Inflation Doubled, Yields Hit 19 Year High, Gold Trashed. SETUP of a LIFETIME

Summary

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The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

Episode: Inflation Doubled, Yields Hit 19-Year High, Gold Trashed. SETUP of a LIFETIME
Date: May 14, 2026
Host: Peter Schiff

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Episode Overview

Peter Schiff delivers a deep-dive analysis of the latest inflation data, Federal Reserve policy dilemmas, soaring bond yields, and what he sees as historic opportunities in precious metals. He ties these economic headlines to both policy critique and investment insight, warning listeners that policymakers and mainstream analysts are missing the scale of the brewing crisis. Schiff combines macroeconomic data, market commentary, and a trademark mix of biting humor and contrarian thinking, making the case for a precious metals bull run and critiquing both Republican and Democratic policy failures.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Inflation's Alarming Acceleration: PPI & CPI Breakdown

• CPI Data: April headline CPI up 0.6% (annualized over 7.5%). Core CPI (excluding food and energy) up 0.4% (5% annualized), with year-over-year CPI at 3.8%, up from last month's 3.3%. (03:45–04:07)

  • "If we get 0.6 every month, that's seven and a half percent inflation. I mean that's a big number" — Peter Schiff [03:57]
  • "Not only is the CPI way above the Fed's 2% target, but it's headed in the wrong direction." — Peter Schiff [04:07]

• PPI Data Surprises: April PPI surges 1.4% vs. expected 0.7%, annualizing to nearly 18% inflation. Year-over-year PPI jumps to 6% from 4% (06:02–06:49).

  • "The actual increase was twice that amount. 1.4% was the increase in one month." — Peter Schiff [06:02]
  • Core PPI (ex-food and energy) up 1%, triple analyst estimates, annualizing to 12.5% core inflation (07:17–07:37).
  • "These are serious, serious numbers. These are the kinds of numbers that we were getting in 2001 when inflation really broke out." — Peter Schiff [07:46]

• Takeaway: Schiff warns that the next month's CPI will be even worse as producers pass on today's cost increases to consumers.

2. Stagflation and the Fed’s Policy Trap

• Fed’s Dilemma: With a weakening economy and rising inflation, the Fed faces “stagflation”—and there are no policy tools to address both at once (00:38–01:10).

  • "They think they know how to deal with a weak economy... create more inflation, cut interest rates... But what they can't do is deal with both at the same time." — Peter Schiff [01:03]

• New Fed Chair’s Predicament: Kevin Walsh takes the helm at a desperately bad time, inheriting conflicting pressures and diminishing policy credibility.

• “Stealth QE” and Policy Futility: The only way to cap rising yields is more "stealth QE" (quantitative easing), but this risks fueling already-surging inflation (13:20–14:50).

  • "The only way that the Fed can stop rates from soaring is to rapidly expand the stealth QE they're already doing. But here is the problem for Walsh. He was against the first qe, which he should have been." — Peter Schiff [13:20]

• Real Rates Plunging: Despite nominal rate increases, real rates (interest rates minus inflation) are dropping precipitously (19:35–20:16).

  • "Nominal rates don't matter. It's real rates that count. And real rates are crashing, which is why gold and silver should be going through the roof.” — Peter Schiff [19:35]

3. Bond Market Turmoil: Yields at Multi-Decade Highs

• 30-Year U.S. Treasury Yields: Breaks 5% for the first time in 19 years, with a new 5% coupon auctioned, reminiscent of pre-financial crisis levels—but U.S. debt now vastly higher ($39T vs. $9T in 2007) (10:25–12:13).

  • "In 2007, the national debt... got to $9 trillion. We're over $39 trillion now. Having 5% interest rates and a $7 trillion national debt is a lot different than having 5% interest rates and a $39 trillion dollar national debt." — Peter Schiff [10:25]

• Rising Debt Costs: If yields return to 1991 levels (~8%), the fiscal impact is disastrous, given today’s tenfold higher debt load (11:18–12:13).

• Implications: Schiff warns the U.S. is running out of buyers (China, Japan, Social Security trust funds are selling), and rates may spike rapidly unless the Fed prints even more.

4. Market Reactions & Misconceptions

• Gold & Silver Moves: Initial algorithmic “knee-jerk” drove gold down on hot PPI news, but Schiff says this is short sighted—these inflation spikes are ultimately bullish for precious metals (16:56–20:51).
  • "Hotter than expected inflation keeps the Fed on hold longer and so we have to wait longer for that rate cut. And that means that the dollar is stronger and gold is weaker... But what's really important is what's actually happening with real interest rates, because real interest rates are plunging as inflation is soaring." — Peter Schiff [17:00–19:33]
• Silver vs. Gold: Silver is leading gold in resilience—a bullish sign for precious metals. Schiff forecasts $10,000+ gold and silver soaring even higher, calling it "the setup of a lifetime" (22:13–23:39).
• Stock Market “Bubble”: Tech and AI stocks keep climbing despite dire data, with mainstream pundits advising “just enjoy the bubble.” Schiff calls this the same dangerous thinking as 2000 and 2008. (34:24–35:41)
  • "Who cares? Just, just enjoy it. Like have fun. It's a bubble. Great. I mean this is the kind of attitude that is the reason that we had the dot com bubble and, and market crash and the real estate bubble and financial crisis." — Peter Schiff [35:32]
• Contrarian Buy Signal in Gold Stocks: CNBC’s bearish calls on gold miners signal, to Schiff, a buying opportunity. (36:00–38:44)
  • "So that, you know, as a, as a contrarian, I didn't like to see all these guys that used to be naysayers and skeptics and make fun of me, now all of a sudden recommending the same stocks that I own. So I was a little uncomfortable. I’m a lot more comfortable now that they're telling everybody to sell the stocks that I own because, you know, they are the contrarian indicator." — Peter Schiff [37:29]

5. Tariffs, Policy Contradictions & Political Critique

• Trump’s Tariff Flip-Flop: Citing Trump’s call to suspend beef tariffs due to rising prices, Schiff lambasts the contradiction: if tariffs don’t raise consumer prices, how does removing them lower prices? (25:00–26:05)

  • "You can’t say imposing tariffs doesn’t cause prices to go up, but then removing tariffs causes prices to come down." — Peter Schiff [26:05]

• Who Pays Tariffs?: Recounts debate with Jim Rickards about tariffs as an unconstitutional consumer tax (27:45), and the inability of even “smart people” to grasp their mechanics.

• Housing Policy Critique: Questions Trump’s proposal to bar large corporations from buying more residential homes, arguing it is misguided and essentially “socialist rhetoric.” (39:09–41:57)

  • "They absolutely are people... The shareholders are people... Just a group of people that got together and so if people have a right to buy homes, they have a right to incorporate and buy homes. The whole thing is nonsense." — Peter Schiff [39:14–39:52]

• Cost of Living Reality: Notes that in some cities, $100,000 annual income is now “lower middle class,” highlighting the ongoing squeeze of inflation on living standards. (40:54–41:03)

6. Political Commentary and Endorsements

• Rep. Thomas Massie Support: Schiff urges listeners to support Thomas Massie, who is under attack in a Republican primary by a Trump-backed opponent, emphasizing Massie’s true small-government bona fides. (45:13–48:48)

  • "The fact that Trump wants to get rid of the only true voice in the House for limited government, fiscal responsibility, constitutional rights, individual liberty, the fact that this is the guy that Trump wants to get rid of, that says a lot about Donald Trump." — Peter Schiff [47:34]

• Trump in China: Discusses Trump’s summit in China, skepticism of meaningful results, and notes trade imbalances are the fault of U.S. policy, not Chinese tactics. (49:14–50:59)

7. Amazon, Capitalism, and Minimum Wage Myths

• Defending Jeff Bezos: Argues that Amazon succeeded by giving consumers what they wanted. It wasn’t Bezos who put “mom & pop” stores out of business, but rather consumers seeking better prices and convenience (51:00–56:00).

