- November 15, 2024
The Trump Inflation Problem
Two weeks ago, I opened this letter by noting the election uncertainty, once over, would give way to a different uncertainty about what comes next. That’s where we are now.
Read moreThoughts from the Frontline: Tag = "mauldin"
- November 1, 2024
One-Way Road to Crisis
Anyone else ready for the election to be over? This uncertainty is exhausting, no matter how you want it to end. But sadly, it won’t really end. We will just transition to a different uncertainty over what will happen next. I will offer my thoughts on the election at the end of this letter, after setting the stage.
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- October 25, 2024
Broken China
Here in the US, people are obsessed with the impending election. It is perhaps the World’s Largest Guessing Game. We can look at polls and make our best guesses, but no one really knows what will happen. We just have to wait for more data which will (hopefully) be forthcoming November 5 or soon afterward.
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- October 18, 2024
Frozen Homes
Official inflation data, while imperfect in many ways, at least has the advantage of being consistently imperfect. This lets us make comparisons across time. The magnitude may be off, but the direction is usually right (except at unusually sharp turns like 2020).
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- October 11, 2024
Hard or Soft?
A challenge in writing a weekly letter like this is that the economy never stops. Important data keeps accumulating, whether I write about it or not.
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- October 4, 2024
The Crisis of Free Speech
“Freedom of speech” is a beautiful phrase, strong, optimistic. It has a ring to it. But it’s being replaced in the discourse by “disinformation” and “misinformation,” words that aren’t beautiful but full of the small, pettifogging, bureaucratic anxiety of a familiar American villain: the busybody, the prohibitionist, the Nosey Parker, the snoop.
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- September 27, 2024
The Revolt of the Public, Part 2
Two weeks ago, I began reviewing Martin Gurri’s important book, The Revolt of the Public, with this framework:
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- September 20, 2024
Late Summer Sandpile
Last week, I said I would continue writing about Michael Gurri’s important book, The Revolt of the Public. It turns out giving a proper review of not just the book but all of the comments about the book will require more than a few days’ writing. I am going through almost 100 pages of new comments and quotes from the book and other essayists.
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- September 13, 2024
The Revolt of the Public
“All over the world, elite institutions from governments to media to academia are losing their authority and monopoly control of information to dynamic amateurs and the broader public. This book, until now only in samizdat (and Kindle) form, has been my No. 1 handout for the last several years to anyone seeking to understand this unfolding shift in power from hierarchies to networks in the age of the internet.”
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- September 6, 2024
The Time Has Come
I remember traveling as a young boy on long trips and asking my parents, “Are we there yet?” I was later punished for this annoying behavior by having my own children ask me the same question over and over.
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