When Irish Eyes Are Voting
By John Mauldin
February 26, 2011
1298755773
When Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure, 'tis like the morn in Spring.
In the lilt of Irish laughter
You can hear the angels sing.
When Irish hearts are happy,
All the world seems bright and gay.
And when Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure, they steal your heart away.
Just
when I’ve begun saying it’s safe to get back in the water, we get some shark
sightings. They are a still a long ways off, but we need to keep our eyes on
the deep waters and stay close to shore. This week we will look at a variety of
data points and see what conclusions we can come to.
But first, I need some help from a few of you.
Official publication date for my new book, Endgame:
The End of the Debt Supercycle and How it Changes Everything, is March 8. I
will be looking to do as much press as possible. If you are official press,
drop me a note and we will get you a copy. Radio? TV? Call me.

Second, I want you to mark your calendars for April
28-30, when I will host, along with my partners at Altegris Investments, what I
think will be the single best investment conference of the year. It will be the
8th annual Strategic Investment Conference in La Jolla. Let me give
you the Killer’s Row line-up of speakers, in alphabetical order: Martin Barnes (Bank Credit Analyst), Marc Faber, Niall
Ferguson (author and Harvard professor), George Friedman of Stratfor,
Louis-Vincent Gave of GaveKal, Neil Howe (The
Fourth Turning), Paul McCulley (if he ever surfaces from his fishing
vacation), David Rosenberg, Dr. Gary Shilling, Jon Sundt (of Altegris) and, of
course, your humble analyst. I mean, really. Most conferences have one or two
top-tier headliners. We have nothing but the best. These guys are all great
speakers, but getting them on panels together? Way cool. Plus some of the best
hedge-fund managers (personal opinion) show up to give you their thoughts. And
maybe a surprise last-minute guest or two. If this conference lineup were a
baseball team, they would sweep the World Series. Oh, and the best part? Your
fellow conference attendees. The interaction among them is what truly makes
this conference the best.
We (well actually, Altegris) will soon start
sending out invitations, but you can register today at https://hedge-fund-conference.com/2011/invitation.aspx?ref=mauldin.
Sadly, the conference is limited to accredited investors with a net worth of
more than $2 million, as there are funds presenting that require that minimum
(and some even more). Those are the rules we have to live with, whether I like
them nor not (I don’t, as long-time readers know). But we follow them
religiously.
Every year the conference sells out. Every year
some of you wait to the last minute, thinking we can “always take one more.” We
can’t. There is a limit to the space. If you have attended in the past, call
your Altegris representative and make sure you get on the list. Do not
procrastinate.
Now more than ever you need to consider the place
for alternative investing in your portfolio. I work with partners around the
world for both accredited and non-accredited investors. If you would like to
know more, then go to www.johnmauldin.com
and click on The Mauldin Circle, register there, and someone will call you.
Seriously, the teams at Altegris (for US accredited investors), CMG (for those
with net worth less than $2 million in the US), ARP (Europe), and others have
some very innovative and interesting funds and managers on their platforms that
really deserve a look. Even if you can’t make the conference, your portfolio
will thank you for finding some alternative investments that make sense in
these times. Now, to the letter. (In this regard, I am president of and a
registered representative of Millennium Wave Securities, LLC, member FINRA.)
Most
of the world is focused on the Middle East and Libya, and rightly so. We will
look at that in a minute. (Sidebar: the White House spelled the country “Lybia”
in a recent tweet. Can you imagine what the liberal media would have done to
poor Dan Quail if that tweet was from him? Just saying.) And I agree the Middle
East is important. But my eyes are focused on what I think is the far more
important event of the day, and that is the election going on...
Comments
Pan Skeptic
Feb. 28, 2011, 10:54 p.m.
(Sidebar: the White House spelled the country “Lybia” in a recent tweet. Can you imagine what the liberal media would have done to poor Dan Quail if that tweet was from him? Just saying.)
First of all, it’s spelled Dan Quayle.
Secondly, as long as we’re shedding tears over raw deals in the press, how about the systematic barrage of hysterical, error-ridden calumny Fox News has poured over Obama every single day since they first heard his name? Sure beats a misspelled tweet, don’t it? Just saying.
Jon Selig
Feb. 28, 2011, 10:24 a.m.
Hi Everyone, I need some quick clarification on the letter.
“Irish taxpayers are being asked to pay French, German, and British bond banks and the ECB, which bought that debt. It is 30% of their GDP, along with the rest of the debt. At 6% interest, that means it will take 10% of their national income just to pay the interest.”
