저자: PeterSchiff · 외국인
요약 보기
Schiff는 연준이 심각한 경기침체 시 인플레이션 억제보다 금융위기 회피를 택해 높은 인플레이션을 용인할 것이라고 주장한다. 정치권도 장기보다 단기 고통 회피를 택해 재정적자를 줄이지 못하며, 결국 달러 붕괴나 아르헨티나식 위기 직전까지 가야 올바른 정책이 나올 것이라 본다. 또 CBDC는 정부의 자금 통제·감시 수단이 될 수 있어 현금 폐지에 반대한다. 현금 폐지의 실제 목적은 마약·테러보다 탈세 단속이라고 주장한다. 자산 가격에 대한 구체적 방향 예측(1~3개월)은 발언하지 않았다.
다듬은 글
that's exactly what the FED is going to do, unfortunately. You know, when the FED is surprised that we go into a severe recession and inflation actually gets worse—which is a situation they think is impossible—they think: well, if we go into a deep recession, at least we won't have inflation to worry about anymore, and we can just go back to what we've been doing, which is creating inflation. But if we go into a severe recession and inflation is still high, well, they're at a trick-or-treat moment. Still, I think that when push comes to shove, the FED is going to pick the poison it thinks is the least toxic. It's going to say, you know what, inflation is bad, but a financial crisis and a depression are worse, so we're just going to have to have more inflation. We're just not going to get back down to 2%—maybe 3 or 4%, whatever they say. But hey, we're never going to get to two, because the cost of getting there is too high. So we're just going to have to get used to living in a world with higher inflation, because it's better than the alternative.
Now, it's not better than the alternative. It's way worse. But the Fed and the government won't know that, and even if they do, all they really care about is the short run. If the poison they pick is inflation, and they go back to QE and cut rates even though inflation is still high, the short-term gains won't be as great as if they did the right thing and continued the inflation fight—turning it into a real fight with big cuts in government spending. Because you're not going to fight inflation unless you get rid of these deficits. So we need spending cuts, maybe tax increases if we can't get spending cuts. Spending cuts are my preference; tax increases would be the next choice, and not on the rich, unfortunately, because that's not going to work. So you've got to raise taxes on the middle class and the working poor. I'd rather cut spending to avoid that, but the inflation tax hits the poor harder than a sales tax would.
When politicians have to decide between pain now or pain later, that's a no-brainer for them: it's pain later, because later I might not be in office anymore. In fact, if we have pain now, I won't be in office, because I'm going to lose the next election. So the way to minimize my own pain as a politician is to kick the can down the road. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get reelected. So if inflation now means paying later instead of now, even if it means some pain now, the worst pain is later on—that's what I'm doing. Politicians will always sell out the long-term interests of the country for their own political benefit, and that's what's going to happen. And the central bankers are really no better than the politicians. They're political animals too, and they're going to make the same choice: pain later. As far as they're concerned, they'll just finish out their term, and it's somebody else's problem. I don't blame them. I don't want to be the one blamed for all this pain. Let it happen on somebody else's watch.
The only time they will potentially do the right thing—and it's not a guarantee—is when we're in a real crisis, where the dollar is imploding, prices are skyrocketing, and inflation is on the verge of turning us into Argentina or Zimbabwe. It's going to be awful, with price controls, shortages, riots, looting, civil unrest. It's an apocalyptic environment, where no matter what we do, we're screwed. Maybe then they'll do the right thing. But they're going to exhaust all the other possibilities first. They'll have done everything they could possibly do wrong, and only then will they say, okay, no matter what we do, we're screwed—maybe then they'll do the right thing, assuming they understand what the right thing is. I'll be there to tell them. But the question is whether they will listen.
That leads to the next question: what are they going to do for this next issue, or what are they planning in terms of monetary stimulus? Central bank digital currencies—what's going on there? This seems to be pushed worldwide and almost guaranteed to come.
Yes, but that's more an element of government control than monetary policy, although it may make it easier for governments to inflate the money supply and try to target their so-called stimulus. Sometimes they get frustrated when they send people stimulus checks and people don't necessarily spend the money. Oh my God, maybe they save it. So what they could do is say, instead of stimulus checks, we're going to give you digital money with an expiration date. We'll load up your wallet, and you've got 24 hours to spend it or you lose it. Everybody would be like, but then they might say, okay, you can spend it, but here are the only places it's good. They might try to micromanage: you can't use your money to buy a gun, you can spend it at Walmart or whatever. But the part I don't like about government-issued digital currency is that, as long as they don't eliminate cash—and that's not as big a deal—they want to eliminate cash. That's their goal: to get rid of all bills, so you have no alternative but that digital currency.
The reason I don't want to live in a world where you're stuck using digital currency for every transaction, with no way to transact in private, is that the government knows every single thing you spend money on. That gives governments a lot of information about you, even if you're not spending money illegally. Every cause you support, everything you do—they can create a profile of you, and they can potentially use that profile in ways that harm you. A lot of the things you do today with your money may be legal, but what if they're illegal in the future? People just assume governments are benevolent and good, but they tend to get very corrupt and very evil. A lot of times the government becomes the bad guy and the resistance is the good guy. How do you overturn a corrupt government? It's much more difficult if that corrupt government knows every single thing you're doing, can see every place you spend your money, and can crack down on anybody who becomes part of a resistance. Once the government knows that, it's harder for people to resist tyranny, and governments are more likely to become tyrannical. It becomes a self-perpetuating prophecy. Lord Acton said power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The more power you give government, the more corrupt it becomes. So you always want to be vigilant when it comes to government. Don't give up your liberties just because you'll get some extra safety. The politicians are going to say, if we just eliminate cash, we'll make it harder for drug dealers, terrorists, and money launderers. Maybe that's true, but we're going to lose a lot of individual rights and freedom, and it's just not worth the tradeoff.
From my perspective, being in the financial services industry, I already see through this charade. All the anti-money-laundering laws on the books—they say they exist because of terrorists and drug dealers, but that's just to get the public to approve the laws. The one goal these governments have in mind—the criminals they really want to catch—are the people not paying their taxes. That's what they're really after. They want the tax money, and they think that if they eliminate the cash economy, they'll collect more taxes, because a lot of people still do some work under the table and get paid in cash. That's who the government is going after, not the drug dealers. It's the guy driving his Uber who's getting some cash, or doing some odd jobs. That's why they now want all these payment companies to report small transactions like $600 or more. They want all these transactions reported, because people were having income and not paying taxes. Yes, a lot of these people are breaking the law, but a lot of them are in a situation where if they don't break the law, they don't eat. Some people think, this is what I have to do to make ends meet, because if I paid taxes, I couldn't earn enough after taxes to cover my expenses. So the only way I can do it is by not paying the tax. I'd rather have somebody working and not paying taxes than just sitting on welfare, because at least they're productive—they're providing goods and services.
And when the government says we need all these IRS agents to go after the rich, that's a lie. They're not going to go after the rich. They're going to go after the middle class and the small business owners. The rich don't have to cheat; they have loopholes to reduce their taxes. The average guy doesn't have a loophole, so his loophole is, well, I'm going to make some money on the side and not report it, or I'm going to exaggerate some of my deductions. But the minute you eliminate cash, they crack down on that underground economy.
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