Risk & Opportunity Archive
New Platform
Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid
Are Women Citizens?
An Impeachment, an Extraordinary Speech, and a Turning Point
40 Years of Voodoo Economics
Navigating Chaos
June 2020: New Beginnings
2020: A Republic If You Can Keep It – Part 1
2017: Donald Trump – The Chaos President
Q3 ’16: 2016 Election Issue—The Politics of Destruction
Q2 ’16: Artificial Intelligence – Blessing or Curse?
Q1 ’16: WMD Proliferation: India-Pakistan Edition
Q4 ’15: Uncertainty
Q2 ’15: Green Shoots
Q1 ’15: Rationalizing Lunacy
Q4 ’14: The Tao of Washington
Q3 ’14: A Time for Downsizing
Q1 ’14: A Model for Leadership
Q4 ’13: History Repeats Itself
Q2 ’13: On the Bank of the Rubicon
Q1 ’13: The Mother of all Bubbles
Q3 ’12: Elections and De-Leveraging
Q2 ’12: All That Glitters
Q1 ’12: Contrary (Positive) Thoughts
Q4 ’11: Real Change is Coming
Q2 ’11: Government is Losing Legitimacy
Q1 ’11: The Deficit Dilemma
Q4 ’10: On the Brink
Q3 ’10: 2010 Election Issue: The Rise of the Mob
Q2 ’10: Sliding Gradually Down the Slippery Slope
Q4 ’09: Real Estate Reality
Q3 ’09: Mauldin on Economic Policy Options
Q2 ’09: The Financial Crisis is Not Over
Q1 ’09: Lifestyle Downsizing
Q4 ’08: Setting the Stage for Hyperinflation
Q3 ’08: Market Meltdown Into the Election
Q2 ’08: The Mother of All Messes
Q1 ’08: Back From the Brink
Q4 ’07: A Time for Caution
Q3 ’07: A Look On the Bright Side
Q2 ’07: The End of an Era
Q1 ’07: The Presidential Cycle and Mideast Tensions
Q4 ’06: Martin Luther King on Iraq
Q3 ’06: The Mid-Term Election and the Military Commissions Act
Q2 ’06: The Incredible Shrinking U.S.
Q1 ’06: Christ Among the Partisans
Q4 ’05: The Great Debate: Debt Bubble vs This Time is Different
Q3 ’05: Uncertainty and the Fruit of Hubris
Q2 ’05: America’s Truth Deficit
Q1 ’05: Wisdom From Paul Volcker
Q4 ’04: What, Me Worry?
Q2 ’04: Marking Time
Q1 ’04: The Home Stretch
Q3 ’03: The Twilight Zone
Q2 ’03: More of the Same
Q1 ’03: Gambling, Hubris and the Wages of War
Q4 ’02: The Big Picture
Q3 ’02: Consumption Exhaustion and The Case for Deflation
Q2 ’02: Strategies for a Bear Market
Q1 ’02: Why Alternative Investments?
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“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking…We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”
–Albert Einstein
Q2 ’16: Artificial Intelligence – Blessing or Curse?
/in Risk & Opportunity /by mcuddehe2016 has already been an outlier for unexpected events. Political turbulence and violent outbursts globally are on the rise. At home, the ambush murders of police officers in Dallas and Little Rock have shocked the nation. Politically, the ascendance of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for President is enough to let us know that […]
Q1 ’16: WMD Proliferation: India-Pakistan Edition
/in Risk & Opportunity /by mcuddeheThe border of India and Pakistan has been a toxic zone of conflict for decades, but the situation there has taken a turn for the worse. Pakistan has recently deployed tactical nukes on their border, under the control of local commanders. This hair-trigger situation is such that the slightest miscalculation could set off a nuclear […]
Q4 ’15: Uncertainty
/in Risk & Opportunity /by mcuddeheThe world is in a state of confusion, reflected in markets across the board, which went nowhere for all of 2015 (see Bloomberg “The Year Nothing Worked”). The new year started off with a sharp, but historically normal, selloff in stocks (Dow -13%, S&P -11%). Market fundamentals suggest more downside but the selloff precipitated a […]
Q2 ’15: Green Shoots
/in Risk & Opportunity /by mcuddehe“Two things have always been true about human beings. One, the world is always getting better. Two, the people living at that time think it’s getting worse.” Penn Jillette Political, economic and technological changes are rapidly changing the face of human civilization on planet Earth. At such a time it is easy to become overshadowed […]
Q1 ’15: Rationalizing Lunacy
/in Risk & Opportunity /by mcuddeheThe title of this quarter’s letter is taken from an article by Andrew Bacevich, professor emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University. “Rationalizing Lunacy: The Intellectual as Servant of the State,” reprinted below with permission, addresses the impact of policy intellectuals on our foreign policy….characterizing them as “a blight on the Republic.” Mr. […]
Q4 ’14: The Tao of Washington
/in Risk & Opportunity /by mcuddeheOn January 22nd 2015 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists updated the Doomsday Clock, moving it up three minutes to 11:57PM — three minutes from Armageddon — accompanied by the following statement: “Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, […]
Q3 ’14: A Time for Downsizing
/in Risk & Opportunity /by mcuddeheOne of the big issues for conservatives in recent years has been the size of government, at least when Democrats are in power. Grover Norquist summed it up in his stated desire to “shrink government to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Conservatives are not entirely wrong in their concern with […]
Q1 ’14: A Model for Leadership
/in Risk & Opportunity /by mcuddeheIt has been a long time since America has had leadership that puts nation before partisanship. Perhaps we have forgotten what that looks like. This quarter’s letter features the January 17, Farewell Address of Dwight Eisenhower. I would like to draw attention to Eisenhower’s emphasis on the need for balance in national affairs. Balance – […]
Q4 ’13: History Repeats Itself
/in Risk & Opportunity /by mcuddeheKarl Marx got some things right. “History repeats itself: first as tragedy, then as farce.” The spectacle emanating from Washington in recent months is nothing if not a farce. Republican neo-Confederate nihilists pushed the limit over the debt limit in October, causing a 16 day shutdown of government services and threatening to drive the U.S. […]
Q2 ’13: On the Bank of the Rubicon
/in Risk & Opportunity /by mcuddeheThe revelation that the U.S. government is vacuuming up, storing and data mining virtually all communications of U.S. citizens is probably not a huge surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to policy trends since 9/11. Just the same, Edward Snowden has done the country a great service by sparking a public discussion of […]