Outside the Box

Things That Make You Go Hmmm… – December, 2012

John Mauldin

January 3, 2012

For whatever deeply embedded psychological reason – and your humble analyst is profoundly guilty – we humans seem prone to picking out a particular point in our space-time continuum (read: the New Year) to think about the future and new beginnings, rather than running the exercise every week or month. Maybe so much introspection and thinking is just too exhausting, so we only do it on an annual basis. I am deep in my reading as I research my annual forecast issue, which I will write Friday. I am thinking of being especially foolish (and anyone who makes predictions is foolish) and going out to a five-year time frame. It should be challenging.

But back to today. One of the most fun things I have read recently is from Grant Williams, who writes Things That Make You Go Hmmm... from Singapore. This year he has somehow managed to leap ahead on his own space-time continuum to share with us his December 2012 letter, where he looks back and discusses the year that was. While I will draw some different conclusions this Friday, Grant does make me think, and he is a fun read. I look forward to meeting him in a few weeks in Singapore.

Quick housekeeping note. Last week's letter had a link at the end to a page where the team from Boston Consulting Group gave their thoughts on how businesses should plan for various contingencies in 2012. The response was so large it blew up our server (!); so we have added bandwidth, and I'm ready to give you the link to "The Year(s) Ahead Report" again. It's http://www.johnmauldin.com/frontlinethoughts/the-years-ahead-report-0112 .

I am hard at work trying to clear the decks for 2012, as I do at the beginning of each year. I really should consider doing it more often, as it does help in organizing things; but then again, maybe we can only deal with so organization...? We humans are such complicated creatures.

In any event, let me wish you a wonderful start to 2012 (and if you are reading this in the Chinese translation, then here are early New Year's wishes for you! For my Western readers, Chinese New Year is January 23rd this year, and it's the Year of the Dragon.)

Your thinking of the paths to our future analyst,

John Mauldin, Editor
Outside the Box

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Things That Make You Go Hmmm... – December, 2012

By Grant Williams

"...it reflects a peculiarly American trend of burying-in-the-sand Ostrich Think, so prevalent among mainstream publications: An unwillingness – bordering on inability – to look at financial news in a cold light, and see what it actually means, rather than what we hope and pray it might be."

– GONZALO LIRA

"...Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the…

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Alan Harris

Jan. 3, 2012, 8:04 a.m.

Rename this ‘Things that make you go AAAAARGGGH!

Ronald Nimmo

Jan. 3, 2012, 1:24 a.m.

Grant Williams said at the beginning of his article that only a fool makes predictions, especially about timing. But a retrospective of the past year a year before it happens essentially is a prediction!

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