My Joe Rogan Experience – Ep 592

* Earlier today Janet Yellen delivered her much-anticipated and way over-hyped speech at the annual Jackson Hole Symposium * It wasn't as irrelevant as I thought it was going to be, but the actual relevant part of the speech was lost on just about everybody * Instead they keep focusing on whether or not the Fed is going to raise rates by another .25 in September or December or maybe both * In reality, whether they do or do not is irrelevant, given the nature of where we are and where the U.S. economy actually is * For a small person, Janet Yellen certainly casts a large shadow over the financial markets * Everybody was on pins and needles, all the traders were there with their fingers on the buttons waiting to react to anything that Yellen said * I mentioned on an earlier podcast that there had already been a sell-off  on gold stocks a couple of days ago on the anticipation of Yellen's hawkish comments * The rest of the market seemed to ignore the possibility that Yellen would be a hawk * Before I discuss what she said, I want to examine whether anyone on the committee could be considered a hawk * A hawk is predatory; is to be feared, reflecting a tough central banker who believes in sound money * On the other hand, a dove is cute and fluff; doesn't really hurt anybody * A dove wants cheap money - keep interests low so as not to harm anybody - nothing to fear * When it comes to hawks with respect to the Federal Reserve, the bird is extinct * They are all doves and the only difference is the degree of dovishness * The hawks are gone and are probably never coming back * Yellen was not a hawk, and neither was Stan Fischer Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

27 Aug 201634min

* The price of gold fell about $12/oz today; silver prices were down another .28 * Both metals have been falling since recent new yearly highs * Gold, though is not very much below the highs * The real carnage has been in the mining stocks, particularly today; today was one of the biggest down days I've seen all year * The GDX index was down just over 7% * Some of the mining stocks were down 10% or more on a very small move in the price of gold and silver * In fact, we've wiped out the last 2 months of gains in the mining stocks * What is the catalyst for this? * Early this morning, around 8:30 - 9:00 New York time before the U.S. Stock Market opened * No news - gold was up 1 or 2 bucks... * All of a sudden a huge sell order hits and gold drops about 7 or 8 bucks on no news * Somebody decided to dump a lot of gold on the market, at one time and didn't really care what the execution price was * Considering how large the sell order was, it didn't really knock the market down very much * But the gold stock market was a different story * It kind of made me think that the rationale for getting gold to drop was the impact it might have on the gold stocks themselves * My guess is that a lot of people who were running with stops, that's when you have an order to sell below the market to try to protect your profits * My guess is that they hit a lot of stops today in a lot of these mining stocks and maybe, some of the bigger players were able to buy more gold stocks based on the shake-out that was created * By a relatively modest drop in the price of gold * Meanwhile, the dollar didn't rise very much today; the downtrend still seems to be firmly in place * What everybody seems to be focusing on is the Fed * People are worried about what Janet Yellen might say on Friday * The Fed's Jackson Hole Conference gets underway tomorrow and Janet Yellen speaks on Friday * I guess the thoughts are: "Maybe she will say something hawkish." * Maybe she'll say the U.S economy is strengthening and the Fed is getting closer to meeting its objectives * And that a rate hike is possible in the near future * So what? That's what she always says. * Now she's not going to come out and say, "We're raising rates for sure. We're moving rates in September." * The only thing she could say is that a rate hike is still possible * That is no different than anything that she has said in the past * So people being nervous about a possible unprecedented hawkish statement makes no sense * Even in Janet were to say she is raising rates in September and she followed through a rate hike * So what? * It's not going to hurt gold and it's not going to help the dollar * Expected rate hikes were already baked into the dramatic rise of the dollar in 2014-2015 * Gold declined from a high of almost $1900 to a low of $1050 because it was discounting all the rate hikes that are never going to materialize * Even if we get one or two more, that is nothing compared to market expectations * Even if we get a couple of small rate hikes, even if we get to .75 or even 1% * That is still not enough to hurt gold or help the dollar * When are people going to figure out it doesn't matter what the Fed does Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

