John Mauldin's Contributions

The financial instability hypothesis has both empirical and theoretical aspects. The readily observed empirical aspect is that, from time to time, capitalist economies exhibit inflations and debt deflations which seem to have the potential to spin out of control.

All eyes are on Ukraine as the drama continues to unfold. Today, for an early Outside the Box, I’m going to offer three sources on Ukraine. The first is a note that I got from the head of emerging-market trading at one of the world’s largest hedge funds.

In an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming shareholder letter, Warren Buffett looks back at a pair of real estate purchases and the lessons they offer for equity investors.

Herd mentality is one of the strongest and most powerful human instincts. Humans take great comfort from walking the same path as others have walked before them, and nowhere is this more evident than in the field of investments.

Economic life is full of surprises. We cannot predict the value of our homes or prices on the stock market from day to day. We cannot anticipate illness or automobile accidents, the behavior of our children or the incomes of our parents

In his masterpiece The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money John Maynard Keynes referred to what he called the 'euthanasia of the rentier'. Keynes argued that interest rates should be lowered to the point where it secures full employment (through an increase in investments).

Central banks have been around for a long time, but they have clearly evolved as economies and governments have changed. Most countries today operate under a fiat money regime, in which a nation’s currency has value because the government says it does.

We start our journey into the financial imagination at the beginning, by tracing an important idea which has had a profound effect, namely that society and the economy are things to be manipulated by expert policy makers.

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.

After last week's discussion of the Affordable Care Act, it would be easy to drift off into all of the negative consequences of the current problems in Washington DC. There's just so much negative energy every time you turn on the TV that it simply drains you.

In Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder brilliantly reformulate Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, a tragedy in the classic sense, as farce. The narrative crux of the Brooks/Wilder movie is Dr. Frankenstein’s demonstration...

The assumptions that states make about their future investment returns are fairly unrealistic and generally nothing like what they've achieved for the last 10 years. This makes their balance sheets look far better than they really are...

Why is it that so many Americans seem to believe that government spending, fueled by debt or taxes, can drive economic growth and wealth creation?

With a few exceptions here and there, crises in government funding don't simply arrive on the doorstep unannounced. Their progress toward the eventual...

Today's Outside the Box, which comes to us from good friend Gary Shilling, is unusual because that old confirmed bear is waxing positively bullish about the future prospects of the US.

Way back in the Paleozoic era (as far as markets are concerned), circa 2003, I wrote in this letter and in Bull's Eye Investing that the pension liabilities of state and municipal plans would soon top $2 trillion.

One aspect of the American Dream has always been the prospect of enjoying one's golden years in retired bliss. And while everyone knows that the rules of the game have been subject to change over the years, the recent, unprecedented changes in fiscal policy have proved to be a virtual wrecking ball to Americans' retirement dreams.

These are common aphorisms which have been used historically to admonish those with loquacious tendencies to pipe down. They are words of wisdom — and something our central bankers should think about long and hard.

Recently there have been a spate of horrific train wrecks in the news. Almost inevitably we find out there was human error involved.

We are told they don't ring a bell when bull or bear markets start. That may be true, but it does seem that there are similar signs as we approach turning points.