By John Mauldin April 10, 2020 “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. … A steady rate of monetary growth at a moderate level can provide a framework under which a [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Postcards from the Frontline - 03-30-2020
By John Mauldin March 27, 2020 Unprecedented events are happening so fast, I barely know where to start. But let’s begin with a small one, noticeable perhaps only to me. Over the years I’ve received thousands of reader emails responding to my letters. I read and appreciate them all, even the [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Coronavirus is Not an Emergency. It’s a War. - 03-20-2020
By John Mauldin March 19, 2020 This is a short midweek note, something I haven’t done for years. But as we all know, these are very special and difficult times. Below, I’ll give you two links. They describe the nature of the new coronavirus pandemic and its potential consequences. I have run [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: COVID-19: A Crisis the Fed Can’t Fix - 03-2-2020
By John Mauldin February 28, 2020 For the last 3+ years, I have maintained it would take an “exogenous” event to send the United States into recession. Historically suboptimal growth? Sure, but sub-3% growth isn’t a recession. The coronavirus obviously qualifies as an exogenous event. But [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Decade of Living Dangerously, Part 2 - 01-13-2020
By John Mauldin January 10, 2020 If living dangerously is your goal, just keep adding reasonable, manageable, prudent risks. Eventually they’ll add up to serious danger. Hyman Minsky showed how stability leads to instability. Humans have a way of reinterpreting stable periods that seemingly [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Decade of Living Dangerously, Part 1 - 01-6-2020
By John Mauldin January 3, 2020 Welcome to the 2020s. Some weren’t sure we would make it this far, but we did. Now we face a new decade and new challenges. How we handle them will determine what kind of conversation we have in 2030. This concern for the future is one of the things that [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Slowing but Not Stopping (Yet) - 11-11-2019
By John Mauldin November 8, 2019 If you are a computer (other than the newest experimental quantum ones), your world is entirely binary. Everything is some combination of zeroes and ones. The machines can do marvelous things with those two digits but they have limits. We humans don’t have to [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Decoding the Fed - 10-21-2019
By John Mauldin October 18, 2019 “In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Our Nuts are in Danger - 10-14-2019
By John Mauldin October 11, 2019 Life would be so much easier if we didn’t have to worry about our financial futures. Though I suppose we don’t have to worry. Animals don’t. Squirrels instinctively store away nuts and thus live through winter without much thought. We humans have retirement [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Black Hole Investing - 09-16-2019
By John Mauldin September 13, 2019 Scientists say the rules change in a cosmic “black hole” at what astrophysicists call the event horizon. How do they know that? Not by observation, since what happens in there is, by definition, un-seeable. They infer it from the surroundings, which say that [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Dalio’s Analogue and Mauldin’s Commentary - 09-9-2019
By John Mauldin September 6, 2019 “The best way out is always through.” - Robert Frost “History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” - Mark Twain It will not shock you when I say we live in confusing times. Odd, seemingly inconsistent events and decisions don’t bring the [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Volatile Year Coming - 09-3-2019
By John Mauldin August 30, 2019 We have reached Labor Day weekend which, in the US, is a holiday for honoring work and workers. If you’re a Baby Boomer like me, you also grew up knowing school was about to start again. We didn’t do the mid-August thing back then. The first day of school was the [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: Digging a Hole to China - 08-26-2019
By John Mauldin August 23, 2019 Good news: The trade war is over. No, it’s getting worse. Or maybe it is ending but it could start again tomorrow. Confused? All of the above were true at various points in the last few weeks. Markets bounced around in reaction. And we are still no closer to [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: What I Learned at Camp Kotok - 08-19-2019
By John Mauldin August 16, 2019 I am back from my 14th annual Maine fishing camp and the mood was decidedly different this year. The private event at Leen’s Lodge is generally called Camp Kotok in honor of David Kotok of Cumberland Advisors who started these outings many years ago. CNBC and [...]Read More >
Thoughts from the Frontline: An Opportunity in the Chaos - 08-5-2019
By John Mauldin August 2, 2019 One reason the economy is so fascinating is the way things just… happen. Growth blossoms if everyone just follows their own incentives and nothing gets in the way. The courage, vision and passion of entrepreneurs and those who risk their money backing them is one [...]Read More >