Interview with my stock broker

http://www.financialsense.com/transcriptions/2007/0310.html

I heard this online a week ago and now the transcript is up. I would disagree slightly with Peter Schiff's analysis as to why things did not progress from 1950 until now in the miraculous way they did from 1900 to the 1950s for the average American household. He cannot admit this because it is anathema to his libertarian Austrian School economic world view. But the fact of the matter is that it was around 1950 that the U.S. government began to practice one-way "free trade" with the rest of the world through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. We lowered practically ALL our trade barriers while other countries continued to practice mercantilism. China is THE classic example of this right now and Japan was 20 years ago. In fact, Japan STILL IS mercantilistic, but we just sort of accept it now. Remember about 20 years ago when Boone Pickens went on a crusade against the Japanese "keiretsu" system of cartelized ownership of their corporate structure? You don't hear a peep out of him on that today just as you do not see Ross Perot get out the flip charts and discuss the deficits and how they are destroying us.

Boone is too busy making billions with his hedge fund while Ross apparently is abiding by some sort of "Omerta" deal he struck with the Bush Crime Family in order to save his life or to prevent his daughter's wedding from being sabotaged (that was one of the only things he mentioned specifically back when all the threats emerged against him in 1992).