Ron Paul advisor predicted the economic crisis two years ago

The Republicans and Democrats both share the blame for the economic mess. The truth is, everyone in D.C. knew that it was just a matter of time before the shit hit the fan, but no one wanted to stop the party.

We should vote the lot of them out. But I’ve got a good would-be candidate I’d like to nominate to fill at least one of their seats –- former Ron Paul economic advisor Peter Schiff, the president of the brokerage firm Euro Pacific Capital.

When others were gorging themselves at the all-you-can-eat buffet of reckless American consumption, Schiff cautioned that it was “phony wealth” that we were creating in this country, and that sooner or later we’d have to pay the price.

In a video of Schiff shot two years ago, he warns very presciently, “we have too much consumption and borrowing, and not enough manufacturing and saving.” A long recession, he said, was inevitable.

“Rather than the recession being resisted, it should be embraced. The disease is all this debt financed consumption.”  – Peter Schiff

And as you might imagine, when it comes to the $700 billion bailout — or, as politicians have begun calling it, “rescue” — he doesn’t agree with either Obama or McCain. You can hear for yourself in this interview, in which Schiff predicts that the plan will basically turn America into the next Zimbabwe.

It is interesting, though, that Schiff blames the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve for creating the financial meltdown, while he defends the role of the free market.

Of course, it is free market fundamentalism such as Schiff’s that resisted “government intervention” in the form of regulation and led us into this mess to begin with. Hmmm.

Maybe Schiff is not as perfect a candidate as he is prescient an economist.