Peter Schiff " Crash Proff "

From Wikipedia.org

In an August 2006 interview Schiff generated much controversy when he repeated his long-held investment thesis: "The U.S 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 USD 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 USD 961 million in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the Securities and Exchange Commission."

Schiff also discusses the role of the U.S consumer in the world, saying that the U.S 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 U.S.

Schiff has been quoted as saying: "Consumption is its own reward for Production"—meaning that without production, the U.S 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 U.S 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. 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 U.S stock market, bond market and the U.S economy have earned him the nickname "Dr. Doom."