  • "Jeff Bezos didn’t put anybody out of business. The Amazon customers put people out of business, not Bezos." — Peter Schiff [52:04]

• Minimum Wage Logic: Lampoons the idea that every job must pay a living wage, insisting that entry-level jobs are for students and young people, not those supporting families. The real “greedy” party, he says, are customers who want low prices, not business owners (55:34–59:44).

  • "If all you could do is get a job at McDonald's, you have no business buying a house. You have no business starting a family." — Peter Schiff [56:28]

• COVID Unfairness & Policy Distortions: Notes how government lockdowns and low interest rates tilted the playing field in favor of Amazon and big business, not the fault of Bezos, but failed policy (59:44–61:30).

8. Puerto Rican Policy and Personal Update

• Inventory Tax in Puerto Rico: Explains how local laws requiring inventory taxes drive small businesses out of the market, pushing people to buy from Amazon, which isn’t subject to these taxes (62:00–62:50).

• Personal Legal Battles: Briefly mentions ongoing FOIA lawsuit revealing government conspiracy to destroy his bank, and promises a new exposé video (64:21–66:47).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Topic | Quote | Speaker | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------|-----------| | Real Inflation Annualized | "If we get 0.6 every month, that's seven and a half percent inflation." | Peter Schiff | 03:57 | | PPI Shocker | "The actual increase was twice that amount. 1.4% was the increase in one month." | Peter Schiff | 06:02 | | Who Pays Tariffs? | "You can't say imposing tariffs doesn't cause prices to go up, but then removing tariffs causes prices to come down." | Peter Schiff | 26:05 | | Contrarian Sell Signal on Gold Stocks | "You should sell because this looks like a head and shoulders top... It's not a head and shoulders top until it breaks the neckline." | Peter Schiff | 36:00 | | On Contrarian Thinking | "So that, you know, as a, as a contrarian... I'm a lot more comfortable now that they're telling everybody to sell the stocks that I own because, you know, they are the contrarian indicator." | Peter Schiff | 37:29 | | Silver’s Bullish Behavior | "The biggest bull markets for precious metals are when silver leads gold." | Peter Schiff | 22:39 | | Tech Bubble Skepticism | "Who cares? Just, just enjoy it. Like have fun. It's a bubble. Great... This is the kind of attitude that is the reason that we had the dot com bubble and, and market crash and the real estate bubble and financial crisis." | Peter Schiff | 35:32 | | Minimum Wage Reality | "If all you could do is get a job at McDonald's, you have no business buying a house. You have no business starting a family." | Peter Schiff | 56:28 | | On Who Puts Small Stores Out of Business| "Jeff Bezos didn’t put anybody out of business. The Amazon customers put people out of business, not Bezos." | Peter Schiff | 52:04 |

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Key Timestamps

• 00:35 – Show begins; context on Fed chair, stagflation
• 03:36–06:14 – CPI and PPI deep dive; inflation vs. Fed’s target
• 10:25–12:13 – 30-year Treasury yields hit 19-year highs; debt implications
• 13:18–15:29 – Stealth QE, foreign buyers exit, real rates tumble
• 16:56–20:16 – Market reaction: gold, silver, algorithmic trading, real rates
• 22:13–23:39 – Silver leads gold; precious metals bull market case
• 25:00–27:47 – Tariff critique; Trump’s economic contradictions
• 34:24–38:44 – Tech bubble warning; gold stock contrarian signal
• 39:09–42:01 – Critique of corporate home buying limits and economic populism
• 45:13–48:50 – Endorsement of Thomas Massie; critique of Trump’s GOP control
• 49:14–50:59 – Trump summit in China; trade policy skepticism
• 51:00–63:40 – Amazon, capitalism, minimum wage, COVID interventions, Puerto Rico policy
• 64:21–66:47 – Personal legal battle, government accountability

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Summary & Takeaways

• Inflation has not just returned but is accelerating, with PPI foreshadowing ever higher consumer prices. Real interest rates are dropping as the Fed dithers, and bond yields have reached highs unseen since before the 2008 crisis—except now the U.S. debt load is exponentially greater.
• Conventional wisdom about the Fed “holding the line” is misguided: real rates are negative, the dollar is on shaky footing, and current policies are a recipe for disaster.
• Precious metals, especially silver, are on the verge of a major bull run, with Schiff arguing this is the best buying setup “of a lifetime,” especially as mainstream pundits turn bearish.
• Politically, Schiff sees both parties pursuing inflationary, interventionist, or “socialist” policies—tariffs, housing restrictions, and bailouts—while blaming the wrong culprits (consumers, producers, foreigners) for the U.S.’s homegrown fiscal crisis.
• In the end, Schiff returns to classic capitalist arguments: it’s market forces and consumer choices driving outcomes, not villainous billionaires or greedy small business owners, and the right response is to create stable policy, honest money, and personal accountability.

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For more details, full context, and further rants, listen to the complete episode or visit The Peter Schiff Show YouTube channel.

Transcript

[Peter Schiff]

You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute, you're up half a million in soybeans, and the next, boom. Your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your Bentley. Are you with me?

The revolution starts now.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

Starts now.

[Peter Schiff]

We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.

[Guest/Commentator]

Turn those machines back on.

[Peter Schiff]

You are about to enter the Peter

Schiff show me the fire.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.

[Peter Schiff]

The Peter Schiff show is on. I don't know when they decided that they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.

Your money, your stories, your freedom.

The Peter Schiff Show. Hi, everybody. Sorry about the late start. We've been going for about 30, 40 minutes trying to fix some technical difficulties here in the studio. We resolved everything except the mics. So unfortunately, the sound might not be quite what it normally is. I'm just using my laptop. I didn't have time to run to get a mic, so hopefully it's good. I've got a radio show that I'm doing right after this podcast, and so I was running out of time. But anyway, I got a lot to talk about, so let's get right into it. First of all, today was the day that Kevin Walsh finally got approved as the new Fed chairman. And he is really walking into a firestorm at the Fed. I mean, you know, couldn't have been a worse time probably to get the job, given that he is really stuck between a rock and a hard place. You've got a weakening economy and you've got strengthening inflation. You've got the Fed's worst nightmare, stagflation, because they have no policy tools to deal with this situation. They think they know how to deal with a weak economy. You just create more inflation, you cut interest rates, and you do quantitative easing. And they think they know how to deal with inflation. You raise interest rates, you shrink money supply. But what they can't do is deal with both at the same time because they have opposite supposed policy fixes. So they're on the horns of a real dilemma. And let me get started by going to the PPI numbers, which was actually the more benign of the two inflation reports that were released yesterday and today. The Consumer Price Index gets all the headlines, but the Producer Price Index is more important as it is a leading indicator of the Consumer Price Index, because before consumers pay higher prices, the producers pay higher prices, and then they pass them on. And so if you're just looking at the CPI and not the ppi, Tom, it's a bit like driving in the rear view mirror. Look forward, because what's happening in the PPI is going to happen in the cpi. Now the CPI is what we got yesterday and that report pretty much came

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

out in line with expectations.

