John Mauldin

The human brain excels at taking shortcuts. Processing all the information our senses collect takes a lot of energy, so repetitive data gets lower priority. Things we see often fade into the background so we can notice new stuff. This is where we get...

In some ways, I think it’s just entertainment. You might compare our prognosticating to what happens with NFL football. For weeks before the Super Bowl, we devoted fans will spend hours speculating on the game’s every detail. We’ll dissect the rosters, talk about each team’s strengths and weaknesses, debate game plans, and so on. Is any of this ritual necessary or useful? No, but it extends the experience and we enjoy it.

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Patrick and Robert co-edit our Macro Growth & Income Alert premium service. As I’ve explained before, for regulatory reasons (since I am registered) I do not discuss specific stocks or other securities in this letter, tending instead to stick to macroeconomic and other big-picture concepts. Patrick and Robert face no such limitations, so after we discuss the macro world, I will drop off and they will talk about how to turn our macro views into real-world investment ideas. I am proud of the team we have assembled here at Mauldin Economics and appreciate the hard work and experience they bring to our readers.

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This week Patrick discusses another aspect of globalization, one that has a direct bearing on questions of equity. He explores the technologies that allowed globalization to take hold and the new technologies that are actually allowing production to “re-shore.” I mentioned that topic in passing last week, and it turned out that one of my readers heads an organization that is focused on assisting companies in re-shoring their production back to the US. He tells me that 250,000 jobs have already returned to the US. Patrick tells us an interesting story about how this trend will continue to unfold.

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First, I want to express my shock and quiet despair over the events in Dallas this weekend. The shock comes from this actually happening in Dallas. If anything, Dallas police are accommodating and work with the community as well as any police force in the country. But this event is a reminder that tragedies don’t just happen somewhere else. All it takes is one or two lone actors, and the world of somewhere else lands on your doorstep. This sad spectacle is part and parcel of what we will be discussing today: a world where common sense and reasonable discourse are breaking down, leaving us with social outcomes that only a few years ago would have seemed impossible. As Buffalo Springfield sang, “There’s something happening here; what it is ain’t exactly clear.”

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I had that thought in mind when I asked Neil Howe to be our kick-off speaker at the Strategic Investment Conference and invited Niall Ferguson to wrap it all up three days later. As historians, they both gaze back through time to identify patterns and draw lessons. They were the bookends who framed the wide-ranging discussions in between. They have both been very influential in helping me develop my understanding of the world.

As I said two weeks ago, the experts I brought to the conference, even the ones I expected to be raging bulls, were mostly bearish. The surprise was Niall Ferguson, who has become the new raging bull. That’s pretty much the one thing you can count on at my conference: surprises! But you can see that even Niall is deeply concerned about much of what is happening in the world.

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At the conclusion of my conference yesterday, I did a number of interviews and then made my way a few miles home, collapsed into my favorite chair, and thought back over the myriad of ideas, the whirlwind of friends, and the just general all-around fabulous time I had experienced over the past four days.

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