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Euro Pacific Capital CEO and chief global strategist Peter Schiff warned the coronavirus recession would be worse than the 2008 financial crisis. Furthermore, in a terrifying tweet Wednesday, the US dollar bear and gold bull diagnosed the underlying problem in both crises.
He argued the coronavirus pandemic and the crashing housing market were the pins that popped debt bubbles. But this time, the debt bubble is much bigger than last time. So the crisis is likely to get much worse.
“The 2008 financial crisis started with housing prices falling. The 2020 financial crisis will start because of the @Coronavirus. In each case it’s the debt bubbles that cause the crisis, not the pins that pop them. Since there is far more debt now, this crisis will be far worse!,” according to Schiff’s tweet.
Now a word about Peter Schiff. Many with interest in the cryptocurrency industry know him as an ultra bitcoin bear and crypto hater. He doesn’t believe Bitcoin is a safe haven asset in times of uncertainty. He frequently taunts bitcoin investors and crypto traders on Twitter.
Peter Schiff Was Right About The 2008 Financial Crisis
For example, Schiff likes to bash Bitcoin:
Bitcoin is no longer a non-correlated asset. It’s positively correlated to risk assets like equities, and negatively correlated to safe-haven assets like Gold. When risk assets go down, Bitcoin goes down more. But when risk assets go up, Bitcoin goes up less. No value in that.
But something else to know about Peter Schiff – He predicted the 2008 financial crisis. For two years from 2006 through 2007, he was making the cable news rounds warning it would happen. He also described in precise detail exactly how it would unfold.
The rest of the financial world was in the throes of euphoria. CNBC anchors literally laughed at him on television. People mockingly called him Dr. Doom, an epithet which he accepted, and even posed with a Grim Reaper’s scythe for a feature story.
So whether you agree with Peter Schiff’s take on bitcoin and cryptocurrency or not, you might want to listen to him when he intones on the macro business cycle. He’s certainly earned a high degree of credibility when he discusses these matters.
Schiff is Right About Debt Conditions Ahead of A 2020 Recession
And the facts certainly back up his assessment of the situation, if not his conclusions about how it unfolds. We do face record debts at the corporate, consumer, housing, government, and global levels.
The coronavirus shock threatens to upend the oil industry because of the levels of corporate debt these companies have taken on during the good years when they should have been saving and shoring up. It’s so bad the White House is making moves to bail them out.
Meanwhile, overall corporate debt sits at a record $10 trillion, worse than it was ahead of the financial crisis that caused the Great Recession in 2008.
US consumer debt is also at a record high, vaulting above pre-2008 crash levels. Total US mortgage debt is also at an all-time high. Not to sound like a broken record here, but government debt is also at an all-time high. And so is total worldwide debt. So Peter Schiff is not wrong about the conditions that he says will lead to a worse recession than the one in 2008.