I first wrote about the Muddle Through Economy in 2002, and the term has more or less become a theme we have returned to from time to time. In 2007 I wrote that we would indeed get back to a Muddle Through Economy after the end of the coming recession. If you Google the term, at least for the first four pages more than half the references are to this e-letter. I get a lot of flak from both bulls and bears about being either too optimistic or too pessimistic. Being in the muddle through middle is comfortable to me.

Last week I expressed my concern that we as a country are taking actions that could indeed "Kill the Goose" of our free-market economy. I rightly got letters asking me how I could maintain Muddle Through in the face of that letter. I have given it a lot of thought and research. How likely are we to muddle through in the face of $1.5 trillion and larger deficits? Today we take another look at Muddle Through. It should be interesting.

But first, two housekeeping items. I want to welcome the 150,000 members of the National Association of the Self-Employed to this letter. They have asked me to be a special consulting economist to their group, and they will send this letter each week to their members. Since its beginning in 1981, the National Association for the Self-Employed has pioneered support for micro-businesses and the self-employed, and been a forceful advocate for small business in this country. (www.nase.org) I am honored. I am pleased to add you to my 1 million closest friends. I hope you find it useful.

Second, I will be going to South America at the end of next week, to Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Sao Paulo and Rio. I will be speaking in those cities and traveling with my new Latin American partner, Enrique Fynn of Fynn Capital (based in Uruguay). If you would like to find out about this tour or what services he can help you with, you can go to www.accreditedinvestor.ws and sign up and Enrique will get in touch with you. And as always, if you are an accredited investor, you can go to that website and one of my partners in the world will get back to you. (In this regard, I am president of and a registered representative of Millennium Wave Securities, LLC, member FINRA.) And now to the letter.

We have arrived at this particular economic moment in time by the choices we have made, which now leave us with choices in our future that will be neither easy, convenient, nor comfortable. Sometimes there are just no good choices, only less-bad ones. In this week's letter we look at what some of those choices might be, and ponder their possible consequences. Are we headed for a double-dip recession? Read on.

But first, I want to make a very important announcement. There are not many times in a career when you can say that something new has been created in the financial services industry and that you have been a part of it. But now I can say that and, I must admit, with a little pride in helping to bring a new creation into the world.

For years, Steve Blumenthal and I have shared a passion for bringing Absolute Return Strategies to all investors, not just the wealthy and institutional investors.

I want to introduce you to a new mutual fund, one that is different than the typical long-only equity mutual fund. My friends and partners at CMG have created a mutual fund that is comprised of 9 different trading strategies, a "fund of trading strategies," so to speak; and it's one that I believe will be strategically suitable for the economic environment that I think we face. And, as a mutual fund, it is open to all investors.

You can learn more about it by reading a report I have prepared, entitled "How to Deal with Volatility in Extraordinary Markets - Introducing the CMG Absolute Return Strategies Fund." Simply click here.

If you are an investment advisor or broker, you especially should read about this new fund and contact CMG directly for more information and reports. Full disclosure: as a consultant to the Advisor to the fund, my investment advisory firm does participate in the fees. And be sure and read all the disclosures and risk factors in the document.

And now, let's look at the choices we face.

This week the Fed offered us their forecasts for 2008-10 for the economy, inflation and employment. We will look at some of the details which I think will be of interest. Then we glance at some data on the savings rate which suggests consumer spending may be in for more of a challenge than many think. There is a lot of ground to cover.

But first, I just got a note from good friend Dr. Mike Roizen (of You the Owner's Manual, Oprah and at least a dozen #1 best-sellers fame), who has spoken at my Strategic Investment Conference for the last two years. I invited him to be my guest again this year. He wrote back, "Thank you so much! I will be there! This year is too fascinating and the speakers you have too good to miss - Mike R"

He's right. And you only have a few weeks to register, as the regulations require us to cut off registrations 30 days prior to the conference. You can't procrastinate on this. My 5th annual Strategic Investment Conference, to be held in La Jolla April 10-12 (co-hosted by my partners at Altegris Investments) has Paul McCulley of Pimco, Don Coxe of BMO (two of my favorite economists anywhere, and simply brilliant speakers), Rob Arnott, data maven Greg Weldon, George Friedman of Stratfor, as well as your humble analyst and a dozen hedge fund managers who will show you how they navigate in these troubled waters. By the way, George's new book should be at the conference ahead of the bookstores. He has been writing on how the geopolitical world will change over the coming century. I have read a rough copy, and it is fascinating.

Are we overbought and overvalued? Maybe. Is inflation coming under control? Maybe not. Did housing construction rebound last month? No. The only rebound was in the statistics. (I know readers will be shocked to learn that some statistics just may not actually be what the headline says.) We look at all this and more as we ponder a world awash in liquidity.

One of the more interesting reads I get each week is a column from Dow Jones columnist Spencer Jakab. He has a knack for finding the unusual, and this week his talent was on full display. He did a piece on Sam Zell's latest Christmas card.

I have written (somewhere) about Sam Zell, also known as The Gravedancer. He earned this name for his flair for picking up distressed properties and turning them into profitable enterprises. His flagship vehicle is Equity Office Properties Trust (EOP). There is a bidding war for EOP, with Vornado Realty (VNO) now offering $37.6 billion, which would make it the largest buyout deal ever. This is not some high tech growth stock. This is a very rich 22 times 2007 earnings for real estate.

This week we look at the links between the US trade deficit, the low savings rate in the US, home prices, and interest rates, all in an effort to answer the question: "Do trade deficits matter?" I think I will offer a few practical, if simple, insights to the matter.

At the end of last year, I did a series of e-letters on the debate over dinner in London between Bill Bonner and Charles and Louis-Vincent Gave. Both had just published a book. Bill's book, Empire of Debt (which is still doing well) states that the US trade deficit, coupled with massive government and consumer debt, is going to drive the dollar to its knees and end up with the US in a soft depression. You can chalk it safely in the doom and gloom column.

"Our analysis leads us to believe that recovery is only sound if it does come from itself. For any revival which is merely due to artificial stimulus leaves part of the work of depression undone and adds, to an undigested remnant of maladjustments, new maladjustments of its own." -- Joseph Schumpeter

How do we interpret the words of Schumpeter? Is the Austrian School of Economics right? Should the Federal Reserve have allowed the US (and thus the world) to go into a deep recession in 2001-02? Did we just postpone a Day of Reckoning only to have one in the future which will be even worse? What about gold? We look at these questions and more as we continue looking at the "debate" between the gentleman from GaveKal and Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin.