Gold Bug Schiff Counters Goldman’s ‘Slam-Dunk Sell’ Gold Call

Peter Schiff lays an iPod-sized bar valued at about $40,000 on the sun room floor of his Connecticut mansion, and calculates it would cost about $250,000 for each floor tile to pave the room with gold.

He shows off $50 gold chips, to be used when paper money becomes worthless, a prediction repeated on his daily two-hour radio show broadcast from his basement studio to 68 stations in 30 states and 50,000 listeners online. The unabashed gold bug’s Euro Pacific Capital Inc. manages a $20 million mutual fund that invests in stocks related to the metal and lost 6.4 percent since it began in July. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Gold and Silver Index slid 1.5 percent in the same period.

He predicts bullion will reverse its 21 percent year-to-date decline and probably surge 52 percent to reach a record $2,000 an ounce within a year. That’s just the beginning: Schiff said he would “be amazed” if the U.S. dollar didn’t collapse and gold failed to skyrocket before President Barack Obama leaves office in 2017.