[Peter Schiff]

Now the expectations were bad, so we met the bad expectations.

[Guest/Commentator]

The Tom prices In April headline CPI

[Peter Schiff]

rose by 0.6, which is a big jump. Now it's not as big as the

[Guest/Commentator]

0.9 from March, but it's still big. I mean if we get 0.6 every

[Peter Schiff]

month, that's seven and a half percent inflation. I mean that's a big number. Year over year, consumer prices are now up 3.8%. Last month the year over year rate was 3.3. So not only is the CPI way above the Fed's 2% target, but it's headed in the wrong direction. Bad news, especially if you're talking about cutting rates. They should be hiking rates.

[Guest/Commentator]

Now, the core, this means no food and energy. The core CPI was up 0.4.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

You can't blame that on oil prices

[Peter Schiff]

because there's no oil prices in there. That annualizes out to 5%. That's a big number excluding food and energy. And year over year core 2.8% versus 2.6% the prior month. Again heading in the wrong direction. It's not just that we're above 2, but that we're moving further away from 2. Yet despite this, the Fed still has an easing bias. How do you defend an easing bias if Your objective is 2% inflation and you're moving in the other direction? But the real bad news is not the CPI that we got yesterday, it's the PPI that we got today. Because this means that the CPI that we get next month is going to be much worse because the producers are going to now pass on these price hikes to their customers. So what are the PPI numbers? Well, last month producer prices were up 0.5. The expectation for April was an increase of 0.7.

[Guest/Commentator]

The actual increase was twice that amount. 1.4% was the increase in one month.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

That's more than half of the Fed's

[Peter Schiff]

2% target in just one month. In fact, that annualizes out to about 1718 inflation, something like that. That is a big, big number. It exceeds the the expectations by double the high end because the, the range

[Guest/Commentator]

of expectations was 0.4, 2.7 and we got 1.4. Now, year over year, the increase in

[Peter Schiff]

the producer price index jumped from 4%

[Guest/Commentator]

last month to 6% in April.

[Peter Schiff]

6% year over year.

[Guest/Commentator]

This is a big, big number. The Fed should be hiking rates now

[Peter Schiff]

and not by 25 basis points or

[Guest/Commentator]

50 basis points, maybe 200 basis points. Those little man be pamby quarter point rate hikes are not going to do anything with a number like this. Now X Food and energy.

[Peter Schiff]

Okay, so take out food and energy. 1% increase in the core versus an expectation of 0.3 more than triple what the analysts estimated.

[Guest/Commentator]

Triple.

[Peter Schiff]

The range was 0.2 to 0.31%.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

That is a 12 and a half

[Peter Schiff]

percent annualized inflation rate in the core. Core.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

This, these are serious, serious numbers.

[Peter Schiff]

These are the kinds of numbers that we were getting in 2001 when inflation really broke out.

[Guest/Commentator]

The same thing is happening now.

[Peter Schiff]

In fact, 2026 as a calendar year,

[Guest/Commentator]

we'll probably have a bigger increase in

[Peter Schiff]

the CPI than any calendar year during the Biden term. This is big.

[Guest/Commentator]

Everybody is still out there pretending that

[Peter Schiff]

there's no inflation, that Trump saved us

[Guest/Commentator]

from the Biden inflation.

[Peter Schiff]

He didn't save us from anything. First of all, he started all the Biden inflation.

[Guest/Commentator]

He got the ball rolling. He handed him that inflation baton because the policies that led to the big

[Peter Schiff]

increase in consumer prices in 2021 and 2022, they happen on his watch. So he started it. Yeah, Biden took the ball and ran with it.

[Guest/Commentator]

But now Trump's got it and he is making it worse. And look, this is going to be a disaster for Republicans in the midterms because Trump didn't run just to reduce the rate of inflation, to slow it down. He, he ran promising to bring prices down. He said prices will come down on day one. You elect me President, I'm going to reverse the inflation that we had under Biden. So not only did he not do that, it's actually going to be worse. We're actually going to have bigger increases in the cost of living under Trump than we did under Biden. But it's not just consumer prices that are rising. Interest rates are rising and of course the two are related. Inflation is driving up consumer prices and it's driving up interest rates. But you ain't seen nothing yet. Wait till you see what happens. So first of all, the 30 year US treasury got to 5.05 today and it closed at 5.04. So we're above 5. If we get to 5 point like 8, you know, 5.08, 5.09, something like that, we'll actually hit a 19 year high in 30 year treasury yields 19 year high. But what also happened there was a bond auction today, a Treasury bond auction, and they sold 30 years and they had to issue them with a 5% coupon. That has not happened in 19 years.

[Peter Schiff]

So interest rates are now the highest they've been in 19 years. But there's a big difference between 2007 and 2026. In 2007, the national debt ended. The year finally got to 9 trillion. We're over 39 trillion now. So having 5% interest rates and a $7 trillion national debt is a lot different than having 5% interest rates and a 39 trillion dollars national debt, especially when so much of that debt now matures. Now think about this though. Rates are the highest they've been in about 19 years. But the chart and the trend are what's important. What happens if rates get back to where they were in 1991? Now you're looking at a 30 year yield at 8%, 8% in 1991, the national debt just hit 3 trillion. We have a debt that's 10 times as high as it was in 1991. What happens if we have 8% interest rates now? If we had 8% interest rates when we only had a national debt of 3 trillion, we should have higher rates now because we're clearly less credit worthy 39 trillion in debt than we were when we were 3 trillion in debt. And in fact in 1991, you know, that was back in the Clinton years when we, you know, we were, you know, had much smaller deficits or we finally had, you know, some kind of. That was before Clint.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

I was like in the late.

[Peter Schiff]

Now, that was in the late 90s of Clinton. This, this is even going back earlier than that. What am I talking about? But we are not in a position to pay that kind of debt. In fact, the only reason we've been able to sustain 2030 now $40 trillion national debt is that interest rates have been so low. That is the only reason that we've been able to do it. Well, those low interest rates are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The rug is getting pulled out from under the United States. All of our avenues for borrowing money are being cut off. The Chinese aren't lending us the money anymore. The Japanese, not only can they not lend us money, they're going to start selling U.S. treasuries because they got problems of their own. And the best way out is to sell our bonds. But we have the Social Security trust funds selling Treasuries and we have the government unloading Treasuries because we have $3 trillion a year national debt.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

So this is a huge problem.

