Things That Make You Go Hmmm… – December, 2012
John Mauldin
January 2, 2012
Este artículo no está disponible en español. Para su comodidad, aquí está la versión en idioma Inglés.
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
JohnMauldin@2000wave.com
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 future,
concentrate the mind on the present moment"
– BUDDHA...
Comments
Alan Harris
Jan. 3, 6:04 a.m.
Rename this ‘Things that make you go AAAAARGGGH!
Ronald Nimmo
Jan. 2, 11:24 p.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!