25 Aug 201629min

* The dollar was broadly weaker today with the dollar index closing down .85 to 94.78 * At that time gold was up about $18; sliver up about .25 * Then all of a sudden New York Fed Chairman William Dudley in an interview on Fox Business basically said that a September rate hike was still possible * Look, a September alien invasion is still possible, but I'm not going to waste my time preparing for it * What's amazing to me is how all of the villagers still come running every time a Fed official cries "Wolf!" * Haven't they noticed that they've cried, "Wolf!" over and over again and there's never a wolf? * I think that Dudley purposely came out and mentioned a September rate increase just to keep the markets in check; to preserve the false narrative that there is actually a recovery, instead of a bubble * All of a sudden, gold sold off, it went from +$18 to +$2 or $3 * Silver went negative; it lost its entire rally in a matter of minutes * I think Dudley was trying to undo the damage done overnight by Dudley's counterpart at the San Francisco Fed, John Williams' well-thought out paper * Williams wrote in his piece that he believes we're in a "new era".  He doesn't understand that the new era that we're in is collateral damage from central bank monetary policy * They think this is a random occurrence that needs a new government prescription * John Williams is proposing, based on this "new normal" the neutral interest rate is so low, it's almost impossible for the central banks to get there, absent negative interest rates * What Williams is proposing, is more inflation * What he is arguing is that we should scrap this 2% inflation target and that we need a higher number *  I've been saying for years that this is going to happen * It's just like the unemployment rate, where they said, "We'll raise interest rates if it gets below 6.5% and then we let it go below 5% * We kept moving that goal post * I said the same thing was going to happen to inflation * In fact it is happening.  If you look at the CPI numbers that just came out today, we continue to be above the 2% level on the core; we've been there for many months in a row * Now they're already starting to say, "Hey wait a minute, 2% isn't high enough * We need more inflation because we need lower rates, and the only way to get there is to have higher inflation * This is what I have been expecting * If you read William's piece, he says one of the ways we should get there is for the Fed to target nominal GDP * In other words, not GDP after you adjust for inflation * I've argued that the deflator is under the actual inflation number, therefore overestimating GDP growth * The Fed is saying, "Who cares about the GDP deflator? * All we care about is the nominal number * We don't care if the growth is real or inflationary, we just want nominal GDP numbers to go up" * What good is that? * No one benefits from phony GDP growth that is simply a by-product of inflation * The whole point is that we want the economy to actually, grow, not for just prices to go up * But what the Williams is saying is no, all we care about is prices going up * It's all about style over substance * That's why we're stuck in this malaise * Additionally, what Williams was also arguing for was more fiscal stimulus * He was saying that we're at the end of our rope with interest rates at practically at zero * We need the government to provide more stimulus in the form of deficit spending * We've already got about a $20 trillion national debt * If deficit spending were stimulative, why haven't we gotten a huge stimulus from that $20 trillion of debt? Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

17 Aug 201634min

* Today we got the official numbers for Q2 Non-Farm Productivity and the consensus was that it would increase for the first time in 3 quarters; the prior 2 quarters we saw a decline in productivity * So analysts were looking for a .5 increase in the second quarter * Instead, we got a decline of .5 * More importantly, this is the first 3-quarter consecutive decline in productivity since 1979 * That was the Carter years - stagflation, the misery index, sky-high inflation, sky-high interest rates * That was the last time we had a 3-quarter drop in productivity and President Obama is bragging about how great the recovery is and Hillary Clinton promises more of this * If you look at the actual size of the decline over those 3 quarters, it's the biggest drop in productivity since 1993 * If you look at the year-over-year decline, this is the biggest decline in productivity in 3 years * Productivity is extremely important * Politicians are all talking about higher wages - "We need higher wages!" * You can't get higher wages without higher productivity. * That is where higher wages come from * Now, a lot of politicians want to substitute government decrees - they want to mandate higher wages * Like minimum wage - we're going to force employers to pay this minimum wage * All that does, is raise the bar; it makes it harder for unskilled workers to get a job in the first place * Now employers are forced to pay a wage that may be well above the productivity that they can deliver * In that case, they can't get the job * Mimimum Wage doesn't just raise wages, it raises the bar * Another popular way that politicians try to mandate higher compensation is by mandating benefits such as health care, sick leave, paid vacation days, or overtime * The idea is that you're getting something for nothing - I voted for this guy and he delivered * That's not how it works * When an employer hires somebody, they look at the overall cost of employing that person, relative to the productivity required for the job * If I am mandated to provide certain benefits, the costs associated with them are also mandated * If you force the employer to provide benefits at a certain cost, how is he going to pay for it? * What happens is, the compensation becomes a mix of wages and benefits * Maybe the worker doesn't perfer that, maybe the worker just wants the higher wage * The worker can't have it because the government took that decision away by mandating that a portion of the pay include benefits, whether the worker wants them or not * The politicians hope the voters fall for the idea that they got something for nothing * That's government for you.  They always want you to think you're getting something for nothing * But the something for nothing costs a lot more than you think because the nothing is not nothing * In this case, wages go down so the benefits can go up * Everybody would be better off if the government stayed out and let each worker negotiate independently with the employer for a compensation package that is most valuable to that worker * But productivity is really the holy grail of higher wages * If we really want higher wages we need to raise productivity and that's not happening * If productivity is going down, wages are going down * If you want wages to go up, you have to have higher productivity * How do you get that?  Less government, lower taxes, higher interest rates so we get more savings and more investment and less of all this speculation and paper-shuffling that we have in this bubble economy * I want to talk also on this podcast about Donald Trump's economic speech yesterday Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