[Peter Schiff]

The only way that the Fed can stop rates from soaring is to rapidly expand the stealth QE they're already doing. But here is the problem for Walsh. He was against the first qe, which he should have been. And people have been saying, oh, Walsh,

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

one of the things he's going to

[Peter Schiff]

do differently when he becomes Fed chair is he is going to shrink the balance sheet. How's he going to do that? If he does that, they have to sell more Treasuries. No, no, he's going to have to blow up that balance sheet because if he doesn't, we are going sky high. I think that once we break through four and a half percent on the ten year and we're at 4.47, once we break through four and a half, it's a quick move to five. And then if the Fed does not back up the truck with the money, printing the move from, from five to six could be even swifter than the mood. From four and a half to five because there's so much pent up selling in the bond market. And once we get through this last round of buyers, we blow through the guys that are buying the 4 1/2% yield on the 10 year or the 5% yield on the 30 year. I don't know where the buyers are. I think prices are gonna have to really fall and yields are gonna have to rise quite a bit in order for a new group of buyers to come in. But of course, if the Fed does open up the monetary floodgates, then inflation just kicks into an even higher gear and it's already in a high gear. That is the problem that Walsh and everyone else at the Fed has. There was a Fed governor today for the bank of Boston that came out and said, you know, we're going to have to continue our restrictive policy for a while. Right. Given what's going on. The problem is they don't have a restrictive policy. They have an easy money policy. They've never been restrictive. That is why inflation is so high

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

and going a lot higher.

[Peter Schiff]

The Fed thinks they're stepping on the brakes when they've actually got their foot on the gas. We got a quick commercial break. We're coming right back, so stick around. All right.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

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[Peter Schiff]

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[Peter Schiff]

gold netsuite.com gold now, the initial knee jerk reaction to today's much hotter than expected producer price numbers and of course the reactions in the market should have been a lot bigger given how bad this number was. If this had been the cpi, believe me, we would have had the reaction it's going to be in the cpi. That's what people just don't seem to get, right? This is a harbinger. Producers are not just going to eat these price increases, but the initial reaction in the foreign exchange market and the CUR and the, and the precious metals market, the dollar strengthened and gold and silver went down. Now why again the markets react and this is how they're programmed so it's automatic trading. I don't even know if there's people involved in, in, in, in these sell orders or buy orders. However, the algorithms you know, enter these trades. But hotter than expected. Inflation keeps the Fed on hold longer and so we have to wait longer for that rate cut. And that means that the dollar is stronger and gold is weaker because traders think that the higher rates help the dollar and hurt gold and that gold needs rate cuts to go higher or the dollar needs rate cuts to go lower. But all of the attention that is on nominal interest rates and whether the Fed will or will not cut them or maybe even hike them. Right? People are talking about, hey, maybe the Fed might hike rates even though they still have an easing bias, that it's possible that they might hike rates. So everybody is focusing on what The Fed may potentially do with nominal interest rates, but they're missing the forest for the trees. Because what's really important is what's actually happening with real interest rates, because real interest rates are plunging as inflation is soaring. If inflation is going from 3% to 6%, that is a 300 basis point cut in real interest rates while the Fed sits on its hands and does nothing.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

So forget about what they might and

[Peter Schiff]

may not do with nominal rates. Look at what is actually happening right now with real rates, because that's all that counts anyway. Nominal rates don't matter. I mean, what if the Fed raises rates to 10% and inflation is 20%, right? Is that a reason to hold dollars? No, you're going to lose 10%. The 10% interest only covers half of what you lose to inflation. And of course, what if you have to pay taxes on that 10%? You got 6% left, but you lost 20. So nominal rates don't matter. It's real rates that count. And real rates are crashing, which is why gold and silver should be going through the roof.

[Guest/Commentator]

Now.

[Peter Schiff]

What happened today, though, even though gold and silver went down, gold didn't go down that much and silver didn't stay down. In fact, it rallied a couple of bucks positive. It recovered its losses and went positive. In fact, intraday, silver got to over 89. Let me see where it is right now, because it's pulled back intraday and now it's 88.20. So, but it's still positive on the

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

day and up another 80 cents tonight,

[Peter Schiff]

despite the fact that we got the hotter than expected PPI number. Now, of course, the hotter than expected PPI number is actually bullish for gold and silver. It's just that traders don't realize that yet because they're still fixated on, on what the Fed might do with interest rates in a nominal sense. And they're mentioning the bigger picture with what's actually happening in a real sense. And gold's up about 15 bucks. So we're back above 4700. But you have a lot of resiliency here. But we are very close to gold and silver prices exploding even with hotter than expected inflation numbers. And then the hotter than expected inflation numbers will be bullish for gold and silver because the Fed can't react again. Even if The Fed hikes 25 basis points, 50 basis points means nothing. The Fed needs to hike 200 basis points, 300 basis points. Do you think that's going to happen? I mean, Trump would blow a gasket. He'd have to fire everybody at the Fed. In fact, I'm surprised he hasn't already fired whoever it was that released the PPI numbers.

[Guest/Commentator]

Maybe it's because he knows no one really watches the PPI numbers.

[Peter Schiff]

And so there's probably going to be a lot of pressure from people at the, you know, that keeps the statistics if they want to keep their jobs.

[Guest/Commentator]

Right.

[Peter Schiff]

Because Trump, he already has a history of shooting the messenger when it comes to bad inflation news. But I've been talking about the underlying strength in silver.

[Guest/Commentator]

Silver has been very strong.

[Peter Schiff]

It has been, you know, more resilient than gold. Even when gold is down, silver is up.

[Guest/Commentator]

So silver is now leading gold.

[Peter Schiff]

And as I've said many times, that is bullish. That is better for precious metals than when gold is leading. The biggest bull markets for precious metals are when silver leaves gold. So we already went through the first leg where gold led silver and that leg got us to five thousand dollar gold. This new leg where silver is leading gold is going to get us to 10,000 or higher gold, but much, much higher silver. And again, this is not just a precious metals bull market, it is a metals bull market. Copper, copper sword hitting a new all time high today. Even though it ended up down slightly on the day, it hit a new record above $6.70 a pound for copper. Think, think about this. You know, Donald Trump talks about how bad the inflation was under Biden. Well, Biden was president for 48 months, right? Four years. During that time, copper prices rose by about 17% during the entire four years Biden was president. Trump's been in office now for about 16 months. And during that time, copper prices are up almost 70%. 70%. Now I know some people say, well, that's just copper. Well, you know what, there are a lot of other prices that are going up, but copper is a pretty good bellwether of inflationary pressures in the market. So how could he say with a straight face or anybody that inflation is so much lower now than when Biden was president when you have copper up so much more? In fact, it's not even gonna stop. This is gonna be a huge move. Copper is the new silver as far as where the prices are likely to go. But all price oil, you know, over $100 a barrel. I think we're 102, $103 a barrel. Those prices have a long way to go because the straight of Hormuz is a long way from opening. But wait until the dollar rolls over and forex traders realize this. You know, speaking about Inflation. Just one more quick comment. I just read a news story today that because of the soaring price of beef, right? And it's, you know, you got coffee.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

I forget all the.

[Peter Schiff]

All the commodities that are just going ballistic, but beef prices are one of them. And so Donald Trump says that what he's going to do to help consumers deal with soaring beef prices is he wants to suspend the tariffs on beef, which again, is an admission, without an official admission, that he lied to us about tariffs. Because Trump, in addition to telling everybody that prices would come down when he was president, he also told everybody that they wouldn't have to pay his tariffs. He said that tariffs would not be paid by American consumers, that the foreign producers would just eat them. Well, if that's the case, why aren't all these foreign ranchers eating our tariffs? Because if they were eating our tariffs, what difference would it make if we suspended them? The only way suspending the tariffs can lower the price of beef is if the tariffs raise the price of beef.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

Because you can't have it both ways.

