Everything Was Looking Up With the Baby Boomers
And they delightedly did fail! Not a chance. But you are a really and truly a closet optimist. Everything was looking up with the baby boomers. Is everything still going up? And there are those who started out with far more and made less. Howard Ruff (a good friend to both of us when we were starting out!) and almost every newsletter writer were telling people to buy gold and freeze-dried food to protect themselves against a near certain economic, if not apocalyptic, catastrophe. John has today’s Daily Endnote for us. And as our kids do just that, and as the millions of kids of those who read us do so, and the billions of kids who are just now getting ready to bust loose all work to achieve their dreams, the world is going to be a far more fantastic place. The more things change… We didn’t get one, and in thinking through history, there have not been many smooth rides. Unemployment was high and rising for a decade. You cannot have raised your kids to be such bold adventurers without instilling in them a certain high level of optimism. The correct answer to the question, “Where will the jobs come from?” back then was “I don’t know, but they will.” And it is the correct answer today. Regards,
Bill Bonner and John Mauldin
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
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Jules Begins His Last Year of School in Boston Way to close for comfort. Why should we think we will get any better? There are those who started out with less than we did (hard to imagine but true) and made a lot more. Our children can slip down as well as slide up. You have raised your kids to be multi-lingual children of the world. Japan was beating our brains out and buying everything, even if nailed down (like Pebble Beach and New York skyscrapers). The rest of the world spends a fraction on research and development that we do. Our old friend John Mauldin answered last week’s note. In less than a heart’s beat I choose today. Evil sons of bitches. If we believed the rhetoric that the world was coming to an end, would we have dared to venture out? The banks got into trouble and called loans willy-nilly. Never quitting. Your whole business empire (and what an empire it has become!) is based on finding people who are optimists, in the sense that they think they can actually get people to send them money for what they write. How did you get them to scrape window shutters at your chateaus? Today has a brighter future for someone young than any other time in history, whether they are in the US or Brazil or China. Tiffani was born there, and we converted part of the kitchen to be her bedroom. But we are not going into some long dark night. They know what it is to wade into the swamp every morning. (Yes, I was white “trailer trash.”) But I got up every morning just like you did and killed as many alligators as I could. Bonner. Our nation had to almost hit the wall in 1980 before a Volker could come along and force us to take the pain of recessions to beat back inflation. It was the middle of the ’70s when we started our careers. The rest had to wait till the next day. But if I had a choice to take the ’70s or today? Will they succeed? The US economy? And we will have to come perilously close to the wall this time before we take action as a nation. I remember coming to Baltimore and being (literally) afraid to get out of the car to visit your offices in the slums. And guess what? Please enjoy… Gold was rising as the dollar was seen as a joke. (I actually saw this, and my kids marveled. Especially in the lives of the luckiest of them - your editor and John included. It is not the times which dictate the man (or daughter!), but the response of the man which dictates his own time. So potent with opportunity. The Soviets were seen as a major threat. Our kids (all 13 of them) are getting ready to live through what will be the most exciting period in human history. From what we can make out, it will be a tougher world. Which they do! It was not fun starting new businesses in the ’70s and early ’80s. Where do you go if you are looking for venture capital? Do I care if the Chinese and the “developing” worlds are far better off, relatively speaking, than the US in 20 years? And, oh boy, were we optimists back then. Our kids will just have to live with our generational (and individual) iniquities, government debt and all, and figure out how to master their own fates. ********************
It’s More Than Half Full. Our point was that our children face a different world than we did. (My bank even called my mother and threatened her to pay my loan - against written agreements - and she did. Or luckier. How do I know that? You are right in this: it is personal gumption that makes or breaks us. But we did. I hope they make discoveries and inventions and new businesses that benefit us all. Ok, Bill, let’s review those wonderful days from whence we sprang, so fraught with the advantages of having nothing. A far cry from the chateau in Ouzilly. Smooth ride? What a work ethic. There will be a century’s worth of change, measured by the standard of the 20th century, just in the next ten years, and then we will double that pace in the next ten after that. John and I started out with nothing to lose. Medical miracles that will mean our kids and grandkids will live a lot longer than their dads, although I intend to be writing well into my 80s, like our mutual hero Richard Russell. Not a whit. Good on them. Maybe you are right, and we have a soft depression. But they will go at it with gusto, in a world with more opportunities than you and I ever imagined 40 years ago. And such dreams they (and mine) have. Thereafter I threatened to make them go live with you when they did not act right!)
You have given your kids the opportunity to follow their dreams, even demanded that they do so. I had to borrow money at 15% (or more) to buy paper in order to meet customer demands for printing. I hope not, but even so, the world will be better, far better, in 20 years, with far more opportunities than today. In 20 years, no one will want to come back to the halcyon days of 2005. But that was what you could afford. We, and our kids, get to choose how we respond to what is the reality of the day. Inflation was high and rising. There will be whole new industries developed in the US. Even if it is to read why the world will come to an end, which it thankfully never does. Follow the money. In thinking about this, you may be the father I respect the most. How else could we have done what we did? The power and wealth of the US empire? Not that I hold a grudge.)
There were multiple successive and deeper recessions. Who knows? Our kids? And how about our children? I lived in a small mobile home. They just have to seize it. And I bet you would too! You present yourself to your readers as a bona fide end of the world pessimist. And that is the legacy our kids have. But there are very few who are happier than either of us. I am going to out you, Mr.