Peter Schiff and Stephen Leeb debate President Elect Barack Obama’s stimulus plan and current economic crisis on CNN’s ‘On Your Money’ on January 10, 2009.

Here are some highlights from the exchange:

HOST: Stephen’s got a perspective that we may have bottomed out in some parts of the economy and that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. You think that the light at the end of that tunnel is probably still a train?

SCHIFF: Exactly, It’s a Big Train. Look, we have a serious serious problem and unfortunately the government is making it worse. The reason we’re in so much trouble is simply that we borrowed and spent too much money….We need to retrench. We need to reduce our spending and increase our savings. What Barack Obama’s trying to do is exactly the opposite. He’s trying to force-feed more borrowing and spending.

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HOST: Wrap up where you think we’re going and what the dangers are here.

SCHIFF: What’s gonna happen now is that instead of allowing the free market to function, to rebalance this economy, the government is gonna force us deeper and deeper into debt. They’re gonna print more money and the crisis they are setting up now is gonna be a major run on the US Dollar. The dollar’s gonna plunge and that’s gonna send interest rates and consumer prices literally through the roof in this country. And, this is going to be an inflationary depression that is an exact consequence of the government.

LEEB:  Two major examples are the soviet Unon and Germany. Both of those economies moved towards totalianarism on the back of severe depressions.I’m willing to tolerate some government now to avoid a dictator like Hitler later on.

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