[Peter Schiff]

You can't say imposing tariffs doesn't cause prices to go up, but then removing tariffs causes prices to come down. Right? You can't do that. It's amazing. You know, I, I saw that, a debate I did with Jim Rickards with Gold Republic in Amsterdam. I did it back in December of last year. They finally released it, like, about six months later. But even Jim Rickards, who's a pretty smart guy, doesn't understand tariffs. He doesn't think they're a tax on the consumer. He believes that Trump, what Trump says. In fact, I tried to explain to him that the tariffs were unconstitutional and that because he was talking about a trillion dollars a year that we were going to collect in tariffs. And I said, look, we're not going to get anywhere near that much. And I don't even know, we might have to give the money back because it's unconstitutional. And so, you know, you can't count all this tariff revenue when we might have to give it back. And he basically said to me, well, where did you go to law school? Like, you know, I don't know what I'm talking about because I didn't go to law school. You know, the people who went to law school, they don't know what they're talking about because they got brainwashed from professors that don't understand the Constitution. I told Rickards I didn't go to law school. I understand the Constitution. I don't need a law degree to understand what's written in the Constitution. And I understand that tariffs are taxes and that they have to be imposed by Congress, not the president. In fact, when the Constitution was ratified, pretty much tariffs were all we had. We didn't have an income tax back then. So when they talked about revenue bills originating in the House, what were they talking about? Tariffs.

[Guest/Commentator]

Those were the revenue bills.

[Peter Schiff]

They're the excise taxes. So I knew this thing was unconstitutional. So he didn't understand that. And, and I was right about that. It was declared. But even a smart guy like Rickards was still confused about who pays those tariffs. You know, it's not rocket science.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

I mean, if I could understand it,

[Peter Schiff]

anybody should be able to understand it. By the way, if you want to watch that video, it's up on YouTube. Maybe we'll put it on our channel at some point. You know, I look like a really old man. I mean, I watched that video. I couldn't believe how old I look in that video is. It has to be the lighting in that video because I don't, I, I, I don't look that old in person. I look like, like my grandfather or something. I mean, maybe because, you know, my

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

hair is getting very thin at my

[Peter Schiff]

age and maybe with the light shining on it, it, it made, it made it look even thinner and it just, I, I just looked like, you know, I was, you know, I wasn't going to be around much longer. So I'm really not that old. If you see me in person, I think the podcast video is a lot closer to reality. So don't get shocked if you watch it. I'm not, you know, I'm not that old. I mean, I'm 63, but I, you know, but anyway, but you, it's a, it's like a two hour debate, two and a half hour. But there's a lot of good stuff in there if you want to watch it online. Anyway, we got a quick commercial break. Stick around. I got a lot more to discuss, so don't go away. All right.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

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[Peter Schiff]

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[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

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[Peter Schiff]

You know, I didn't mention the reaction in the overall stock market, which you would have thought would have gone down on these inflation numbers, but no, the market keeps going up. The NASDAQ was flying, the tech stocks, the AI stocks. These things are just going through the roof. In fact, the I was watching on CNBC and I don't remember what her name was, she was an analyst of one of the banks and they were talking about is there a bubble? You know, and she said, well you know what, it doesn't even matter if there's a bubble. Maybe there is. She said who cares? Just, just enjoy it. Like have fun. It's a bubble. Great. I mean this is the kind of attitude that is the reason that we had the dot com bubble and, and market crash and the real estate bubble and financial crisis. Because instead of preventing bubbles, we try to enjoy them. But the problem is it's like enjoying any kind of high you're gonna come down when you stop taking the drugs, you know. But you know, this is the kind of top notch insight you get on cnbc.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

You get people saying who cares if

[Peter Schiff]

it's a bubble, just enjoy it while it's here. Right. Well what about having to suffer the, the, the consequences when, when it pops? That is, that is the problem. But there's also a lot of good contrarian information on cnbc. I was watching yesterday and they were talking about it's time to sell the gold stocks. And they used as an example Agnego Eagle, which is one of my biggest positions personally. And we own it for our clients. And the guy was pointing out a head and shoulders top pattern and he was saying you should sell because this looks like a head and shoulders top. The problem is it's not a head and shoulders top until it breaks the neckline. And we haven't done that yet. And most charts that look like they're going to be a head and shoulders top never complete the pattern. And one of the biggest mistakes you can make in technical trading is to anticipate a head and shoulders top. Because most of the time you're going to be wrong and the markets are just going to go and make new highs. So you're supposed to wait for the break of the neckline for the confirmation of the pattern before you do something. And of course cnbc, I guess they, they didn't learn that and they're trying to anticipate it. But then they said that you should sell all your gold stocks, not just AEM time to sell the gold stocks. And this is a great buy signal. It doesn't get any better than that. You know, I did get a little nervous about not nervous because I don't really care, I'm not selling. But when gold and silver were at the highs and the gold stocks are on the highs, the same guys on fast money couldn't be more bullish. Buy, buy, buy.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

And everything is Great.

[Peter Schiff]

So that, you know, as a, as a contrarian, I didn't like to see all these guys that used to be naysayers and skeptics and make fun of me, now all of a sudden recommending the same stocks that I own. So I was a little uncomfortable. I'm a lot more comfortable now that they're telling everybody to buy the stocks that I own because, you know, they are the contrarian indicator. So you want to load up the news could not be more bullish for gold and silver. You want to go to shift gold and back up the truck guys and buy gold and silver. Physical gold and silver. Get a T Gold account if you

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

don't already have one.

[Peter Schiff]

You just go direct to tgold.com and buy these precious metals mining stocks. If you want to take a risk, the upside potential dwarfs the downside risk. I think it's the best risk trade. You can try to get into this AI bubble and hope that you get out before it pops. I wouldn't want to press my luck there. I'd rather buy these mining stocks that

[Guest/Commentator]

are in the opposite of a bubble.

[Peter Schiff]

There's a bubble of pessimism in these stocks. The bubble is in the opposite direction. They're too cheap. They're crazy cheap. And that's what I want to buy. Right? I, I, that that's where I want

[Guest/Commentator]

to put my chips.

[Peter Schiff]

Right.

[Guest/Commentator]

I think I got much better odds

[Peter Schiff]

there than I would getting into the, in, into the tech stocks here. Anyway, a couple of other points that

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

I want to make.

[Peter Schiff]

You know, Donald Trump came out and now he wants to make it permanent that large corporations can't buy residential real

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

estate if they already own.

[Peter Schiff]

I think the cutoff is 350 homes

[Guest/Commentator]

you can't buy anymore.

[Peter Schiff]

And Donald Trump was saying that houses are for people, not corporations.

[Guest/Commentator]

And you know, I hate it when people say that, when they say corporations are not people. Who the hell does Donald Trump think owns those corporations?

[Peter Schiff]

They're people.

[Guest/Commentator]

The shareholders are people.

