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Peter Schiff's Biography from Wikipedia
Peter David Schiff (born March 23, 1963) is the president of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., a brokerage firm based in Westport, Connecticut. Schiff is an Austrian school economist and supporter of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Schiff frequently appears as a guest on CNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNN International, and Bloomberg Television and is quoted in major financial publications.
Schiff points to the low savings rate of the United States as its worst malady, citing the transformation from being the world's largest creditor nation in the 1970s to the largest debtor nation by the year 2000. His extremely bearish views on the U.S. Dollar, the United States stock market, bond market, and the United States economy have earned him the nickname "Dr. Doom."
Schiff is widely known for predicting the economic crisis of 2008. He was also an economic adviser for the Ron Paul campaign in the 2008 Republican Party primaries. Schiff also hosts a live Internet/shortwave radio show called "Wall Street Unspun."
His father is tax protester Irwin Schiff.
Education
Peter Schiff was born in New Haven, Connecticut and was raised in Manhattan and Miami. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 with a degree in finance and accounting.
Career
Schiff began his career in financial consulting with Shearson Lehman Brothers. He launched Euro Pacific Capital in 1996 when he bought a broker-dealer in Florida without clients or revenues and then reincorporated the business in California. In 2005 Schiff relocated to Darien, Connecticut in order to find brokers "who think like him," according to an article in The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut. The New York Metropolitan Area, he said, has the biggest concentration of brokers in the country, making it easier to recruit them.
The company retains an office in Newport Beach, California as well as in Phoenix and Medford, Oregon. Schiff said in August 2006 that he planned to open offices eventually in Manhattan and somewhere in the Midwest.
Economic views
In an August 2006 interview Schiff generated much controversy when he repeated his long-held investment thesis: "The United States economy is like the Titanic and I am here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship ...I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States." On May 16, 2006 in debate on Fox News, Schiff accurately forecast that the U.S. housing market was a bubble that would soon burst. On December 13, 2007 in a Bloomberg interview on the show Open Exchange, Schiff further added that he felt that the crisis would extend to the credit card lending industry. Following this observation, it was soon reported on December 23, 2007 by the Associated Press that "The value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 percent to $17.3 billion in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the AP... At the same time, defaults -- when lenders essentially give up hope of ever being repaid and write off the debt -- rose 18 percent to almost $961 million in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the Securities and Exchange Commission."
Schiff also discusses the role of the US consumer in the world, saying that the US consumer thinks he's doing the world a favor by consuming what the rest of the world produces. He is quick to point out that this relationship will come to an end, in his view, much sooner than people imagine, and with negative consequences for the US. Schiff has been quoted as saying: "Consumption is its own reward for Production" -- meaning that without production, the US cannot indefinitely sustain its ongoing consumption. Schiff, and other adherents of Austrian economics, promote savings and production as "the engine of economic growth -- not consumption".
Schiff has said on numerous occasions that the current economic crisis is not the problem; it is the solution. According to him, the transition from borrowing and spending to saving and producing cannot be accomplished without a severe recession, given the current imbalances of the US economy. But according to him, that transition needs to happen. He also thinks the government is doing no one a favor by trying to "ease the pain" with stimulus packages, bailouts and such. Schiff believes these actions will only make the situation worse and possibly result in hyperinflation if the government continues to "replace legitimate savings with a printing press."
Schiff is a firm believer in reducing government regulation of the economy. Schiff worries that Barack Obama will increase such regulation.
On October 28 2008, Schiff stated in an interview on Bloomberg TV that the investment strategies outlined in both books currently "are not working" due to the collapse of foreign currencies, foreign stocks and the failure of gold prices to go up significantly as most of the world entered an economic recession and foreign investors flee to cash. However, he maintained that this was a very temporary phenomenon, "due to deleveraging", and that he expects gold to shoot up to $2000/ounce as the dollar soon "drops like a stone." Overall, Schiff remained optimistic on his theories and stated this was a good opportunity to buy foreign stocks trading at yearly lows.
Political activity
Schiff was an economic adviser to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. Schiff made the following statement concerning Paul's economic revitalization plan.
"We need a plan that stimulates savings and production not more of the reckless borrowing and consumption that got us into this mess in the first place. Ron Paul's plan is the only one that amounts to a step in the right direction. If you want meaningful change - for the better that is - Ron Paul is the only candidate capable of delivering it."
Schiff also endorsed Murray Sabrin for the US Senate seat in New Jersey.
As of June 2009, he began eyeing a run for the Republican nomination to challenge Democrat Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut's five-term senior senator, in the 2010 U.S. senate election. In July 2009, he formed an exploratory committee and began raising money at schiffforsenate.com.
