저자: PeterSchiff · 외국인
요약 보기
연준은 경기침체가 와도 인플레를 잡기보다 금융위기를 더 두려워해 고인플레를 감수하고 QE·금리인하로 회귀할 것이라고 주장. 정치인과 중앙은행 모두 단기 이익을 위해 장기 손실을 미룬다고 비판. 정부 적자 축소 필요성을 언급. CBDC는 정부의 개인 금융정보 감시·통제 수단이 될 수 있어 현금 폐지에 반대. 지하경제 단속은 부유층이 아닌 중산층 겨냥이라고 주장. 자산 가격에 대한 직접적 예측은 없음.
다듬은 글
That's exactly what the Fed is going to do. Unfortunately, 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 assume that 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 out of tricks. Even so, when push comes to shove, the Fed is going to pick the poison it thinks is least toxic. It's going to say, 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 not going to get back down to 2%. Maybe 3 or 4%, whatever they say. But we're never going to get to 2%, because the cost of getting there is too high. So we're 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, or 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 pain won't be as great as it would be if they did the right thing and continued the inflation fight. In fact, they would have to turn it into a real fight with big cuts in government spending. You're not going to fight inflation unless you get rid of these deficits. So we need spending cuts, and 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. That's not going to work. So you have 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 paying now or paying 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'll 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. If inflation now means pain later instead of now, even if there's some pain now but the worst pain comes later, that's what they'll do. 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.
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 their term, and it's somebody else's problem. I don't blame them. Nobody wants to be the one blamed for all this pain. Let it happen on somebody else's watch.
The only time they might do the right thing, though it's not guaranteed, is when we're at a real crisis, where the dollar is imploding and prices are skyrocketing. We'd be on the verge of becoming Argentina or Zimbabwe, with price controls, shortages, riots, looting, and civil unrest. It would be an apocalyptic environment, where no matter what we do, we're screwed. Maybe then they'll do the right thing, assuming they understand what the right thing is. They'll exhaust all the other possibilities and do everything they could wrong first. Then, when no option is left, maybe they'll finally act. I'll be there to tell them, but the question is whether they will listen.
That leads to the next question: what are they planning for the next round of monetary stimulus, or whatever comes next, like central bank digital currencies? This seems to be pushed worldwide and is almost guaranteed to come.
Yes, but that's more an element of government control than monetary policy. It may make it easier for governments to inflate the money supply and target their so-called stimulus. Sometimes they get frustrated because they send people stimulus checks and people don't necessarily spend the money. Maybe they save it. So instead of stimulus checks, they could say, "We're going to load your digital wallet with money that has an expiration date. You have 24 hours to spend it or you lose it." Or they could say you can spend it, but only in certain places. They might try to micromanage: you can't use your money to buy a gun, but you can spend it at Walmart, or whatever. I don't know. The part I don't like about government-issued digital currency is that as long as they don't eliminate cash, it's not as big a deal. But they want to eliminate cash. That's their goal, to get rid of all the bills, so you have no alternative to digital currency.
I don't want to live in a world where you're stuck using a digital currency for every transaction and there's no way to transact in private, because the government would know every single thing you spend money on. That gives governments a lot of information about you. Even if you're not spending money illegally, the government would know everything you like, every cause you support, everything you do. They could create a profile of you, and they could use that profile in ways that harm you. Many things you do with your money today may be legal, but what if they become illegal in the future? People assume governments are benevolent and good, but they tend to become 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 far more difficult if that government knows everything you're doing and can see every place you spend money. They can crack down on anybody who becomes part of a resistance. And once the government knows that, it's harder for people to resist tyranny, so governments are more likely to become tyrannical. It becomes a self-perpetuating prophecy.
Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." The more power you give government, the more corrupt it becomes. So you always want to be vigilant about government. You don't want to give up your liberties just because you'll get some extra safety. The politicians will say, "If we eliminate cash, we'll make it harder for drug dealers, terrorists, and money launderers." Maybe that's true, but we would lose a lot of individual rights and freedom, and it's just not worth the trade-off.
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 it's because of terrorists, drug dealers, and criminals, 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 people not paying their taxes. That's what they're really after. They want the tax money. They think 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 gets some cash, or the person doing odd jobs. That's why they now want all these payment companies to report small transactions of $600 or more. They want all these transactions reported, because people are earning income and not paying taxes.
I guess a lot of these people are breaking the law, but many 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 they can make it work is by not paying the tax. I'd rather have somebody working and not paying taxes than sitting on welfare, because at least they're productive. At least they're providing goods and services. When the government says it needs 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 making some money on the side and not reporting it, or exaggerating some deductions. But the minute you eliminate cash, they crack down on the underground economy.
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