[Peter Schiff]

Just a group of people that got

[Guest/Commentator]

together and so if people have a

[Peter Schiff]

right to buy homes, they have a

[Guest/Commentator]

right to incorporate and buy homes. The whole thing is nonsense. But what about the people who want

[Peter Schiff]

to sell their homes?

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

Don't I have a right to sell

[Guest/Commentator]

my home to whoever I want?

[Peter Schiff]

Who is Donald Trump?

[Guest/Commentator]

Who is the US Government to tell

[Peter Schiff]

me, hey, you can't sell your house

[Guest/Commentator]

to a corporation if they already own

[Peter Schiff]

350 homes, why not?

[Guest/Commentator]

What if they offer me the best price? Why can't I take it? It's my house. I should be able to sell to whoever I want. This is all a bunch of socialist bs, right? You can't talk about, oh, aoc, the Democrats are socialists, and then overlook socialist policies being advocated by the Republicans. Hypocrisy does not help our cause. It gives the enemies of our cause a weapon to use against us. Plus, what about people who don't want to buy homes?

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

What are people who want to rent?

[Guest/Commentator]

If you don't want to buy because

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

you don't want to deal with all

[Peter Schiff]

of the costs of home ownership, which, believe me, I own a lot of

[Guest/Commentator]

homes, they cost a hell of a lot of money to maintain. Life is a lot cheaper when you're renting. And, you know, with times as tough as it is, a lot of people, you know, can't buy a home.

[Peter Schiff]

In fact, I was reading articles now,

[Guest/Commentator]

in some cities, if you make $100,000 a year, you're lower middle class now. Lower middle class.

[Peter Schiff]

I mean, I remember when if somebody

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

made $100,000, they were rich.

[Peter Schiff]

Now, if you make $100,000, you're barely not poor, right?

[Guest/Commentator]

So a lot of those people want to rent.

[Peter Schiff]

They don't want to buy. Well, if you limit corporations ability to

[Guest/Commentator]

buy homes and rent them out, you diminish the pool of rental properties, and

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

so rents are higher. What about.

[Guest/Commentator]

So you're hurting the people who, who want to rent now? I don't know.

[Peter Schiff]

You know, maybe if, you know, the

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

limit is 350 houses.

[Peter Schiff]

So I don't have one corporation that buys. You know, I have two or three or four corporations and I buy houses.

[Guest/Commentator]

I mean, obviously there's always ways to get around these numerical caps, right? By having multiple companies. I don't know all the intricacies of the law, but it's all misguided and

[Peter Schiff]

it's all socialist rhetoric when you start

[Guest/Commentator]

saying corporations are, are not people, because

[Peter Schiff]

they absolutely are people.

[Guest/Commentator]

Look, if you only listen to this

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

show on audio, you're missing something my YouTube audience won't shut up about.

[Peter Schiff]

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[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

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[Peter Schiff]

and the chat lit up.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

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[Advertiser]

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[Peter Schiff]

If you're early in your career and looking for insight, inspiration and honest advice, listen to the Capital Ideas Podcast. Hear from Capital Group professionals about leaning into the differences that make you unique, making decisions that last, and what it means to lead with purpose. The Capital Ideas Podcast from Capital Group. Available wherever you listen. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc.

Now

[Guest/Commentator]

speaking about people, I also want to give a shout out to Thomas Massie. He is in a tight congressional race right now. The election is, I think Tuesday. Next week. He's neck and neck with Trump's hand picked, you know, replacement who was a never Trumper. The guy hated Trump. He left the Republican Party when Trump became president and he only got and he only re registered Republican when he

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

was no longer president.

[Guest/Commentator]

Right. Massie is the guy that actually stands

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

for a lot of things that Trump

[Guest/Commentator]

claims to be in favor of, yet Trump is backing his opponent in this primary. Why? Why does Trump want to get rid of Massie?

[Peter Schiff]

Because Massie is one of the only

[Guest/Commentator]

Republicans who actually wants to shrink the size of government, who voted against a horrible, big, beautiful bill, who voted against the tariffs, who understands tariffs, who didn't want to go to war with Iran. Right. All the things that Thomas Massie says he's for are the things that Trump supposedly was for other than maybe the tariffs, but he doesn't understand those. But Massie's a good guy. He's like the only congressman we have. The rest of them aren't worth anything.

[Peter Schiff]

Pretty much, you got one guy, right?

[Guest/Commentator]

He doesn't represent one district in Kentucky.

[Peter Schiff]

He represents the whole country.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

You know, he's like what Rand Paul used to be.

[Guest/Commentator]

Now Rand is, you know, we got his son in the Senate. I'm talking about the House. And so it's important that he stay there. So you can go to his website and you can donate some money. But at this point, I don't know if it's money. It's already the most expensive congressional race maybe ever primary. Right.

[Peter Schiff]

It's not even of.

[Guest/Commentator]

This isn't even the general election. It's one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive primaries ever. Because I think Donald Trump is looking at it as kind of a vote on his presidency because he wants to get rid of Massey. But the fact that Trump wants to get rid of the only true voice in the House for limited government, fiscal responsibility, constitutional rights, individual liberty, the fact that this is the guy that Trump

[Peter Schiff]

wants to get rid of, that says a lot about Donald Trump.

[Guest/Commentator]

Anybody who thinks he's a conservative, they're wrong. If he was a conservative, he'd love Massie. He wants to get rid of Massie because Massie is everything he's not.

[Peter Schiff]

You know, and so this is, you

[Guest/Commentator]

know, this really is a litmus test on many things. But, but we got to keep him in there. Most important thing is if you live in his district in Kentucky, vote for him, and if you know somebody who lives there, call them up, email them and make sure they vote because it is neck and neck, and normally it's very difficult to get rid of an incumbent. But also, if Trump succeeds in ousting Massie, that's bad news as far as I'm concerned, because it shows how much more power Trump has over the Republican Party. But the Republican Party is going to collapse because of the disaster of an economy that Trump is going to preside over. So, yes, he's still going to have his loyal base, but it's not going to be enough to hold the House, to hold the Senate, or to hold the White House in 2028.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

It's just going to sink the entire party.

[Guest/Commentator]

So I think it's more important that Trump loses his grip on that party and that Massie keeps his. His Senate seat or his. His House seat. Anyway, just as proof that. Oh, before I get to that, I got to mention Trump in China.

[Peter Schiff]

Trump is in China right now. There's a big summit there. He flew in on Air Force One. He's got some, you know, executives, Elon Musk, you know, a few others, other. Other corporate leaders are flying in on their own jets.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

One of the things that he's saying

[Peter Schiff]

is he wants the Chinese to open up their markets. Well, all right, we'll open up our market. Our market is pretty close to a lot of Chinese products. Not, like, completely closed. But I pointed out, you know, I was in Panama City and there were all these Chinese cars I never heard of. Why are they not on our streets? We're obviously keeping these cars out. But, I mean, you know, there's a lot of bans and restrictions going on. So it's not about just China opening up. It's about the United States opening up. But, you know, I don't think anything is going to come out of this summit that's going to help the United States.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

Maybe Trump is going to leave with

[Peter Schiff]

some good business deals for himself, for his family. You know, maybe there will be some deals that put more money in his pocket. We'll see.

