Outside the Box

Things That Make You Go Hmmm…

John Mauldin

October 25, 2011

Do we need a law that makes it illegal to push a moose out of a moving aircraft? In baseball, what are the odds of a perfect game? How difficult will it be to solve the problems of the Eurozone? These and other issues are meditated upon by Grant Williams in his Things That Make You Go Hmmm… letter, which is this week’s Outside the Box. Maybe it was the baseball set-up (as my Rangers battle the Cardinals in the World Series) or that I keep getting asked about Europe here in New Orleans at the 2011 Oppenheimer Wealth Management Roundtable, but Grant really pulled me through his weekly missive when I got started, and I believe you will enjoy it as well. Long and short, Grant lays out the problems that we face in a very realistic assessment. I will also point out that he makes me look like a euro-optimist.

I am working on recovering from this past weekend, as this was the first time in 12 years I missed a letter due to simply not feeling well. But I guess that means I should be grateful I am not sick all that often. I hated to not write. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. It seems like I was “gifted” by my granddaughter with a nasty bug, which decided to show itself while I was in South Africa. Aaah, the joys of being a grandfather. Another round of catching nasty stuff from your progeny.

Your ready for some rest and baseball on TV analyst,

John Mauldin, Editor
Outside the Box

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THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO
Hmmm…

“Everyone needs the ECB to step up to the plate. The ECB has no excuse not to act. In trying to keep its monetary virginity intact, the bank threatens to destroy the Euro Zone. If that happens, nobody will be able to profit from its virginity.”
- PAUL DE GRAUWE

“Simple Math:

The total overall cap [of the ESM] is 500 billion Euros

…

Discuss This

4 comments

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Comments

Robert Barrett

Oct. 25, 2011, 12:55 p.m.

John…the Alaska law was probably passed in response to several negative comments about the Talkeetna Moose Dropping Contest. My wife and I witnessed this contest (throwing Moose droppings the furthest) and were informed that some persons from San Francisco complained about the dropping of moose out of aircraft (as shown on the t-shirts). They were especially incensed by the moose landing on the outhouse!  Very logical!

big pike

Oct. 25, 2011, 11:15 a.m.

Extremely poor math and proof-reading in this article. First he states there have been appr 390k games played since 1900, then he uses a statiistic from 1880 and changes his data points (Over 130 years. 390,536 games).
If this basic miscalculation was not caught, how can a reader take any confidence that the rest of the article has correct information?.
Very disappointing.

Tom Ash

Oct. 25, 2011, 9:35 a.m.

“Then the markets will have their say.

Ultimately, the only realistic way to fix Europeâ??s problems is to shovel money into the gaping hole that is the regionâ??s finances. Which means that the REAL question that has to be answered is fairly simple:

Where is that money going to come from?

Growth? Nope.

Inflation? Not quickly enough.

Forgiveness or default? Not if you donâ??t want M. Sarkozyâ??s prediction coming true.

The ECBâ??s printing press? Only if you can change German minds.

Until German minds are harder to change than the immutable laws of mathematics, I suspect we have our answer.

Only one Perfect Game has been thrown in a World Series game - when it REALLY counted. The year was 1956, the pitcher that day was Don Larsen and, as the 27th opposing batter was finally struck out, Larsen leapt into the arms of a man whose words of wisdom have graced the cover of Things That Make You Go Hmmm….. on several occasions: Yogi Berra.

The latest European Crisis Summit? Well, as Yogi would probably have said, itâ??s déja-vu all over again”

Take the information from the article, and, instead of putting in the EU or it’s officials, put in the US and its officials, and the article could be saying exactly the same thing about America.

Lee Stein

Oct. 25, 2011, 8:56 a.m.

All true, but reasoning about statistics can be skewed by sample size.  Consider:

As of today, there have been 614 World Series games.  That’s 1228 chances for a perfect game, with exactly one pitched, by Don Larsen for the Yankees.  By the same logic that you’ve concluded the odds against a perfect game are 39,053:1, I contend that it’s almost 32 times easier to pitch a perfect game in the World Series, because the odds are only 1,228:1.  I guess the pressure is higher on the batters than the pitchers.  :-) —from my friend Nathaniel

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