Peter Schiff – Fair Weather Libertarian?
Yep. Schiff was on The Kudlow Report when the former Paulnut abandoned Libertarian free market principles to jump on the anti-Goldline band wagon.
Via Newsbusters:
“You know, I have my own gold company and it bothers me what they’re going to do,†Schiff said to CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report†fill-in host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera on the Sept. 24 broadcast. “I think that companies like, you know, like Goldline, you know that are basically marking up their gold coins 67 percent or whatever – it’s outrageous. I mean, most companies mark-up 2 or 3 percent, which is what I do. These type of companies give the whole industry a bad name. What I’m afraid of is we’re going to have a lot of regulation.â€
Caruso-Cabrera asked Schiff in these circumstances if it was a case of buyer beware. However, Schiff suggested it was fraudulent for coin companies to charge these prices for what by any measure of the law would be a legal transaction if a consumer chose to purchase coins from such a company.
“If there’s fraud, it’s not buyer beware,†he continued. “But what I’m afraid of is I don’t want government regulating the coin industry so that people like me have to raise our prices to cover all the extra cost of regulation.â€
But assuming Schiff’s assumption were correct, wouldn’t he has a competitor be able to move in on the market and offer the same product for a lower price? Isn’t that how the free market operates? Schiff conceded that point, but complained he was getting beat because he couldn’t afford the advertising.
“I mean, I think the free market should ferret out these companies that are grossly overcharging people who don’t know any better. You know, that’s the problem. People haven’t bought gold in so long and see how well it’s doing and get conned by these commercials that are all over television. But most gold companies like mine, we can’t afford to run commercials because we’re not charging that much.â€
So Goldline “overcharging” is fraud? In a free market Schiff would simply advertise as a cheaper alternative and his claims that he can’t compete sound odd as he does it from one of the many cable news shows he’s allowed to pimp his company on. Schiff is just attacking the competition using the government. He tries to couch his complaints in a desire to not see more regulation but the reality is he’s saying he doesn’t want to compete with Goldline even though he supposedly has a better product.
I don’t shop with Goldline or Euro-Pacific Capital. There’s only one precious metals company on the web that is rated by the B.B.B. and that’s where I purchase any coins and bullion I want. But I do think that in a free market a corporation has the right to a) charge whatever they want for their services and b) advertise for that service where ever they can. But I’m just a Republican “fascist,” right Libertarians?
Peter Schiff, like many Libertarians, gives excellent economic analysis. And like many Libertarians he’s kind of a douche who will drop their belief in a total free market the minute they can’t compete. This is why they support legalization of drugs rather than decriminalization of drugs – they want the government to ensure that their drugs are safe and reasonably priced, which is of course impossible but that’s another argument.
George W. Bush takes a lot of heat for the bailouts, but in that case he literally thought you would be getting yanked out your car by rioters as the whole country went Katrina. Schiff abandoned the free market to save his bottom line, but I’m betting he won’t get much grief. That should make people think.
Jim Rickards: Gold to Hit $5000-11,000
That’s the good news. The bad news is that at that point, because of the collapse of the dollar, and ounce of gold might buy you a nice suit. Never has Gold bullishness been more terrifying:
Global Corn Supplies at Near 40 Year Lows!
Top English Law Enforcement Official Says Police Have “Lost Control” Of The Streets!
Hate to say I told you so, but I did. From The Telegraph:
Sir Denis O’Connor, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, says the rowdy and abusive behaviour of yobs is a “disease” within communities that has been allowed to “fester” because police have retreated from the streets in the past two decades.
In a report, he claims that forces have been guilty of chasing crime statistics and targets and ignoring anti-social behaviour or “screening out” 999 calls because it is deemed “not real police work”.
[…]
In the report, he says the “retreat” of beat policemen since the 1990s has been a “mistake that had undermined their connection with the public, and allowed some of these things to gather momentum”. The growing “intensity and harm” of anti-social behaviour in Britain signals a “lack of control on our streets”, he says.
The report, entitled Stop the Rot, discloses the scale of the problem.
About 45 per cent of all calls made to the police in the past year were about anti-social behaviour, the vast majority related to disorderly behaviour, the joint study by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Ipsos MORI and Cardiff University found.
More than two thirds of forces did not even know when they were dealing with a repeat victim of intimidation when they called, the report says.
The report goes on to point out that nearly 50% of respondents to a poll said they changed their routines due to fear of out of control youths. But this report is too little, too late. If the cops think they can take their streets back from these gangs after giving them nearly 20 years of slack they’re dreaming.