[Guest/Commentator]

But I doubt anything's going to happen that's going to change the trade imbalance, because it's not China's fault that. That we're uncompetitive, that we don't save enough, that we don't produce enough, that, you know, you can't blame all that on China. That. That's all on us.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

But I'll have more to talk about

[Guest/Commentator]

on this summit, you know, after we

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

actually

[Guest/Commentator]

learn if anything comes out of it or what they want to pretend,

[Peter Schiff]

I'm sure that whatever happens, Trump is going to lie and say it was a fantastic success. And, you know, we, we achieved all

[Guest/Commentator]

kinds of great things and trillions and

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

trillions of dollars are going to be

[Peter Schiff]

invested in the United States. Right, that, that, that's what he's going to say.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

But I want to end up this

[Guest/Commentator]

podcast talking about Amazon and Jeff Bezos. And this just shows you I read the comments on my podcast. I don't read them all, but I

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

read them, so that's why you should

[Peter Schiff]

keep on writing them. And, And I will, you know, respond either in the comments section or what

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

I'm doing right now.

[Guest/Commentator]

So. At my last podcast, I talked about

[Peter Schiff]

the positive contributions of millionaires and billionaires

[Guest/Commentator]

and that they shouldn't be vilified. And I talked about Jeff Bezos.

[Peter Schiff]

I didn't just pick Jeff Bezos at random. It was because either it was Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders attacked Jeff Bezos

[Guest/Commentator]

because he was laying off some Amazon

[Peter Schiff]

workers, yet he was buying a yacht

[Guest/Commentator]

for himself or a penthouse or whatever it was. And sure, yeah, I mean, they laid

[Peter Schiff]

off, I don't know, 50,000 people.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

I can't remember. He employs one and a half million.

[Guest/Commentator]

Way more than Bernie Sanders, who doesn't employ anybody, who doesn't get a government paycheck.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

Right.

[Guest/Commentator]

He's got a senatorial staff. Same thing with Elizabeth Warren. But a lot of people took issue with my defense of Jeff Bezos, and they were saying, no, he's a bad guy. He put a lot of people out of business. Look at all these mom and pop stores that Jeff Bezos put out of business with Amazon. Jeff Bezos didn't put anybody out of business. The Amazon customers put people out of business, not Bezos. What did Jeff Bezos do? He gave people an alternative that they preferred. He gave people the ability to shop from home, to buy almost everything they wanted and have it shipped to their house the next day. And people liked that. People wanted that. People decided they didn't want to drive all the way down to the local mom and pop store, buy something and bring it home. They decided it was more convenient, it was cheaper to shop on Amazon. You can't blame Jeff Bezos for that. Blame the people who made those decisions. Why doesn't anybody vilify the consumer? Oh, those evil, greedy consumers. They put all these mom and pop businesses out of business, right? Well, because they just wanted to get a good deal. And of course, Jeff Bezos doesn't even know. He doesn't have a personal relationship with these small shop owners. But some of their former customers did. You know, why didn't the customers say, you know, I prefer shopping on Amazon, it's cheaper and easier. But you know, if I don't go to this small, you know, store, they

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

may go out of business.

[Guest/Commentator]

And so even though I'd rather buy on Amazon because I save a lot of time and I save some money, I can't put this store out of business. So I'm going to go there anyway. I'm going to pay higher prices, I'm going to waste more time because I want to make sure this other less efficient store stays in business. That's not how capitalism works. The whole idea is businesses are competing with one another to make us the best deal. Now, yes, I feel bad if a mom and pop store can't compete with Amazon. But, you know, what are you going to do? I mean, supermarkets put out, put a lot of small grocery stores out of business. What are you going to do, ban supermarkets because they put these little grocery stores out of business? No, unfortunately, you got to do something else. But everybody is better off, you know, if I save time and money shopping on Amazon, that frees up time and money to do something else.

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[Peter Schiff]

you know, because a lot of people would say it's, you know, businesses need to pay a living wage. Especially like they would talk about, you know, we need to raise the minimum wage, you know, because these restaurant workers are being paid, you know, $7 an hour, $10 an hour, whatever it is. And people would say, look, that's not enough to raise a family. That's not enough to pay a mortgage. And my response would be, of course, of course it's not enough to raise a family and pay a mortgage. If all you could do is get a job at McDonald's, you have no business buying a house. You have no business starting a family. These are entry level jobs that are not designed to support a family. They're actually designed for kids who are being supported by their family. People who work at McDonald's, they could

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

still be living at home.

[Peter Schiff]

These could be high school Kids earning money after school, college kids. These are not jobs for people trying to support a family. That is ridiculous. And you can't say that a guy who runs a small restaurant is responsible for making sure that the waiters and the busboys earn enough money to pay mortgages and to support families. That is absolutely absurd. But what I used to do, my joke was, or I would explain is, you know what, what would happen if I decided to open up a restaurant and do exactly what all these bleeding heart, you know, socialists claim that I should do? What if I opened up a hamburger restaurant and I said, you know what? I'm going to pay the, the, the cooks, right? The guys that flip the burgers and make the french fries. I'm gonna pay the waiters, I'm gonna pay the busboys. I'm gonna pay the guys that clean the toilets, right, and sweep the floors. I'm gonna give them all $50 an hour. I'm gonna make sure that everybody who works for me can afford to support

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

a family and pay a mortgage, right?

[Peter Schiff]

Let's say I, how much do I have to charge for my burgers? $50, $75 a burger, maybe $20amilkshake, right? But I would say, look, the prices are really high. They're much higher than all these other restaurants. But all these other restaurants are exploiting their workers. All these other restaurants are, are not paying a living wage. I'm paying a living wage. I'm a good guy.

[Guest/Commentator]

I'm paying all my workers.

[Peter Schiff]

And so that's why my prices are so high. And I, you know, I was going to call it like the liberal cafe, although my, my wife would get mad at me because she hates it when I, when I call, you know, left wing people liberal because in the classic sense, they're not liberal at all. It's a bastardization of the term. I'm a liberal. I'm a classic liberal. I mean, the liberals co opted the whole term. But, you know, but since everybody thinks that's what liberals are, that's why it was going to be the liberal cafe. But so I was going to have this liberal cafe where we had really, really high prices, but I paid really, really high wages. How many of these bleeding hearts do you think would eat at my restaurant? Nobody, nobody would come to my restaurant. I would go out of business in a heartbeat. And so all these people that I was going to pay $50 an hour would end up earning nothing an hour. Now why would they earn nothing an hour? Because they'd be unemployed. Because nobody would Want to pay the money they would like? No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to pay $70 for a hamburger. All right, well, how much do you want? I want to pay $8. Okay, you want the $8 hamburger, then don't get mad at me because my waiters can't afford a mortgage. Because if you're going to demand that my waiters, cooks can earn all this, but you got to pay it. The customer has to pay. So the reason, the reason that wages are so low in restaurants, it's not because the restaurant owners are greedy, evil capitalists.

