Euro Capital President Peter Schiff believes Americans should return to a basic economy that grows based on savings, not consumer credit.

“We have to produce more and consume less,” Schiff told The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart.

“We’re buying stuff with money from the Chinese, the Japanese. If we really want to consume, we have to start making stuff again.”

To help achieve that end, Schiff hints he may enter the political arena.

“I am considering, potentially, running for the Senate in my home state of Connecticut,” he says. “The most attractive part of that would be sending Chris Dodd home.”

“If people understood how much trouble the country is in, they might actually blame the people who created this problem — the people in Washington and a lot of the people on Wall Street,” Schiff observes.

The fundamental problems with the economy are getting worse, not better, Schiff says.

“The reason the economy is in trouble is because of all the prior government stimulus,” Schiff says, adding that “Barack Obama and Bernanke are doing exactly what Bush and Greenspan did, only worse.”

Washington, Schiff says, should have let all the financial institutions that made bad loan fail. “Obama says credit is the lifeblood of the economy, but it’s not the lifeblood. It’s the cancer,” he says.

When asked how serious Schiff is about running for office, his brother Andrew told Reuters, “We’re seeing how Peter fits in with the national Republicans and whether they would actively support a candidate of Peter’s persuasion.”