hold value better, so that value can then be converted into another fiat currency. That's why countries like China and Thailand (which recently bought 900 million dollars worth of gold) are increasing their gold reserves while jumping off the sinking ship which is the dollar. The same could be said for any number of resources and minerals, although both gold and oil took signficant hits a couple days ago.

[jake williams]

I've never understood the exhortation to "buy gold". If fiat currency collapses, then canned food and similar supplies would be far more useful than a load of shiny metal which looks pretty but isn't good for much else.
It's partly a sort of financial behaviourism: for whatever reason (and there are some good reasons we can talk about, if you want) large investors want gold rather than, say, bonds, or fiat money. To an extent it's worth a lot because other people believe it's worth a lot (which is also true of fiat currency but... not). However, for example, it's a lot easier to trade gold than canned food. It's less perishable, its value (as "something pretty", as an industrial metal, and so on) is more physically concentrated than that of canned food, and so on.

I'm sure the same people though, if they actually believe what they're saying, are also stocking up on canned food and guns and whatnot. When serious investors are talking about "buying gold" they're talking about buying gold with the hundreds of thousands of dollars you have invested in various paper securities, not the $200 in a sock under your bed.

That said, there's lots of hucksters trying to sell a "buy gold" story to ordinary workers, something that doesn't make a lot of sense, not least because obviously someone who professionally trades gold has more price information than you do.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

I can't help but think some of these people pushing the "buy gold" agenda are just trying to drive up the price under the guise of 'helping protect people's investments' to help their OWN investments.

I wonder if there will be a "buy silver" movement soon.

[CommunityBeliever]

I agree with Peter Schiff about one thing. Why aren't the poor working harder?

Why aren't we working harder to overthrow and KILL these bourgeoisie mother-fuckers?!

[jake williams]

I can't help but think some of these people pushing the "buy gold" agenda are just trying to drive up the price under the guise of 'helping protect people's investments' to help their OWN investments.

I guarantee you that's going on. Some of the people doing it half admit it, and they're fairly honest people in a dishonest industry.


I wonder if there will be a "buy silver" movement soon.
There already is.

http://maxkeiser.com/2011/04/06/max-keiser%E2%80%99s-silver-liberation-army-and-the-%E2%80%9Cmillion-ounce-march%E2%80%9D/

[RichardAWilson]

Gold has always been the value bearer. It’s rare, tangible and durable.

During the era before militarism and imperialism, states and institutions often subscribed to a Gold-Standard, whereby the issuance of new currency was fixed to the nation's gold reserve.

An international gold standard, though more flexible than previous standards, remained until the Vietnam War.:ohmy:

[RGacky3]

Just goes to show what libertarianism is about, its disdain for the poor and an exhaultation of power, it has nothing to do with liberty, nothing to do with freedom, its about plutocracy.

Peter Schiff is not only a cock, he's also idiotic economist.

As for the gold, sometimes its smart, sometimes its not, right now its the highest its ever been, people have already said gold is in a bubble and will collapse, not only that but gold has more or less followed the stock market somewhat over the last couple of months (not now), but thats a bad sign, when gold follows the market it shows its not being used as a value bearer but rather speculated on.

I'd put up Stiglitz, Krugman, Reich or Richard Wolff up against this clown anyday of the week, hell, I'd put myself up against him, he's an idiot economist with a power complex that most libertarians have.

[RichardAWilson]

He's not even an economist. He's just a trader and a dealer.