[Guest/Commentator]

Hell, I mean, they love to pay

[Peter Schiff]

their waiters more money, but they can't. Not if they want to stay in business. It's the customers who are mean. It's the customers who are greedy. They want low costs. That's why the wages are low. Anyway, a couple other things, though, I wanted to say about Bezos and Amazon, because it's, you know, one of the reasons that he was able to succeed as much as he had. It wasn't a level of playing field. First of all, look what the government did during COVID That wasn't fair to the mom and pop stores. The government said you, if you have a little store somewhere, you got to shut down. You gotta, you can't even open up your store. You're out of business. But Amazon, you can keep selling. So that kind of stuff benefits Amazon. Also, it was the artificially low interest rates and the shifting of credit away from Main street to Wall street because nobody is really saving anymore. Small businesses can't get loans, but big corporations like Amazon can sell bonds, sell stock, and raise all kinds of money. So Amazon had a competitive advantage in the credit markets. And Amazon didn't even have to make money because the stock investors didn't care.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

They were just focusing on the top line.

[Peter Schiff]

But if you're running a small store, you got to make money because that's the only way to pay your bills. So the playing field, in a sense, was not level because the Federal Reserve and the government tilted it in Amazon's favor. Now, I was against all that, but you can't blame Bezos for playing the game that, that, you know, you know,

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

he didn't deal the cards.

[Peter Schiff]

He just, you know, played his hand.

[Guest/Commentator]

And he did a great job of playing his hand.

[Peter Schiff]

So, you know, I just wanted to take issue with all these comments about, you know, he's, you know, you're frog, you're wrong.

[Guest/Commentator]

He's this bad guy. Look, everybody's life Pretty much is better off. I mean, every day, every single day, stuff comes to my house. Fry Amazon. Now here I live in Puerto Rico. Here's one of the ways the Puerto

[Peter Schiff]

Rican government has screwed over small stores.

[Guest/Commentator]

So Puerto Rico has a law, an inventory tax tax. If you're a small business and you

[Peter Schiff]

keep inventory, you have to pay a

[Guest/Commentator]

tax on the end of the year for that inventory.

[Peter Schiff]

So the result of that tax is nobody keeps any inventory. And so the government hardly raises any revenue. But the problem that it causes is because nobody wants to keep inventory, because

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

no one wants to pay the tax,

[Guest/Commentator]

you can't buy a lot of things. So Amazon can keep inventory because it

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

doesn't keep it in Puerto Rico.

[Peter Schiff]

So the Puerto Rican government's law that

[Guest/Commentator]

imposes a tax on inventories on local Puerto Rican businesses is why so many people in Puerto Rico use Amazon to buy things that their own businesses don't

[Peter Schiff]

stock because they don't want to pay the tax. Right.

[Guest/Commentator]

So there are a lot of ways

[Peter Schiff]

that government policies have benefited Bezos.

[Guest/Commentator]

But you know what, whatever Bezos is

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

doing as a result of those policies

[Guest/Commentator]

are benefiting the customers. Bezos doesn't hold a gun to anybody's head and says, buy here, shop here. Don't go to that small mom and pop store. Buy from me.

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

No.

[Guest/Commentator]

The consumer makes a choice. That is the beauty of capitalism.

[Peter Schiff]

The consumers have all the cards. They make the choices, they decide. And so if companies go out of

[Guest/Commentator]

business, it's because the customers stop using those businesses. Don't blame the competitors for giving the

[Peter Schiff]

customers a better deal. Right?

[Guest/Commentator]

It's the customers and it's not their fault.

[Peter Schiff]

That's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to look for the best deal. Everybody's supposed to look for the best deal.

[Guest/Commentator]

And you know, nobody has a right to their business. I mean, you take a risk when you start a business and one of those risks is you can go out of business. That's why a lot of people don't

[Peter Schiff]

want to start businesses.

[Guest/Commentator]

And that's why people who do start businesses deserve the money they make because they take a lot of risk and they face a lot of risks every day they operate those businesses. Just one final thing I wanted to say. I guess I got my faithful who are watching to the end, but I'll mention it again because I went so long. But I'm posting a brand new video that's like a 10 minute video, that's a message where I put together the all, you know, some of the most explosive Emails that I got from my

[Peter Schiff]

FOIA lawsuit that show the conspiracy between

[Guest/Commentator]

the IRS and OSEF and the J5

[Peter Schiff]

to destroy my bank and the lies that they told. And I put that together with some excerpts from the press conference to shut down my bank. And I condensed it all into a

[Guest/Commentator]

nice 10 minute video.

[Peter Schiff]

And so I'm going to put it up on my YouTube channel.

[Guest/Commentator]

I'm going to link it to this. So make sure and watch it, share it with your friends.

[Peter Schiff]

And then I'm going to put it

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

up on, on X.

[Guest/Commentator]

And I know a lot of people say, hey, Peter, you know, you know, you're just whining about this, you're just complaining. Yeah, I'm complaining. And I should complain. When the government breaks the law like this, you gotta complain. Because if you don't complain, well, they're just gonna keep on doing it. And you know what's even more outrageous than what they did, the laws they broke, is that nothing is happening. Despite the fact that I've already uncovered all the evidence of the crime and I know who the criminals are.

[Peter Schiff]

Nobody is doing it.

[Guest/Commentator]

None of the Justice Departments are doing anything. No one in the federal government, no one in the Puerto Rico government. Nobody cares. Nobody cares that these IRS agents break the law and commit crimes which, you know, there are plenty of people that are in jail for tax evasion. My father went to jail. The IRS can put people in jail if they break the law. Well, that means the IRS agents should be held to the same standard. If they break the law, why don't they go to jail? And it's even worse when you break the law under the color of law, when you use your official government capacity to commit crimes, that's even worse than just a normal criminal who doesn't have the power of government. Right. So it's when criminals in government use their position to abuse their power to commit crimes, that is worse than when just a private citizen does it. So there's even more reason that they have to be held accountable. And if you allow government officials to break the law with impunity, if you let them believe they're above the law, beholden to no one, then what's going to happen?

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

Well, they're going to break more laws.

[Peter Schiff]

Right?

[Guest/Commentator]

They're going to know that they could do whatever they want, that they don't answer to anyone. Well, they do. We have to hold them responsible. So I'm hoping that this video, if we spread it around, send it to

[Peter Schiff]

your congressman, you know, we got to

[Guest/Commentator]

focus attention on this crime because I already have all the evidence and there's tons more evidence that the government is still illegally withholding from me. First they break the law to commit the crime and then they break another law to cover it up. Anyway, that's it for today. Hope you enjoy the podcast. My plan is to do one on Friday for Shift Gold. Hopefully I am going to be speaking at Puerto Rico cpac. Interestingly enough, they're having a cpac. I'm one of the speakers in San Juan. I'm actually going to be in the green room with the governor. So hopefully this will be the first time I got to talk to her.

[Peter Schiff]

Believe me, I got a lot to

[Podcast Host/Advertiser]

talk to her about.

[Guest/Commentator]

Hopefully she listens because I got to tell her about the corruption that's going on in her own government. Hopefully she'll do something about it. I don't know.

[Peter Schiff]

I'll let you know.

[Guest/Commentator]

Anyway, that's all for today. I got a rush because I got a radio interview right now, so bye for now.

[Podcast Narrator]

In a world full of noise, long term thinking stands out. On the Capital Ideas podcast, Capital Group leaders explore the decisions that matter most in investing, leadership and life. It's a rare look inside a firm that's been helping people pursue their financial goals for more than 90 years. Listen to the Capital Ideas podcast from Capital Group, published by Capital Client Group, Inc.