Peter D. SchiffRezensionen

Interesting to go back to this book on my bookshelf and to throw it out the window. In one respect the author previsages the financial crisis around real estate, in another he misses the mark completely in his framing of what is to come and the mechanics of systemic shocks we have seen over the years.

At its core there are some good points but they could be condensed to a few pages. The bulk of the book is fluff and predictions that are unhelpful and inaccurate.

One should regularly read these sort of books to avoid overly framing reality in the current space, with the current problems.

His core advice: invest in good companies outside the US and in gold. And then more in detail suggestions like mining companies which actually suffered greatly.

A good basic explanation of economics, but incredibly biased towards supply-side theory.

Muy interesante y completo

Lovely book... great way of explaining about economy with a simple concept of using fish. I felt, the introduction of economy crash wasn't handled well but again that's my opinion. Worth a read even for those without any prior knowledge of anything about economy.

The book discourses the subject of Economics in a highly comical way. The 'story', so to say, correlates with real life examples of the growth and fall of the US economy. I was disinterested / disinclined in Economics during my school days probably because my teachers made the arcane and boring subject it even more torturous. The authors on the other hand transformed it into a highly entertaining and enlightening topic.

The mantra "Productivity, not spending, is the key for economic growth" stands out for me in the entire book. "If you want its stuff, you need its currency." - how ingeniously well-stated.

The author encourages global free-trade and suggests that although some businesses might close due to inefficient practices in producing some goods, the countries involved will nevertheless grow in the long run.

The latter part of the book concentrates on the interaction between US and China and shows how China is playing a bigger role than what meets the eye.

I'd like the authors to extend this book to show how '$' affects the economies of the rest of the countries.

The problem with this book is that the author makes "hundreds" of predictions, promising that each one will follow the other.

Well, it is hard enough to predict the next day in the stock market, and *nobody* can predict one thing after the other and expect me to take notes and depend on it.

I do not question Peter Schiff's integrity at all, but he has a strong financial interest in selling gold and special locations for investments such that I do not believe he could suddenly admit he was wrong and then find he had to recommend the reverse of inflation.

The author is worth paying attention to since he was right about the internet and housing bubbles and predicted the collapse of both of them.

Now,(published 2012) he sees a bond bubble with the same root in FED enabled artificially low interest rates, and he spends some time on the sleazy alliance between fiscally irresponsible politicians and a currency debasing central bank.

He takes the entirely believable line that large deficits can't be funded for ever by dollar printing, and that politicians will never allow the massive tax rises and/or massive spending cuts necessary to reach budget stability, so the only route left is inflation with a consequent crash in the value of the dollar and government bonds.

I see some problems here with the evidence, and issues that could have been in the book but weren't.

The evidence (as of April 2013) is that FED liquidity isn't producing inflation. On the contrary, the banks are channeling liquidity into speculative market bubbles rather than real investments that counteract societal deleveraging. Why should they do anything else? All sectors need to reduced debt and don't want to take on any more. The result is general deflation apart from the "bubble asset du jour" class with the evidence including falling commodity prices - particularly precious metals (which are on his list of recommended investments).

He wants to return government to the basic functions given in the Constitution and he is surely right that government has got involved in many areas where it should never have gone. nevertheless, modern societies need a sophisticated "nerve centre" that is fairly large and expensive and the successful ones all have large and active governments. Because it is corrupt and inefficient doesn't mean that it isn't necessary.

The author speaks as if the United States is a homogeneous country like Germany, Holland, China or Japan, when in fact the government clearly states that it is multicultural. The evidence unfortunately shows that it is fast pulling apart (see The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart. Societies like this don't seem to react well to severe economic stress. If they can't pull together they fly apart like the once great multicultural Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Schiff recommends that people without capital store food and basic goods as a protection against 1) inflation and 2) societal disruption. The inflation may eventually come if a desperate government hands out wads of dollars to government workers, but the situation would probably be so chaotic that his recommendation would not work. A real possibility of dictatorship combined with some kind of civil war may well produce regimes like the Bolsheviks or Nazis who both outlawed food hoarding with a death penalty. In the winter of 1932/33 the Bolsheviks actually declared that all the food in the Ukraine was government property, and removed it, resulting in at least 3 million deaths from starvation (see Holodomor Kaganovitch in Google). A better recommendation if things go this way would be to leave the US temporarily or emigrate to a more functional country.

There's also the problem of how you get from here to there. If America is to return to a simple Constitutional style alliance of States with a minimal central government (which may work) and it can resolve its corruption and cultural issues, how under a Democracy will people (particularly minorities and the poor) be persuaded to vote to give up social medicine, schools, welfare benefits etc. etc? I may be wrong, but it seems very unlikely.