10 Aug 201628min

* What a difference a week makes, or maybe and economic report * The two big reports that everybody seems to focus on are the GDP numbers and the jobs numbers * It seems that the weaker the economy is, as measured by GDP, the more jobs, somehow, the economy seems to create * We got the jobs report for July and just a week earlier we got Q2 GDP * As I spoke about on the last podcast, that number was basically half of what Wall Street had been anticipating - less than half * They were looking for 2.4 or 2.6 and we got 1.2 * Even worse, we went back and revised down the prior 2 quarters to below 1% * That very weak number caused people to talk about the fact that the Fed can't raise rates, the economy is weaker than we thought, are we slipping back into recession?... * Now fast forward a week, and we get a Non-Farm Payroll report that is higher than anticipated and now all of a sudden people are starting to talk about September rate hikes again * Obviously, withe the stock market on Friday rising to a new record high, I doubt the equity traders actually believe that Friday's jobs report is going to produce a rate hike * Yet it doesn't stop all the financial journalists writing about how this confirms that the recovery is on track, and the Fed can raise rates * This jobs report doesn't confirm anything Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

6 Aug 201637min

* The carnage in global stock and bond markets continues; it really got started last night in Japan * The JGB (Japanese Government Bonds) dropped for the 3rd consecutive day * The biggest 3-day drop in bond prices in Japan in over 3 years, so yields surging, along with the Japanese yen * Of course, this is not supposed to be happening because they're doing more stimulus and they've got negative interest rates, yet the Japanese yen is appreciating anyway * The Reserve Bank of Australia also came out last night and cut interest rates to 1.5% * That is an all-time record low * Why did they do that? Is it because there's not enough economic growth in Australia? * Are they trying to revive a slumping property market * They've got a bubble in the real estate market - there's no valid reason for cutting interest rates from already low levels * The actual reason that the Reserve Bank of Australia gave for the rate cut was that inflation was not high enough * It's about 1%, the way they measure it, and their goal is to have it between 2 and 3% * In other words, the cost of living is going up by 1% a year and the Reserve Bank of Australia says, "That's horrible! We need to make sure that things get at least 2-3% more expensive this year and we're going to slash interest rates to make sure that happens." * Of course, when you do that, you have all sorts of risks, and what is the payoff? * Why is the cost of living going up 2-3% better than it going up 1%? * What's wrong with the cost of living not going up at all? * How about if it actually went down?  What if people could actually buy the things they need for less money? * What's horrible about the standard of living actually going up? * Of course, the real risk is, what if inflation goes from 1% (at least the way they measure it) to 4 or 5%? * Was it worth it? Now you have an inflation problem on your hands * If you've got 1% and you want 2% - You're close enough! * Obviously this has got nothing to do with inflation, they're simply trying to stop the rise in the Australian dollar * But the Australian dollar went up anyway! * They're trying to keep it down because they have this Keynesian world view that a weak currency is good and a strong currency is bad * But we've got to an inflection point where the central banks are losing this battle * The yen is rising despite the efforts to suppress it * The Aussie dollar went up, despite efforts to suppress it * The problem is, the U.S. economy is a disaster * We got the terrible GDP numbers, and we got a lot of other bad economic news today * We've got a lot more bad news coming out later in the week * We might get a horrific report on non-farm payrolls * We got that surprise good number last month, but who knows? We might revise that down and come up with another disappointing number on Friday * But the Fed, instead of acknowledging this, are still talking about rate hikes * In fact a Fed official just yesterday said the market should not rule out the possibility of a rate hike in September * First of all, if the economy comes roaring back (no chance that's going to happen) * Even if it comes back, they didn't say they WOULD raise interest rates, they said they might * Which also means they might not * It doesn't matter what happens to the economy, they can't raise rates * The economy is not getting better * We are either in recession or on the cusp of one * And the data continues to prove that, but the Fed continues to talk as if they're thinking about raising rates * That is part of the problem, because if the market doesn't believe that the Fed is coming to the rescue... Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

