How We Get Through This Mess
By John Mauldin
August 19, 2010
1282284262
How We Get Through
“Where Is My V-Shaped Recovery?”
We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us
So Where’s the Good News?
LA and Europe
This
week I spoke to a small group of businessmen/entrepreneurs about the current
economic environment, and after my presentation one asked me whether I didn't have
any good news for them, with a kind of gallows humor laugh. And I tried. But
upon reflection there is more I could have said, so this week's letter will be
what I should have said to be a little more encouraging.
The group was a Vistage group in which
my daughter Tiffani participates. This is an organization of 12 businesspeople
(in this case all CEOs of small businesses) who meet once a month to share and
learn about better business practices, accountability, planning, and all the
aspects of running a business. Every person I have ever met who has been
involved in Vistage has had good things to say about it. I have watched it help
Tiffani a lot. She truly runs our business now, allowing me to read and write
and travel and speak. I am a very lucky man and proud Dad.
I have particularly
watched my partners at Altegris really truly transform their business model through
their involvement with Vistage. First the CEO, Jon Sundt, joined, and now the
partners have all joined Vistage groups focusing on their roles in the
business. Sundt was always a good businessman, but the level of professionalism
of his whole company has gone up a notch. It is a pleasure to watch them grow,
and they give Vistage a large measure of the credit for their success. In fact,
when I went to the Vistage web site to get the link, I saw a brief video of
Sundt talking about his experience. (
http://www.vistage.com/)
I am proud to be their partner.
If you have a business and could use
some help and professional mentoring, you should look into finding a Vistage group
that works for you. They match businesspeople in different industries but with roughly
same size businesses. In tough times you need all the help you can get.
I
talked to them about the current economic environment and what I saw coming
down the road. Long-time readers know that I think we are in for an extended
period of slow growth, high and sticky unemployment, and volatile markets
punctuated by more frequent recessions. That is what you get when you have a
deleveraging environment resulting from a credit crisis. It is what happens
when the Debt Supercycle ends. We start the journey to the New Normal and it
just takes time.
"Where Is My V-Shaped Recovery?"
Remember
all the bulls and cheerleaders late last year and into this one talking about a
V-shaped recovery? They were making their projections based on what had
happened in past recessions. I (and others) argued that that data was
meaningless, as it did not reflect the fact that a balance-sheet recession requires
years of deleveraging, is inherently deflationary, and all the factors that produce
the normal "V" are no longer in play. Bank lending is still...
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