This popular podcast speaker repeats his messages of curing much of America's problems through smaller government, balancing government budgets, changes to taxation structures, and returning the United States to the gold standard. These are views cheered by a minority of American citizens, overall, but fail to provide insight of how these changes ought to occur. Schiff has conducted research to make informed statements about why an American economic disaster occurred. I would remain interested in his work if he progressed to research on penetrating powerful political corridors to lobby for his suggested changes, and how to accomplish these changes as soon as possible in a nation where government is democratically elected. Perhaps his conclusions would mirror my own - leave the United States and its denizens while you can.

This audio does a great job of simplifying some complicated economic topics using a story format. Unfortunately, he interjects his view of free enterprise good government bad within the story, and makes it sound as if it is the only option. Wish I read this book in high school with a teacher pointing out where the author takes liberties.

Peter Schiff is at it again. Yet this time instead of explaining how to invest in an uncertain economy he does something much more basic; he explains what an economy is and how it functions. And not in the snoozefest manner of economic professors (who, as a group, seem to have the same attribute as my college econ profs of being able to make the subject more confusing rather than less). Instead he uses the manner of a favorite first grade teacher of telling a story with line drawing and everything. Bear with me here. From anyone else this method might be insulting to one's intelligence but Schiff manages to pull it off without making his audience feel stupid. This book is not only imminently readable but also full of information; an alternate title could be "Everything You Thought You Knew About the Economy But Were Afraid to Ask". As Schiff tells the story he also puts it in context by sprinkling "Realty Check" boxes throughout and ends each chapter with a "Takeaway" summary to bring the points home. There is also a great deal of poking fun at pundits and politicians with thinly veiled name changes (naw, Peter, tell us how you really feel about TV personality Barry Codroe).
This a book that every voting American should read (as a democracy requires an informed electorate) and also should be required reading for every elected official (why do I have a sneaking suspicion that Congress should have read this before passing the hastily passed financial reform bill). I have a child taking economics next year in high school - this will be summer reading for her so she has a solid grasp of the subject.

Highly, highly recommended but only if you want to understand the US economy (or any economy for that matter) AND have a sense of humor.½

This is the very first work I've read since joining Librarything that I am unable to give a rating. That by itself is a very curious distinction, and certainly apropos, since this is a very, very, very curious work. Parts of it are very well written, very well thought out and had me nodding my head in agreement, even though I had honestly not thought in these terms before. And yet for each well written section in a chapter section there is almost always an offsetting thesis that left me with a raised eyebrow or an item presented as a fact that struck me as rather dubious.

Review continued offsite, on my blog.

great great review of the inconsistencies in the financial reporting in this country. Energy, housing, lots of other things are not computed in the consumer price index because that would scare us! The whole thing is a manipulation. This is a great book to use to really understand the constructed reality we have constructed (or allowed to be constructed) around ourselves that keeps us slaves to this hegemonic imperialist system (which by the way causes terrorism and war but that is my comment).

America, once a society of production has become a society of consumption. Living on massive amounts of credit, both as individuals and as a nation, the ever mounting inflationary debt has left us on the brink of an economic disaster. At least according to Mr. Schiff.

Peter Schiff, son of famous tax protestor and currently federally incarcerated Irwin Schiff, is known as "Dr. Doom" for the extremely dire analyses of the United States' current economic situation he provides for the mainstream media. The analysis he provides in crash proof is based fundamentally from the viewpoint of Austrian economics. If you are ideologically aligned with this fundamental view point, Schiff's clear and concise explanation of our current situation will likely resonate with you. However those who tend to follow the basic capitalistic precepts of Friedman or especially Keynes, or who do not follow capital or free market theory at all will not likely be persuaded by his arguments.

The book itself is broken into two major sections. The first two thirds of the book is Mr. Schiff's analysis of what he feels is an imminent collapse in the housing market, the economy in general and of the dollar, which he feels has a good chance of seeing an episode of hyperinflation never before witnessed by the American people, even during the Great Depression. The last third of the book is devoted to investment strategies to hedge against this collapse.

The first section is well written and interesting, however, the fundamental problem with this book is the last third of the book devoted to the investment strategies. These strategies can pretty much be summed up with three quick statements. Move market investments from Dollar based U.S. stocks to yield based stocks in Europe and Asia. Invest in commodities, particularly precious metals. Avoid U.S. dollar based assets and stay liquid. The rest of this section is not much more than marketing material for Schiff's investment company Euro Pacific Capital Inc.

If you decide to pursue this book, I would highly recommend first watching the short video (~45 minutes) Money as Debt. It is the most straightforward explanation I have seen of the monetary theory used by Mr. Schiff as the basis for his analysis. Whether or not you agree with this particular theory, understanding it is the key to understanding Mr. Schiff's arguments.½