Commodities: Peter Schiff - Financial Advisor?

It's funny to hear some of Peter Schiff's detractors attempt to make him seem fooish in the light of his growing popularity, as he predicted way ahead of time the market meltdown and the collapse in the real estate market.

Now that investors have started flocking to him for advice, every move he makes that wasn't correct as far as the timing goes, is being presented as evidence that he doesn't understand what's going on.

While that's not a true assessment of his situation, as market timing is known to be a foolish way to think of investing in the first place, and I doubt Schiff has attempted to do that with those looking to him for advice.

What has been the financial advice given by Schiff? Get out of the U.S. dollar and put it into other currencies like the Singapore dollar and Swiss franc. He's also advocated buying precious metals and foreign stocks which pay a dividend, especially commodities focused companies.

Already some of that investment advice is being confirmed, as gold and silver are starting to break out, and the US dollar struggling to hold its strength.

One thing that Schiff does seem to have not been able to project (but neither has anyone else), is the period of time it would take for companies and funds to deleverage and the length of the forced liquidation time period.

That, more than anything, was the major reason behind some of the length of time it has taken for these projections to happen.

For example, the US dollar has been artificially kept high, as people thought it was because it was considered a haven for their money. I don't think that's the case at all. What it was was funds had to divest of much of their commodity holdings in order to raise hard to find cash. That was a cause of gold prices being held down when the usual trend would be to be the place of safety it usually is, which would have caused gold prices to surge.

Now that it seems much of the forced liquidation period is behind some big funds, they are starting to put their money back into gold, and the price of gold has responded accordingly.

What has been the explantion of Schiff concerning some of his advice that seems to have been vastly wrong? Schiff said that he is able to see things clearly in advance, and so when he says what he says, things may not happen right away, and take longer to pan out.

Is this just a failed investment advisor making excuses? I don't think so. When you are an expert on macro economics, you do see the big picture much clearer than the usual investment advisor, and so could definitely make the proper assessment without nailing down the time frame.

That's why investors must take all advice from a financial advisor with a long time frame in mind. There's no doubt the U.S dollar will collapse in price. There's no doubt that inflation in the U.S. will soar as billions, and even trillions, is being committed to horrendous bailouts of poorly run companies in the name of "being too big to fail."

Someone will have to pay for those bailouts, and since foreign countries are seeing the imminent fall of the US dollar, they're not going to buy any type of Treasury bond to shore up the people of the United States at the expense of their own.

American consumers have stopped spending, and so to invest in America's debt without getting anything in return through consumer spending on their products isn't going to happen. At least it isn't going to happen the way it has in the past.

So as far as Peter Schiff goes and his investment vehicle Euro Pacific Capital, he's working on getting a license to be a investment advisor. He's been a broker inthe past, but he want to be an active manage of his clients' money.

Already Schiff has hired analysts through Euro Pacific Capital to start doing their own independent research.

This could be a very opportune time for Schiff, as along with Jim Rogers, he probably understands the overall macro economic situation as well as anybody, and over the next several years it should play to his knowledge and strengths.

So now that Peter Schiff is becoming a significant financial celebrity, where is he going to go from here?

You could imaging "Peter insurance," "Schiff capital, financial advisor, investment advisor, Schiff's financial services. Who knows?

One thing for sure, he had the macro economic picture almost completely right. The only legitimate complaint is the short term picture stood up longer than Schiff expected, and so his detractors and competitors are trying to drive that wedge between Schiff and potential clients, as they swarm to him and away from them for advice ... and their dollars.

If Schiff does this right, he could very well become a financial household name similar to Warren Buffett. But he'll have to prove himself over the long term, and if he can keep his short term projections under discipline, he should do very well for investors over the long term.

This isn't the last we've heard from Peter Schiff or Euro Pacific Capital. Commodities will continue on their bull run, and those running with certain of those commodities should do great in the future.