Quote from MKTrader:
Can you produce time-stamped or other verified documents warning of the things Schiff did when he did? Great. Do provide links.
Otherwise, that's one of the worst examples of hindsight bias I've seen in some time.
I am not inclined to do any of the things you suggest. Here is my main point, and then I will leave it rest. Schiff has been correct about a number of things, but they are all things that very many of us in the investing/trading world have warned about. If you look back at my very old posts and those of countless others on ET you will see the same warnings and concerns expressed. Nitro and I both, for example, have warned about the need to buy only dividend paying stocks in long term investment accounts. I have warned repeatedly and early that Fed policies would lead to significant inflation, and my timing was far better than Schiffs because I did that during a brief window when the USA was experiencing near zero inflation right after the 2008 crash and many others were insisting we would have deflation. On the other hand, Schiff's timing, frankly, has been terrible.
(I will add something here. Inflation is going to get still worse and reach, in real terms, low double digits, but there will not be hyperinflation as Schiff has incorrectly warned of because rates will eventually rise. Money pumped into the economy by the Fed via the Treasury takes anywhere from about 6 months to 18 months to filter down to the street level. So we have not yet seen the full effect of the ongoing stimulus.
Had Schiff seen the collapse in the CDO market coming and the problem with CDS's, and then acted on that ,in a timely manner, I would have been impressed. So far as I know he didn't. People like Mike Burry that saw the collapse in the CDO's coming and the defects in the thinking of those issuing CDS's and then took action, were the smart ones. And there were very few. People like Schiff are a dime a dozen. If I get up every day and warn of a market crash, rising interest rates, or a fallng dollar and these things eventually come to pass, am I brilliant? I hardly think so.
Also, Schiff's negative view of Wall Street and trumped up corporate earnings is a commonly held opinion. I have said publicly many times that Wall Street is made of thieves, liars, and cheats. Am I brilliant to state the obvious, I hardly think so.
Here is some interesting reading Re: Schiff.
http://selfinvestors.com/tradingstocks/news/peter-schiffs-euro-pacific-capital-down-40-70-in-2008/
