Why this Market CRASH Will Be Worse Than 2008! _ Peter Schiff.mp4

What's something today that nobody is listening to? Well, basically the same thing because the same problems that I correctly observed in the years leading up to the 08 financial crisis, they're here today. It's the same problems created by the same source, only the scale is larger. The coming collapse financial crisis is much greater than what we went through in 08, 09. But the same people who couldn't see it coming back then are oblivious to it now. And they're going to have the same reaction, just like in 2008, people were saying, oh, well, nobody could have seen this coming. This just totally came out of left field, black swan, hundred year flood, right? Don't blame anybody for not knowing that this crazy thing was going to happen. Of course, ignoring all the people, myself included, who did see it coming because it was predictable. It was not a black swan. It was a garden variety swan, if you understand what to look for. And so we have another gigantic white swan that they can't see that's looming. That's much bigger because it's not just going to be a garden variety financial crisis like we had in 08, it's going to be a sovereign debt crisis. And it's not just subprime mortgage borrowers that can't pay back what they borrowed. It's the U.S. government that can't pay what it borrowed. It's going to be a currency crisis because when the U.S. government can't pay, the Fed prints. And that is going to turn the inflation problem into a potentially hyperinflation problem, but certainly a much bigger inflation problem than the large inflation problem we have right now. Inflation is the number one economic problem in the country, and it's going to get a lot worse as this crisis unfolds. I think for a lot of people, their main concern today is housing prices. What are your thoughts on the current state of the housing market? And do you feel like there's the potential for a housing market collapse? Well, the government has totally screwed up the housing market. Prices for homes have been artificially high for decades because of government subsidies. The government guarantees mortgages, and because of that, mortgages get made on much looser terms and get extended to far less creditworthy borrowers than would be the case in a free market. In a free market, down payments might be 20%, but with the government, people could buy with nothing down or 3% or very low down payments. In the free market, banks would be a lot more concerned about the ability to pay. But once the government guarantees the mortgage, no one cares if the homeowner can pay because if he doesn't pay, the government will. So this has caused a lot of excess credit to be pushed into single-family housing, condos. People have bought homes that otherwise might have rented. And so more owner-occupied housing has been built than might otherwise have been built. We might've had more multifamily, more apartments, but the government through subsidies kind of pushed everybody into home ownership and pushed up the price of homes to the point that people were really stretching to borrow a lot of money to buy homes that they really couldn't afford. And so the market has been screwed up for a long time. But what really happened during COVID to screw it up to an even greater degree was that by slashing interest rates to zero and keeping them there, mortgage rates went down into the twos and lots of people refinanced and now have these rates, super low rates that will never really exist again, locked up. People have maybe 28 years left, 25 years left on these mortgages, fixed-rate mortgages. And they're never leaving these homes because that means giving up that mortgage, which is probably their greatest asset, but also the bank's greatest liability. One of the reasons that the banking sector is in worse shape now than it was in 07, 08 is because back then they lost money on defaulting mortgages. So the mortgages that didn't default, they were fine. It was only when the borrowers defaulted where it was a problem. And that was a big problem for a lot of banks. But today it's not about default. It's about every single mortgage that the bank owns because it's losing money on even the good mortgages because they're underwater. They have a mortgage that pays them three or 4%, but the Fed funds rate is over 5%. Now, my understanding with some of those loans, banks flip them. So if they issued a loan at 3%, they're only holding onto it for a few months. And some banks hold onto them. Somebody owns that mortgage and is underwater and is taking a loss, but banks still own a lot of mortgage debt, a lot of mortgage-backed securities, a lot of treasury debt. All that is underwater. I mean, these banks are all insolvent, including the big, too-big-to-fail banks. But the government lets them pretend they're not by not having to mark to market these massive losses because they hide under the assumption that they're going to hold these investments to maturity, these mortgages and these bonds. But they may not have that luxury if their customers need their money for whatever reason. They're not going to have it because they've lost it in the bond market. But the other part of your question, so you have all of these homeowners now that have locked in these low mortgages. They're not moving. That means those houses are really off the market. And if you want to buy a house now, there's not a lot of inventory and there's not a lot of new construction because it costs a lot to