Search Youtube for 'Peter Schiff was right'. It's entertaining to watch the people who laughed at him in 2006.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/inflation-predic...
PAYNE: So, where are you then, Peter, with respect to inflation? Do you think this is going to be the big story of 2010?
SCHIFF: You know, look, I know inflation is going to get worse in 2010. Whether it’s going to run out of control or it’s going to take until 2011 or 2012, but I know we’re going to have a major currency crisis coming soon. It’s going to dwarf the financial crisis and it’s going to send consumer prices absolutely ballistic, as well as interest rates and unemployment.
PAYNE: And what does that mean? For people watching this show, what does that mean for the average American?
SCHIFF: It means their life is going to get a lot more difficult. It means things that they need to buy, things like food and energy, are going to be much more expensive. Ultimately, interest rates are going to rise and their entire standard of living is going to plunge.
And I’m hoping the government doesn’t respond to this inflation with price controls because that’s going to make it even worse. Now, you’re going to be waiting in long lines to get basic food items or to get energy because there’s going to be shortages. People might be going to the black market.
PAYNE: You’re talking you’re talking Zimbabwe, Weimar, Germany — I mean, you’re really talking about something like that actually happening in this country.
SCHIFF: It will happen if we don’t change policies. There is still time to change.
PAYNE: Right.
SCHIFF: I mean, I’m running for the United States Senate, so I can try to change that myself. But if we don’t reverse course, if we continue to stimulate, then we will end up with hyperinflation and it will be like Zimbabwe.
Peter Schiff's focus is long term trends. He's constantly saying it's impossible to forecast exactly when the bottom will drop out. Just that it will if we continue down QE infinity.
That seems sensible. How can endless money printing end in anything but inflation?
"How can endless money printing end in anything but inflation?"
Because it's not really "endless" or "infinite"? If you want to be taken seriously engage with the real policy of QE, not some caricature. Seriously, it's not hard to find explanations of why there's below average inflation despite a tripling of the money supply.
Sure, if we continue QE when the conditions on which QE is premised go away, that would be expected to produce potentially substantial inflation. But the reason QE is continuing is the existence of precisely the conditions (with regard to extensions of credit and resulting demand) that indicate that QE will not cause inflation. Were those situations to end, QE would be terminated, since the entire reason that QE is being done would no longer exist.
> That seems sensible.
To the extent that it is sensible, it is irrelevant to the real world, since the policy isn't "QE forever ignoring actual conditions relevant to inflation". To the extent that it is a criticism of actual real-world policy, it is not sensible.
> How can endless money printing end in anything but inflation?
Quite easily.
First, money printing can fail to lead to increases in the effective money supply if banks destroy money but not extending credit as existing credit is paid off in a quantity which offsets the increase in the money supply that would be expected due to printing. (This is basically the QE situation.)
Second, even beyond that, expanding the money supply that is actually chasing goods and services isn't expected to lead to inflation if the rate at which the supply expands is less than or equal to the rate at which new goods and services for it to chase are created. So, depending on the rate of money creation, increases to the money supply can continue forever without any expectation of inflation. (This is why, if you don't want deflation and don't have declining production, you need some money supply growth under normal conditions.)
The Fed is printing lots of money. (And so is China and Europe)
The money supply is growing much faster than usual.
That can lead to hyper-inflation.
Would I talk with his style and confidence? No. Should you flat out ignore what he says? No