Peter Schiff and Shawn Tully Were Right About U.S Economy
By Daniel at 13 December, 2008, 10:29 am
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Have you seen this video?
Entitled Peter Schiff Was Right, 2006-2007, it is an amazing, nine-minute compilation that features Mr. Schiff, the president of Euro-Pacific Capital, suffering the slings and arrows of various market gurus like Arthur Laffer, as he bravely predicts — again and again and again — in various television appearances that the housing bubble is going to lead to economic disaster. One thing that makes it amazing is how unflinching Mr. Schiff is, how unyielding, how matter-of-fact, no matter how scornful and sneering the response from the other talking heads. Even when they laugh at him, he keeps coming back. The other thing that makes it amazing, of course, is that Mr. Schiff absolutely nailed the current crisis — and did so many, many months before the rest of us could feel the first tremor.
The video has become one of those “viral” events that take place on the Internet as it’s passed around from one e-mail address to the next. In fact, I first saw it when one of my brothers sent it to me — a brother who had never before evinced the slightest interest in CNBC or financial gurus. “This video is unbelievable,” he wrote me.
You hear people asking: why didn’t anyone warn us of the coming calamity? The answer is that there were plenty of smart analysts, and journalists, who did warn, loudly and often. But when you are living in a bubble, there is a deep desire to tune out dissenting voices, or to scorn them, as Mr. Laffer does to Mr. Schiff. The herd mentality is a powerful thing. I remember during the Internet bubble when my friend, Herb Greenberg, was writing devastating article after devastating article, poking holes in companies’ financial statements. Instead of being thanked by readers, he was flamed. They didn’t want to hear it.
By Joe Nocera
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