Peter Schiff, the CEO and chief global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., has said that we, as Americans, are not "borrowing ourselves rich" as the majority believes.  In fact, as with all borrowing, it's only making us broke.

Schiff hasn't minced words much and he continues to say that the upcoming recession is a "done deal." Schiff also implores us to not be fooled by the optimism in the media surrounding events such as the trade war and a stock market rally.  Neither will prevent the coming recession.  Our debt load has ensured we will live through another Great Depression. And this next one will be much worse.

Right now, we are being bombarded by positive economic news, for the most part. But most Americans are oblivious to what's going on right underneath the surface.  Despite the recent economic growth, there is plenty of economic data to back up Schiff's assessment of the current state of the United States' and the global economy.  In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff said that while the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) number might look pretty good, the growth is unsustainable because it's all built on debt.

Schiff puts the GDP numbers into perspective, and considering the debt load the U.S. economy is burdened with, the outlook isn't all that rosy.  And of course, it's not just government debt. Household debt is also at record levels and as Schiff says, "We're not richer because of this economic growth."

"So, we had to add a lot more debt in 2018 to buy not as much growth as a much smaller amount of debt in 2005. So, the takeaway from that is this is unsustainable because the growth came at a heavy cost. We had to increase the amount of debt that we had by a lot more than the percentage that the economy grew."

"If your debt is growing faster than your economy, then you're not getting richer. You're getting poorer. You would have been better off without the debt and without the growth … We're borrowing ourselves into poverty. We're not borrowing ourselves rich. We're borrowing ourselves broke."-Peter Schiff, via Seeking Alpha

The costs of household and government debt are becoming all too real to ignore. Yet so many Americans are more than content to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the problem.  While others have simply stopped spending because they are broke and already leveraged to the point of exhaustion.

"They've [Americans] already borrowed so much money to pay for the spending of the past that they're just done. That expression, 'Shop 'till you drop,' well, maybe a lot of Americans have finally dropped and they're no longer shopping." –Peter Schiff, via Seeking Alpha

This makes far too much sense considering the "retail apocalypse" we are living through right now.  This could be a horrible sign for the economy as a whole, as Americans are at the end of their rope.