Can someone explain the math on this for me? I’m using debt as the 86 billion EUR referenced earlier in the letter, leading me to a GDP of EUR287 billion (rounding- 86 billion divided by .30)). But, 6% interest of 86 billion gets me to 5.1 billion, which is 1.7% of 287 billion. Surely I’ve missed a number somewhere. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Glenn Taylor
Feb. 28, 2011, 10:03 a.m.
“(Sidebar: The White House spelled the country “Lybia” in a recent tweet. Can you imagine what the liberal media would have done to poor Dan Quail if that tweet were from him? Just saying.)”
The ‘Liberal’ media. Come on John, please spare us the partisan red herrings. And what about that ‘conservative’ media bias! Just saying. At least the so-called ‘Liberal’ media doesn’t completely change poll numbers like that ‘conservative’ media outlet Fox News did with this poll:
http://mediamatters.org/research/201102230006
The ‘Liberal’ media would have made something (but probably not much) of it had ‘poor’ Dan Quail had actually misspelled just like it would have made something of it had Obama misspelled it but that wasn’t really what happened. It was a press release.
So please, if you could stick to economics and not let your conservative ‘bias’ get in the way of some good economic commentary, that would be great.
Douglas Venn
Feb. 28, 2011, 9:50 a.m.
It is all very sad to see Ireland drift into what appears to be an abyss - however, I believe that long before this happens, events will take place to shift the current direction. I heard one interesting suggestion, that the Irish government lease an off shore island to the Chinese Navy in exchange for sufficient payment to cover its debt servicing costs - no doubt the US/EU would quickly find a solution to the Ireland’s financial difficulties!!!
Larry Brown
Feb. 27, 2011, 8:41 p.m.
I dona like your new website. Rule 1 of web design: Thou shalt not require horizontal scrolling.
Larry Brown
Daniel Archibald
Feb. 27, 2011, 5:32 p.m.
I’ve got a great idea… why not give German bondholders a house in Ireland each in exchange for huge haircuts… they’ve got to do something with all those empty houses… a nice holiday house in County Kerry.
Sir Maurice
andy graham
Feb. 27, 2011, 4:11 p.m.
Ireland vs Europe: Fascinating, and well off the media’s radar. How do you square this with the levitating euro? Some of the cause, but not all, is surely a propaganda effect—an accumulation of the platitudes emanating from Brussels and the ECB mixed in with credulous reporting and the anti-American mindset of most EU and US media. The familiar spin is ‘it may be bad here but thank God we’re not American’—most would say that’s nonsense (can you hear the jeers?), but it defines perception and plainly will have an effect around the water cooler. You say that Goldman is in the tank in Ireland, which may help explain the recent remarkably fact-free opinion about the dire state of the US vs the EU and the likelihood of a trading range for the euro in the lofty 1.20 to 1.40 zone [Jim O’Neil Viewpoints Jan 22, 2011; see http://www 2.goldmansachs.com/gsam/worldwide/viewpoints/ ]
Plainly, powerful vested interests want to keep kicking the can down the road to avoid the consequences of greed, stupidity and the need to pay back other people’s money, BUT…Given Ireland’s plight and the ongoing need of Greece, Portugal and, above all, Spain for financing in the international markets, is there any rational basis for believing the euro won’t be headed down fast, probably soon?
Rattan Kumar
Feb. 27, 2011, 12:55 a.m.
Why do I get the feeling that Mr.Mauldin is over-optimistic on the US and / or over-pessimistic on Europe? It’s not this letter or, at least, this letter alone, over the past several letters I have begun to get the impression I hear a US Republican candidate (??) speaking on the US economy but an economist / investment analyst on Europe. I have not been able to pin-point the source of the dissonance so I regret I can’t be more specific.
tib csabai
Feb. 26, 2011, 11:11 p.m.
Your comment, “a bug in search of a windshield” is (unbeknown to you) plagierized from my advice to a production field forman down in Bakersfield, CA, circa 1966, when I was a production engineer there. The guy was doing things that I felt could lead to an accident in the field. I won’t say what my followup comments were, but he did change his approach.
It came to mind, as that summer bugs on windshields were heavier than ever, and one driver had a minor accident due to a windshield covered so badly, they couldn’t see properly.
Thought I’d let you know that you can’t copyright it, or at least I can use it freely without reference!
Tib Csabai