build with rising material costs, rising labor costs. And so people are stuck. Home prices are not falling, which they normally would with a big rise in interest rates. Like we've seen, mortgage rates have gone from 3% to 8%. You would expect a big drop in home prices, but that hasn't happened because the homes are just not for sale. So who should buy a home today? Well, I mean, it depends on your circumstances and where the home is located. But for a lot of people, and this has been the case for a long time, renting is a better option. Now, another thing that the government has done to push people into home ownership, which has helped screw up the market, is the tax consequences. The government gives you a tax write-off. If you buy a home, you can deduct your mortgage interest, but you can't deduct your rent if you rent a home. I mean, sometimes there's a renter's credit, some local governments give that, but there's much bigger government subsidies for buying a home rather than renting. And so that's caused people who might otherwise have been better off renting to buy instead because they're taking into account the tax benefits. But in the real economy, they should be renting. But in the economy created by government, they end up buying. But, you know, that distorts the market and it leads to a less optimal decision because it's all based on taxation. A lot of people don't itemize their deductions now, they take a standard deduction. And so it doesn't matter that the mortgage interest is tax deductible, they don't get the deduction. You know, depending on, again, your circumstances, a lot of people are better off renting. A lot of people who own homes, the only reason they're better off staying where they are is because their mortgage rate is so low. Their mortgage rate may be so low that if they sold their home and rented, their rent would be higher than what their current mortgage is. Now, they are stuck with maintenance, insurance, taxes, all these costs are going up. So it's not like the cost of home ownership isn't rising with inflation. It is making it even harder for people to buy a home because not only do you have to pay these inflated prices and then borrow at, you know, seven, 8%, but you have to pay insurance costs that have basically doubled over the last few years. You have to pay much higher maintenance costs. You have to pay higher local property taxes. I mean, everything related to buying a home is a lot more expensive. And of course, if you don't buy a home, if you rent, rents have gone way up and there's no end in sight. They're going to keep on rising. What you explained has been exactly my experience. I bought a home a couple of years ago and I got like a 2.8% rate. And if I were to get that same loan, well, a different loan, but at the same price of the house, it would be about 80% more. And so I have no incentive whatsoever to sell this house, probably going to hold onto it forever. And I know if I could pay off the home, I wouldn't do it because I can get 5% in a bank and a high yield savings account. Why would you take any money that you have and pay off a sub 3% mortgage? Plus you get the tax write-off potentially for that mortgage. So the real effective cost is probably below two. Why would you do that? Well, yeah, you could take that exact same money, put it in the bank, get 5% and then use that to pay your mortgage and have money left over. Or you could do something more productive than a 5% investment. You could buy dividend paying stocks. Let's say the ones that we manage in our portfolios, a lot of dividend paying stocks are paying 7, 8, 9, 10%. Plus the stocks could appreciate over time. They probably will. So instead of taking that money and paying off your mortgage, buy other assets. Worst case scenario, you could always rent out the house because you could probably charge in rent more than you're paying in mortgage. So let your tenant pay your mortgage for you and keep the difference. Now, of course, you do have to pay property taxes, maintenance insurance, but you can build all that into the rent. So then what are your predictions for the future of the housing market? As someone who's looking and exploring maybe buying another house, it's hard for me to even justify because I've only really seen when I have been in the market really low rates. When I see now what my monthly payment would be, I'm like, this is crazy. You lose money on rents. It just doesn't financially make sense. Well, I mean, look, you look like a young guy. I mean, you are a young guy. I mean, are you married? Do you have kids? I'm not married. I don't have kids. So what do you need a house for? Why do I need another house? Or any house? Why don't you just rent? Well, because I got a 2.874% and it appreciated. So it ended up being- Right. That was a government subsidy. You never should have even got a rate that low. The Fed gave you that gift. But generally, when you're young and have no real roots anywhere, you don't know where you may end up settling down, if you may settle down, who you're going to marry, how many kids you're going to have, if you're going to have kids. Those are a lot of things that are important when it comes to planting roots and buying a home. But one of the benefits of being young and being single is you can kind of play it by ear and go wherever the wind blows you. And why do you want to be tied down to a home? Sure, you can sell your home at a gain right now, but the market could change. You think somebody could buy a house today and