Endgame: The End of the Debt SuperCycle and How It Changes Everything

As we will see, whether you call it the Great Recession or the Great Financial Crisis, what we are in is not a typical business cycle recession. It is a balance sheet recession. It is the end of the debt supercycle that started more than 60 years ago. The recovery time in much of the developed world is going to be measured not in months but in year

To counter this problem, the authors are setting up a special forum for readers of Endgame, which can be found by going to www.johnmauldin.com/endgame.

Why not tell anyone who starts a business within the next three years that if he sells his business after five years, and has created some minimum number of new jobs, that he can sell his business when he wants for zero capital gains? That seems to us an incentive we can believe in.

Do we think the Fed will abandon its responsibility to control inflation and resort to total monetization of U.S. debt? No. But in the attempt to get mild inflation, it is possible the controlled fire they hope to kindle could get out of control, forcing them to act to take back the excess reserves and bring about a recession, as did Volcker. Let’s

In fact, for a long time, individual banks issued notes promising the holder to exchange the notes for gold. The idea that a currency should exactly equal national territory is really one that came about very late in history.

Let’s look at the example of Brazil, which is one of the world’s most recent examples of hyperinflation. This happened within our lifetimes. In the late 1980s and 1990s, it very successfully got rid of most of its debt. Today, Brazil has very little debt, as it has all been inflated away. Its economy is booming, people trust the central bank, and t

But you know the fact is that when you run these big debts, the problem is not with your children or your grandchildren, it’s in your lifetime. If you get to really high debt levels, you don’t make it. The market eventually gets concerned.

Bernholz examined 12 of the 29 hyperinflationary episodes where significant data exist. Every hyperinflation looked the same. “Hyperinflations are always caused by public budget deficits which are largely financed by money creation.” But even more interestingly, Bernholz identified the level at which hyperinflations can start. He concluded that “th

Interestingly, the only country in the world that currently fits the bill for hyperinflation is the United Kingdom, where 100 percent of the budget deficit was monetized by the central bank. Unsurprisingly, ever since, inflation in the United Kingdom has consistently overshot the Bank of England’s own forecasts. Apparently, they don’t see a connect

A critic of this strategy for getting rid of our debt could point out that no one would lend to us again if we did that. Hardly. Investors, sadly, have very short memories. Markets always forgive default and inflation. Just look at Brazil, Bolivia, and Russia today. Foreigners are delighted to invest in these countries.1