Mauldin Newsletters

Interview with Steve Forbes

2013-12-07T20:20:00+00:00

I'm not certain how many interviews I've done over the last decade. Hundreds? I know it is a lot. There are some interviewers who can somehow tease out what you really have in you. Tom Keene at Bloomberg, for instance, forces you to bring your A game, at whatever level you play. He brings it out of you. You know that he is smarter than you will ever be and that you should really be asking him the questions. Except that you're not smart enough to ask the questions. I have to confess that every...

Euthanasia of the Economy?

2013-12-03T23:53:00+00:00

Today's Outside the Box comes to us from my good friend and business partner Niels Jensen of Absolute Return Partners in London. Niels gives us an excellent summary of how QE has affected the global economy (and how it hasn't). I have found myself paraphrasing Niels all week. I also want to call to your attention an interview first posted at ZeroHedge between my friends Chris Whalen and David Kotok. This is an inside-baseball view of a not-so-minor issue involving central banks and ZIRP....

Arsonists Running the Fire Brigade

2013-11-30T14:19:00+00:00

The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake. – Alan Greenspan If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid. – John Maynard Keynes And He spoke a parable to them: "Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch?" – Luke 6:39-40 Six years ago I hosted my...

An Open Letter to the FOMC: Recognizing the Valuation Bubble In Equities

2013-11-27T18:25:00+00:00

In today's Outside the Box, my friend John Hussman of Hussman Strategic Advisors addresses the members of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Federal Reserve committee that makes decisions about interest rates and national monetary policy. The Fed has been notoriously clueless about bubbles, particularly in the run-up to the Great Recession, and so John would like to help them recognize the currently inflating bubble in equities. He leads off with the key point that when the Financial...

Game of Thrones – European Style

2013-11-24T13:44:00+00:00

In 2009-10 it seemed like this letter was all Europe all the time. There was a never-ending crisis from one corner of the Continent to the other. That time seems to have slowly faded from our collective consciousness, but the Eurozone crisis is not over, and it will not end quickly or soon. Even if it seems to unfold in slow motion – like the slow build-up in a Game of Thrones storyline to violent internecine clashes followed by more slow plot developments but never any real resolution, the...

A Limited Central Bank

2013-11-20T18:48:00+00:00

This week’s Outside the Box is unusual, even for a letter that is noted for its unusual offerings. It is a speech from last week by Charles I. Plosser, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia at (surprisingly to me) the Cato Institute’s 31st Annual Monetary Conference, Washington, DC. I suppose that if Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher had delivered this speech I would not be terribly surprised. I suspect there are some other Federal Reserve officials here and there whoare...

The Unintended Consequences of ZIRP

2013-11-17T14:09:00+00:00

Yellen's coronation was this week. Art Cashin mused that it was a wonder some senator did not bring her a corsage: it was that type of confirmation hearing. There were a few interesting questions and answers, but by and large we heard what we already knew. And what we know is that monetary policy is going to be aggressively biased to the easy side for years, or at least that is the current plan. Far more revealing than the testimony we heard on Thursday were the two very important papers that...

The Language of Inflation

2013-11-12T14:14:00+00:00

My good friend Dylan Grice takes a very interesting tack in the latest issue of his Edelweiss Journal, today's Outside the Box. Rather than attacking our macroeconomic problems directly with economic tools, he approaches them from the point of view of what he calls a "subtle but significant devaluation of language." Now, you might think that the words we use to describe and understand the economy are not in themselves very powerful economic determinants, but Dylan lays out a convincing case...

What Would Yellen Do?

2013-11-10T13:45:00+00:00

The US Senate Banking Committee will hold hearings on Thursday, November 14, on the nomination of Janet Yellen for Federal Reserve chair. There will be the usual softball questions, for example, "Do you think high unemployment is a problem in the United States and if so what do you intend to do about it?" (which allows a senator to express his concern over unemployment and for the nominee to agree that it's a problem). Or the always popular question, "What is the basis under which you would...

Jonathan Tepper on Obamacare

2013-11-05T23:44:00+00:00

The Affordable Care Act is the single most contentious political action of my lifetime since the Vietnam War. It touches everyone in one way or another, and often in profoundly personal ways. Some see it is a godsend and others as an arrow aimed directly at the heart of the American experiment. Some will experience healthcare that is now available for themselves and their families for the first time, while others will experience the loss of a system that had served them well. The story in the...