it's down. And it could take you months, maybe years to sell a house unless you're really willing to move the price down. Whereas if you're young, I mean, if you're single and you're renting, I mean, you can get out of a lease very easily. You get a job offer in another city, you meet a girl in another city, another country, and you can go. So it's like renting has a lot of perks when you're single. And then you don't need a lot of space. I mean, you don't have the wife and kids. Maybe do you have a pet? No, I rent out four rooms. He rents out all of his rooms. Oh, so you own your own house, but you're renting out all the rooms. Yeah, he just earns investment for his house. He bought it as an investment. So you can rent out your room and then you could leave and go where you want and just keep it as a... That's a little bit different when you're talking about it as a cash flowing investment. And people have done that. Sometimes college kids, their parents, well, let's buy a place and you can get some roommates and we'll make a little bit of money. But there are a lot of people that were pressed into home ownership by overzealous realtors who make a big commission. And then the idea that, oh yeah, I'm going to get rich home. Realtors kind of perverted the American dream into home ownership. Like that's the American dream. Buy a home and get rich as if the home makes you rich. Well, I think for a lot of people though, that's their only means of saving. It's not really saving. A house... It's a forced savings account for people who are bad with money. A house depletes your savings. It's a money pit. Houses are expensive. How much money I spend on my Connecticut house. It's crazy the amount of money that a house costs you. Now people get bailed out because they think, oh, the house appreciates. Not always. It's inflation really. I mean, that's doing it. And all that's happening is the land is keeping pace, but houses don't. I mean, even if somebody tells you, oh, here's this house that I sold for a million dollars and I bought it whatever 10, 20 years ago for $500,000. If you think about all the money they put into that house over that period of time, they may not have made any money. A lot of the houses too that were bought back then, if you don't redo the kitchens, redo the bathroom, put on a new roof, your audio visual systems are all obsolete. The wiring. I mean, a lot of stuff has to be brought up to date in order to sell it for the million dollars. A lot of money was spent. I mean, a lot of these houses too, if they weren't updated over the years, they're considered a teardown. What does that mean? A teardown? People say, well, my house is a teardown means a house that was once brand new and had a lot of value now has zero value. It's going to be torn down. The only thing that has value is the land itself. The house is worthless. Well, I think a lot of people make the argument and they backdate it and they say, well, over the last 60 years, housing prices have appreciated, you know, after inflation, one to 3%. And if I'm not saving any money anyway, but I'm forced to pay down the mortgage after those 30 years, I have money sitting here. It doesn't mean it's a better investment than the S&P. Yeah. I mean, if you're so reckless and like the only way I'm going to save, if I have a mortgage, I have to pay down, but you know, you can take the money. I used to tell people during the housing bubble days, look, just, you know, if you can rent for cheaper than rent and take all the money you save and invest it, you know, open up a brokerage account, invest the money. Don't just spend it out. Don't just, you know, buy a fancier car or take more vacations with the money you save by renting invest that money, right. In an actual investment, you know, and, but inflation too has actually been higher than the CPI. So when people say housing has done two or 3% more than inflation, that's because we're not really counting all the inflation. So it's actually been higher. But, you know, if you look at what's happened to the dollar, you know, ever since we've had the fed, when the fed came in at 1913, you only needed $20 to buy an ounce of gold. Now you need almost $2,400 to buy an ounce of gold. So over that hundred plus years, the dollar's lost almost 99 and a half percent of its value. I mean, so everything is going to cost 20 times more when the dollar is 99% less valuable. You know, so in terms of gold houses, you know, may not be any more expensive than they were a hundred years ago, as far as how much gold you need to buy them. Although, you know, now we're building bigger houses than we built back then more square feet, you know, more bathrooms, stuff like that. So there's more that goes into them than, than did back then. Do you see housing prices going down? In some markets, I think they will go down even in nominal terms, but I think that there's going to be so much inflation that's going to continue to be created. It's going to be difficult to see a meaningful reduction in nominal housing prices, but in real terms, right, in terms, again, in terms of an ounce of gold, how many ounces will you need to buy the average home? There, I think you can see a crash in home prices. And I think you might be able to see the decline by just comparing the price of a house to what you pay for groceries, what you pay for electricity, what, you know, there you might see, gee, the house is actually a lot cheaper now compared to my grocery bill. But it doesn't mean that it's actually gone down.