I've been seeing these videos cropping up on other blogs. Here are the YouTubes featuring Peter Schiff that will remind you of how wrong a lot of conservative economists were. Peter Schiff seemed to have been dead-on right, in retrospect, over 2 years ago about where the economy would end up today:
Peter Schiff is also afraid that Obama will continuing down the same failed path that the Republicans went down, borrowing from countries like China, letting foreigners produce everything that we consume, and spending, spending, spending. He's predicting the collapse of the US dollar and warns against trying to spend our way out of this recesssion:
It's important to realize that Peter Schiff was one of Ron Paul's economic advisers and he wasn't the only one making the prediction. Back in 2006 Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University, made a similar prediction before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fund. He predicted a housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.
As for me, well, I'm not yet ready to credit Schiff with too much and prefer to listen to Robert Reich and Paul Krugman. Krugman is, of course, advising just what Schiff fears -- spending lots and lots of money on public works projects, repairing highways and bridges, and getting jobs for people that way so they can spend money.
Krugman alludes to seeing ahead too:
A few months ago I found myself at a meeting of economists and finance officials, discussing — what else? — the crisis. There was a lot of soul-searching going on. One senior policy maker asked, “Why didn’t we see this coming?”
There was, of course, only one thing to say in reply, so I said it: “What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?”
But did Krugman ever express it as clearly as Schiff or Roubini did? I don't know, but if any readers can find what Krugman and Reich were saying back in 2006, then drop a link into my comments.
UPDATE
The Great Wealth Transfer ia an article from Paul Krugman for Rolling Stone which dates from 2006. It actually predicts a much larger problem not yet fully realized, but there is a vision of what was coming down the line today.
3 comments:
Krugman:
... did the U.S. economy dodge a bullet?
Yes, it did — which is why I haven’t been as sure about a looming recession as, say, Larry Summers or Marty Feldstein, let alone Nouriel Roubini. (No, I’m not always a doom and gloom guy — only when the situation warrants, which has been pretty often lately.)
While we dodged a bullet, however, there are between one and three more bullets...
Address : http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/did-we-dodge-a-bullet/
Janus,
The date on your article is January 1, 2008. That's before McCain took a hit for saying the fundamentals of the economy were strong, but after the first Peter Schiff video here on my blog.
That wasn't what I asked for but it was informative, thanks for posting.
Sorry; though Krugman did not link to it, he referred to his earlier writing, and mentioned Roubini, in a way that answered your question, and I knew that Krugman had reported his record on this honestly. Nevertheless, considering the charitable memories that many writers have for themselves, I should have linked to what Krugman wrote prior to 2006, as you asked. In 2005 Krugman wrote:
"Paul McCulley... predicted that the Federal Reserve would simply replace one bubble with another. "There is room," he wrote, "for the Fed to create a bubble in housing prices... And I think the Fed has the will to do so, even though political correctness would demand that Mr. Greenspan deny any such thing."
As Mr. McCulley predicted, interest rate cuts led to soaring home prices, which led in turn not just to a construction boom but to high consumer spending, because homeowners used mortgage refinancing to go deeper into debt. All of this created jobs to make up for those lost when the stock bubble burst.
Now the question is what can replace the housing bubble...
After all, the Fed's ability to manage the economy mainly comes from its ability to create booms and busts in the housing market. If housing enters a post-bubble slump, what's left?
Mr. Roach believes that the Fed's apparent success after 2001 was an illusion, that it simply piled up trouble for the future. I hope he's wrong. But the Fed does seem to be running out of bubbles."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/opinion/27krugman.html?pagewanted=print
The RS article that you link impresses me, even from Krugman. RS also published one of the best articles about the Republican vote frauds in Ohio. I may put RS on my must check list.
Thanks,
J
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