U.S. News: “Permabear” Worst-Case Scenario
U.S. News and World Report online edition May 30 story described Crash scenario author, Peter Schiff, as a “Permabear.”
Former Reagan economic adviser Art Laffer, of the “Laffer Curve,” thought the economy was untroubled over two years ago on August 28, 2006 in the embedded CNBC show I noticed at New Mogul. Opposing him was permabear Peter Schiff, who thought otherwise for reasons nobody can deny today.
Schiff’s latest prognosis of energy and food shortages thanks to near term hyperinflation makes permaculture relevant sooner than I’d hoped or feared. I’ll be browsing “survivalist” websites now. Economic collapse due to monetary stupidity is what I’ve believed to be more important than peak oil or global warming in forcing a change of lifestyle. I expected nothing to change much until the middle class went broke. Oops, we’re there! And the Berlin Wall was torn down, too. Time for us weirdos to turn professional.
Schiff’s current economic projections are right in line with the hyperinflation scenario predicted in my friend J. Neil Schulman’s prophetic 1979 novel, Alongside Night. Disclosure: I wrote the afterword to Neil’s 20th anniversary updated edition, describing the technology I thought an underground free market movement might use under a martial law crackdown in a collapsed economy. Such stuff as telepresence and remotely controlled construction equipment as well as the spread spectrum radio and encryption schemes you’d expect from a cypherpunk.
New Mogul article excerpt:
From Peter Schiff’s weekly email:
The Beginning of the End
October 10, 2008
. . .
“The government will now attempt to keep bad loans from failing and real estate prices from falling. Rather then allowing market forces to rein in excess borrowing and replenish savings, it will encourage even more borrowing and drain what is left of our savings pool. Rather than allowing our economy to return to one based on legitimate production, it will continue to encourage reckless consumption.”“In the end, by refusing to allow market forces to work their cure, our economy will inevitably die from the disease. Our economy will now face death by hyperinflation, which will cause a complete loss of confidence in the dollar and result in prices and interest rates skyrocketing out of sight. The evaporation of our national wealth will lead to civil unrest, food and energy shortages, and the possible imposition of martial law. If such a scenario unfolds, what is left of our Constitution will surely be completely shredded.”
January 21st, 2009 at 8:58 am
[…] have come to pass about mortgages, consumer debt and stock prices–on his declared schedule. Schiff’s forecast for the next few years looks like Alongside Night turned into […]