Thoughts from the Front Line - But mouse-friend, you are not alone In proving foresight may be vain: The best-laid schemes of Mice and Men Go oft awry, And leave us only grief and pain, For promised joy! —Robert Burns, “To a Mouse,” English translation How much inflation is okay? People have different answers. I think it should be very low, […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Interest rates—the “price of money”—have been unusually low for most of this century, particularly since the 2008 crisis but going back to Greenspan’s era. The wisest people I know differ on exactly why. Was it purely a policy choice, or the result of larger, less-controllable economic forces? I believe the answer is some of both. […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - “In many important ways, the financial crash of 2008 had never ended. It was a long crash that crippled the economy for years. The problems that caused it went almost entirely unsolved. And this financial crash was compounded by a long crash in the strength of America’s democratic institutions. When America relied on the Federal […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - You’ve heard the old stock market adage, “As goes January, so goes the year.” If so, 2022 will be a wild ride. Of course, in this context “wild” doesn’t necessarily mean a loss. But it could, and given the well-documented human tendency to buy high and sell low, actual investors could easily lag behind even […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Ranked by population, the United States is the world’s third largest country, behind China and India. But the gap is greater than the ranking implies. According to Worldometer, as of 2020 China had 1.44 billion people, India 1.38 billion, and the US 331 million. In other words, by population China is more than four times […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - If you are a booklover like me, you probably have many shelves. On some of those shelves you probably have bookends holding the books in place. They come in opposing pairs—similar but reversed. What if the COVID-era economy has bookends? I think that may be what’s happening. If you think of 2020 as the left […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Twenty-two years of tradition dictate I begin the new year by forecasting what lies ahead. Unfortunately, the future is never really knowable. “Forecast” is a polite synonym for “guess.” The better ones are informed guesses, but still inherently uncertain. The coming year is particularly uncertain. The economy could be wildly different based on how certain […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - This week is a little bit different than your usual Thoughts from the Frontline. It is Christmas Day as this is sent out, so not the time to ramble on about inflation and the markets. Instead I’ll share a story from my good friend Vitaliy Katsenelson. He immigrated to the US with his family from […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Milton Friedman famously said inflation is “always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” He was right but that short statement doesn’t fully explain how inflation works. It has other causes, too. The period in which he did his most famous research showed inflation was clearly a monetary phenomenon, but I’m not sure he would make the […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - You won’t be surprised to know I disagree with recent Federal Reserve policy choices. The Fed’s future choices are more important, though. Debating what they should do is one thing. Anticipating what they will do is critical. Today we’ll “war game” what the Fed is facing as it wrestles with inflation, growth, employment, and political […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Why do we invest? Everyone has their reasons, but funding retirement may be the most common one. Whenever the time comes, we want to relax in comfort and security. Yet this whole “retirement” idea is really quite new. For most of human history, almost everyone worked as long as they physically could, then expired soon […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a good holiday. I’m writing this issue early in the week while enroute to join family in Dallas. Today will be different and I hope you like it.   The charts and comments below are drawn from the “Clips That Matter” feature of our Over My Shoulder service. Because […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - n some simplistic economic theories, shortages never happen. Supply and demand for any particular good are always perfectly balanced in a given time and place. If you can’t get what you demand at that moment, you pay a higher price or you demand something else. But that’s theory. The real world doesn’t respond instantly, so […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - I am writing in the middle of a whirlwind week in New York. We are going to discuss what I’m learning, some takeaways from the conversations I’ve had, changes in my personal portfolio, and thoughts around the topic of the day: inflation. As well as a few random things that I have read this week. […]

Thoughts from the Front Line -   If I had to describe my last 500 letters in one word, it would be “complexity.” The older I get, the more I realize problems I once thought had reasonably straightforward solutions are, in fact, hideously complicated. That doesn’t make them unsolvable but it reduces the odds they will be. Often we start with […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - To Jerome Powell and the Fed: It’s a lesson too late for the learning, Made of sand, made of sand. In the wink of an eye, prices are rising In your hand, by your hand. Are you going away with no word of farewell, Will you leave your inflation behind? You should have tightened sooner, […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Because I believe in the division of labor, I rarely use hand tools today. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, I had two 4 x 8 pegboards on my garage wall full of tools along with my large Craftsman toolbox. I had the right tool for every job around the car, house, and yard. I worked […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - At the risk of overusing a favorite metaphor, today we’ll talk about sandpiles. My past sandpile stories focused on financial crises. The same principle holds in any complex system, though. Everything works until suddenly it doesn’t. As Minsky said, stability breeds instability. Then one additional grain of sand triggers a collapse. Today’s financial system is […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Historical comparisons are always risky. This is particularly so when comparing different eras in vastly different countries like the US and China. Similarities can actually obscure more important differences. Nevertheless, familiar knowledge can help build a framework for understanding. Obviously, present-day China is radically unlike any point in US history. But with that caveat, it […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Six months ago, few Americans had heard of Evergrande. Now many worry this Chinese property developer’s downfall will start an economically devastating chain reaction. They’re right about the chain reaction part, but I don’t think it will “devastate” anyone outside China (unless they have business there). Nonetheless, this episode exposes some other China issues worth […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - I have written several letters on the theme that the best investment posture is cautious optimism. Pessimism and bearishness never get you in the game, while untamed optimism means that at some point, you’ll have a serious setback. The cautiously optimistic investor asks both, “What could go wrong?” and “What could go right?” Dave Portnoy […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - If the inflation numbers leave you scratching your head, join the club. The August data was especially perplexing. The Producer Price Index came in hot, up 8.3% in the last year, inviting 1970s comparisons. Obviously, our current situation is different in many ways. But so were the 1970s, at first. That was last Friday. On […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - I have been writing this letter for 22 years. Sometimes I look into the future and other times merely try to explain the present. Today I’m going to look at several possible futures. There are forces at work in both Congress and the Federal Reserve that could take us down radically different paths. There are […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Remember math class? Let me give you a quick refresher. In the equation 3 x 5 = 15, the 3 and 5 are factors, and 15 is the product. You can’t have a product without factors. In economics we talk about “factors of production.” If you want to produce something, you need certain factors of […]

Thoughts from the Front Line - Having been Puerto Rico residents for almost three years now, Shane and I have learned a few things about living in the tropics. In Dallas, we didn’t often think about hurricanes, though we did have tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. Ditto for earthquakes. North Texas is pretty stable, geologically speaking. Now hurricanes and earthquakes are part […]