3 Aug 201632min

*  Today the Federal Reserve concluded its 2-day FOMC meeting and it announced - surprise, surprise - that interest rates are not going up * But of course the statement was much more important than their actions because these days, it doesn't matter what the Fed does; all that matters is what they say they're going to do, or more accurately, what they will pretend to do * It really doesn't matter what they say, they're not going to do anything * I explained that on my last podcast; I explained it again on CNBC Futures Now * People obviously still don't get it and I continue to use the analogy of Teddy Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick." but if you have no stick, which is the situation with the Fed, then you have to speak loudly, and if you speak loudly enough, nobody will notice that you have no stick at all * That's what the Fed did today when they did not raise rates, but released their somewhat hawkish statement, saying that the near-term risks to the economic outlook have diminished * What does that mean? * We think the economy looks better, and therefore a rate hike might be appropriate * The Fed said that the job market had strengthened, which it did for one month - we had one strong month, but it is a low bar * But that is only superficial - when you look beneath the surface, it is worse * According to the Fed, the job market strengthened and the economy is expanding at a moderate rate * If we have an strengthening job market and the economy is expanding moderately, why are interest rates still practically zero? * The Fed mentioned that household spending is growing, but again the bar is set pretty low * The continued to say that they believe the economy is evolving in a way that will warrant gradual rate hikes * By gradual they mean, "No more rate hikes." * They raised rates once in January and they haven't raised them since * I think the tightening cycle ended when they raised rates, and began when they started to talk about tapering * We are now in an easing cycle * Despite some general better-than-expected economic data, we got some very weak news this morning * We got the number for June Durable Goods and they were looking for a decline of 1.3% * We got triple that decline: 4% decline and in fact they took the may number down from -2.2% to -2.8% * Year over year we're down 6.4% - that's a huge decline * The biggest decline in 2 years * If you look at the core capital goods, down again 3.7% * This is a massive streak - we've now seen the year-over-year core number down 18 months in a row * The longest losing streak in history when the U.S. economy was not in recession * I believe that this streak will continue and ultimately it will be longest losing streak ever - including recessions * Which would mean that year-over-year core durable goods would have been weaker during this "recovery" than in any prior recession on record * What does that tell you about the character about the so-called recovery, if is produces data that is even worse than during an official recession? Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

28 Juli 201629min

* It's official. The unthinkable, according to the status quo earlier in the campaign, Donald Trump is the Republican Nominee * Although many wrote him off as a candidate, I never did; I always said he was being underestimated * I believed his message would resonate given how horrible the economy actually is and what is really happening beneath the headlines * Everybody was proclaiming recovery and that we're on the right track and I knew that that wasn't the case * I knew there would be a lot of dissatisfaction among the electorate on both sides of the aisle * Even after Donald Trump locked up the Republican nomination, everybody was still writing him off * The idea was, "He's going to lose in a landslide" * Republican establishment said, "Abandon ship!", distancing themselves from Trump to maintain the House and the Senate, writing off the White House * Maybe run against Hillary in 4 years * That was the general consensus * Again, I kept saying the the media and the political establishment on both sides were underestimating Donald Trump and the potential appeal of a Trump presidency * I think that the speech he gave at the convention really proves that point * I thought his speech was brilliant. * When I say brilliant, I don't necessarily agree with everything he said; I clearly don't * I'm talking about the political perspective * Was this an effective speech to set the tone of the campaign? * In that respect, I think he hit the ball out of the park * The most clever thing about his speech is he didn't go after the Republicans * He went after the Democrats * He went after their base; their core constituency * He is bringing the fight to their turf * He went for the women, he went for the minorities * Not just African Americans and Latinos, but the LGBTQ and the blue collar workers * Donald Trump did not go after the entrepreneur * He didn't promise to get government off your back and free up the businessman from red tape * That's a typical Republican acceptance speech * He said, "I'm going to be the champion of the little guy." * The downtrodden, the forgotten voter * "I'm your guy! The system has been rigged against you and because I have been part of the problem, I'm the only one who can deliver the solution" * I think this is a very powerful strategy * Because the Democrats have been taking their constituency for granted * What Donald Trump says is, "Why are you blindly supporting the Democratic nominee?" * What have they done for you? Nothing. * He will bring up the shocking statistics that have been getting worse under 7 years of Barack Obama * The horrible unemployment in the African American community * The inner city crime * The government dependency.  The despair. * Why are African Americans handing their votes to a Democrat? * The Democrats have let them down and failed them * Donald Trump will say, "I won't do that.  Trust me." * "I will deliver on the broken promises of generations of Democrats." * What about women? * Instead of denying the gender gap, he just accepted it. Our Sponsors: * Check out Aeropress and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://aeropress.com * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF * Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.com Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

23 Juli 201642min