Peter Schiff, has thrown his hat in the ring along with former U.S. Representative Rob Simmons and former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon and a few others, in an attempt to become the Republican candidate for the Connecticut U.S. Senate seat in a race against the recently vulnerable long-time Democratic Senator, Chris Dodd.
Schiff showed up Monday night, Dec. 7, at the Republican Town Committee Meeting at Fairfield's Riverfield Elementary School to give a pitch for why he should be the man to go head to head against Dodd.
Schiff began by sounding more like he was pitching his brokerage to new clients than pitching himself as a politician, but he managed to segue.
The President and Chief Global Strategist for the Westport-based firm, Euro-Pacific Capital, told Republicans that he made a name for himself by predicting the current recession as far back as late 2006, when all about him were laughing at his pessimism.
A video on YouTube called "Peter Schiff was Right" shows Schiff in late 2006 and again in December of 2007, saying that profits in real estate and stocks were unsustainably high and the bubble would burst just as the profits in dot-coms had fizzled in the first few years of this decade.
Other Wall Street "experts" are seen laughing at him on the video and one said that the problem with sub-prime mortgages was "just a blip."
Schiff replied that not only was sub-prime not a blip, the entire mortgage market was a huge problem.
Referring to the present recession, Schiff told the Republican Town Committee, "I laid out exactly how it was going to happen." He also mentioned his book, "Crash-Proof," which talked about fraud in the mortgage markets.
Schiff said the economy is "screwed up" because the federal government allowed cheap interest rates to cause a "phony prosperity that was bound to collapse." If the government had allowed a recession in 2001-2002, we'd be better off now, he added.
"The stimulus is toxic," said Schiff.
"Government stimulus is keeping interest rates too low and running big deficits and all we get, as a result, is reckless spending and reckless gambling ... Wall Street took all this cheap money and gambled with it. American individuals took all this cheap money and spent it ... and now we're doing the same thing. We didn't learn anything from the experience of Greenspan and Bush," said Schiff.
Career politicians can't solve the problem because they're only interested in getting reelected, so they postpone the pain, Schiff said. He, himself, would not care about getting reelected, nor would he play ball just to get certain committee assignments, he added.
"We're never going to have a real economic recovery until the government gets out of the way and allows the recession to run its course," said Schiff. As painful as it is, a recession is the cure for the disease that the government afflicted the economy with, when it inflated those bubbles, the hopeful politician said.
Right now, the government is trying to say that the TARP money is working because the big banks are paying it back, said Schiff, who added that the banks are only able to do so because of two things. One is the change in accounting rules, such as not requiring assets to be "marked to market," or listed at their true - lower - value. This allows the banks to appear better off than they actually are, he noted.
Second, Schiff said big banks took that money and gambled with it all over the world, and he thinks every one of them is going to go broke again.
Schiff is among those who think the economic crisis is far from over. "The rest of this monstrosity is going to surface over the next few years and I think it's important that someone be in Congress who understands why (it's happening)," he said.
"Maybe if I stand up in the senate and filibuster until I'm dead, they'll listen to me" he said.
Schiff predicts that the dollar will be greatly devalued, causing both employed and unemployed Americans to pay much more for the products they import, whether it's energy or consumer goods. The central bank of Inda is buying 200 metric tons of gold and the Chinese are encouraging their citizens to buy silver because "they know that the dollar is going to collapse," he added.
Schiff thinks the solution is to shrink government so that we can lower taxes; to repeal regulations, and to rely on the free market.
"The free market would never have created this mess," said Schiff, reminding listeners that the mess is a result of the government creating cheap money.
While Obama and Bernanke can't get out of government soon enough for Schiff, he is also harsh on Republican leadership, saying, "They've led us in the wrong direction. They sold out their principles. They're no different than Democrats. Look at George Bush. He claimed to be a conservative. The only thing he conserved was big government."
"I want to shrink government," said Schiff.
The candidate, who lives in Weston, opened his campaign headquarters in Milford last Friday. So far, he has raised $1.2 million for his candidacy, according to his web site, Schiffforsenate.com.
Sunday 27 December 2009
Peter Schiff declares his candidacy for U.S. Senate
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