Liberty Forum Lands at Crowne Plaza

This weekend, Free Staters and Liberty lovers alike will descend on Nashua for the 5th Annual Liberty Forum, where like-minded people will gather to discuss issues of the day that matter most to them.

Like how the economic end is near (again.)

Keynote speaker Friday is economist Peter Schiff, CEO of Connecticut-based Euro Pacific Capital Inc., who will talk about the current economic business cycle (a sham), what mistakes have been made (too many to count), what to expect next (something worse than the last collapse), and what you can do to prepare (buy gold, vote for Ron Paul, invest in foreign currency).

As you may have guessed, if you're looking for someone to paint a rosy picture of the country's gradual economic recovery since 2008, Schiff is not your guy.

"The future is bleak," said Schiff in a recent phone interview with Nashua Patch.

It helps to know that Schiff's claim to fame is predicting with what he terms "great accuracy" the economic collapse, from soup to nuts, long before the bottom dropped out, citing this YouTube video of his 2006 speech during the Western Regional Mortgage Bankers Conference in Las Vegas as a prime example of his spot-on analysis, during a time when few others were sounding the alarm.

If he sounds a little frustrated over what's happened since then, well, he is.

"People who did not see this crisis coming didn't understand the problem with U.S. economy back then. Now, instead of reexamining their ideology in the aftermath of 2008, and instead of looking to those who got it right – like myself – they dismiss people like me as kooks," Schiff said.

"I said there's a fire coming, and I said exactly where it started and what house it started in, down to the room – I knew the details. They didn't want to look into that. When Congress investigated the causes of the financial crisis, I tried for months to get them to call me as a witness. You think if they are trying to find out why they had a crisis, they might want to talk to the guy who predicted it – who wrote a book about it," Schiff said.

He calls the Congressional investigation a "sham," and notes that the same people who ridiculed his doomsday predictions back then, ignore him now. 

"These are the same people who devised a cure which was based on stimulus and bail outs; they're wrong on all counts. We're not recovering now, we're sicker than we were before," Schiff said.

If our current economic condition is a disease, then the government is exascerbating it, Schiff said.

"Those saying everything is getting better are wrong. The statistics say we're getting better, but that's because they're measuring the wrong things –  consumption and spending – and they're ignoring the debt," Schiff said.

He says our current economy is unsound, and sees another huge collapse on the horizon, and blames the persistence of low interest rates and lack of fiscal responsibility.

"The government is price fixing, and it's way below the price the market would choose. There are negative consequences for the economy," said Schiff.

"It should be painful to recover from the kind of economic collapse we've suffered, but instead of letting the market correct itself, the fed is creating a false sense of recovery," Schiff said.

Schiff says we as a culture are addicted to spending money we don't have, buying things we can't afford using credit cards with interest rates too low to heal a broken economic system. There's no reset button under the current system, which leaves us fundamentally bankrupt, from our financial foundation to our core, says Schiff.

People with investments and money markets have the most to lose when the bottom drops out again, says Schiff – and it's not a question of "if" but rather "when."

"If the government had gotten out of way and let the market correct itself, we would be better now. But because the government didn't let that happen, because they chose stimulus and bailouts, the worst isn't over; when this novacain wears off, our pain will be worse," Schiff said.

"We're all high on herion. We want to be healthy, but nobody wants to go into rehab and nobody wants to go through the pain of withdrawal. It will be painful. That's what it will take, but nobody – not the government and not the people – are willing to go through it, and correct this economy," Schiff said.

Links for registration Liberty Forum and a complete weekend schedule can be found here. Ticket prices range from $18-$209 depending on workshop and meal options.

Panels

• Running for Office in the Free State
• Agora in the Free State
• Civil Disobedience in the Free State
• 2011-12 Liberty Legislative efforts in the Free State

Mini Sessions

• How to deal with the police
• How to explain the property tax rate.
• What goes on a town meeting?
• Ok I moved... How do I...?
• Getting a Job in NH.