Mauldin Newsletters

Economists Are (Still) Clueless

2013-06-15T22:26:58+00:00

Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again. - John Maynard Keynes, A Tract on Monetary Reform There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance. Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have insight to appreciate the incredible wonders of the...

The Risk of Government Policies and the Rationing of Retirement

2013-06-12T00:13:18+00:00

In addition to our own, there is another conference I normally go to every spring; but sadly, I missed it this year. Rob Arnott of Research Affiliates indulges me and lets me attend the annual Research Affiliates Advisory Panel he conducts at some exclusive location (usually but not always) in Southern California, in close proximity to one or more fabulous gourmet establishments. And he is an oenophile of the first rank, a pastime that at one time in my life was a huge attraction. I now just...

Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!

2013-06-08T21:09:21+00:00

I shot an Arrow into the air It fell to earth I know not where…. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow As kids, not knowing that we were being politically incorrect on so many levels, we would shout “Geronimo!” when we were playing war or getting ready to do something reckless. (For those not familiar, Geronimo was a rather fearsome Apache chief who plagued Mexico and the American cavalry.) Sam Houston and his fellows cried, “Remember the Alamo!” as they rode down upon Santa Ana at San Jacinto. The...

Following the Fed to 50% Flops

2013-06-04T20:45:36+00:00

John Hussman is one of the savviest investing minds I know, and so I never miss his Weekly Market Comment. This week he wrote about an interesting disconnect between what investors believe about "fighting the Fed" (i.e., don't do it) and the reality of S&P 500 returns, and I've made that piece today's Outside the Box. John leads off with a provocative fact: "… the last two 50% market declines – both the 2001-2002 plunge and the 2008-2009 plunge – occurred in environments of aggressive,...

Central Bankers Gone Wild

2013-06-01T17:14:33+00:00

When Jonathan Tepper and I wrote Endgame some two years ago, the focus was on Europe, but we clearly detailed how Japan would be the true source of global volatility and instability in just a few years. “A Bug in Search of a Windshield” was the title of the chapter on Japan. This year, I wrote in my forecast issue that 2013 would be “The Year of the Windshield.” For the last two weeks we have focused on the problems facing Japan, and such is the importance of Japan to the world economy that...

Are We There Yet?

2013-05-28T21:46:27+00:00

Vitaliy Katsenelson is a modern-day American success story, the kind we need more of. He grew up in Murmansk, in the extreme northwest corner of Russia, north of the Arctic Circle and close to the Finnish border. He says he barely escaped a career in the engine rooms of Russian Navy vessels when his family wrangled a visa to emigrate to the US in 1991. He finished high school here, knocked out a BA in finance at the University of Colorado at Denver, and followed up with an MS in finance and...

The Mother of All Painted-In Corners

2013-05-25T14:47:57+00:00

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." – Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll I wrote several years ago that Japan is a bug in search of a windshield. And in January I wrote that 2013 is the Year of the Windshield. The recent volatility in...

Can Two Senators End “Too Big To Fail’?

2013-05-21T00:01:47+00:00

I am often on a panel or at dinner with Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture), and he will remark, "I am going to have to rethink my position – I agree with John, and that can't be right." While I don't share that bias, I do agree with Barry about his recent take on legislation – which might actually pass – that would deal with too-big-to-fail banks in the US. Barry's latest take on that issue is this week's Outside the Box. I have not written all that much on the topic lately, other than to say...

All Japan, All the Time

2013-05-18T12:33:52+00:00

The evils of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed until our citizens are generally and radically instructed in their cause and consequences, and silence by their authority the interested clamors and sophistry of speculating, shaving, and banking institutions. Till then we must be content to return, quo ad hoc, to the savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange of our property, for want of a stable, common measure of value, that now in use being less fixed than the beads and...

Geopolitical Journey: Europe, the Glorious and the Banal

2013-05-14T20:20:46+00:00

Standing at the edge of the old world and the beginning of the new one, at the tip of Portugal, Stratfor's George Friedman is moved by the exploits of 15th-century European explorers and dismayed by the present fear pervading the Continent that "any decisive action will tear the place apart." Europeans wreaked much havoc as they spread throughout the world, but they also "left as [their] legacy something extraordinary: a world that knew itself and all of its parts." But now, George asks,...