Europe
Is a Minefield
By John Mauldin
“Reports
that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because
as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also
know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things
we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know
we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and
other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult
ones.”
–
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, 2002
“Germany's
Angela Merkel exudes an atmosphere of elderly exhaustion and pooped-out
pessimism. Britain's David Cameron, though by nature exuberant, feels he has
to look and sound glum. And France's leader, François Hollande, seems
determined to drive every successful businessman out of the country.”
–
Paul Johnson
“I
stay in France. Better to be the queen of a village than a servant in a
kingdom.”
–
Emmanuelle Béart
I am
sure your inbox and the magazines you peruse and the TV programs you watch
have been saturated with commentary on Brexit, much of its speculative
nonsense. What I find the most annoying are people who feel that the British
have made a huge mistake and that they are going to have to go through a
period of unmitigated pain as punishment for their not appreciating the
wisdom of their elders. They express an almost joyful glee in that prospect –
especially if they don’t live in the United Kingdom.
As
Donald Rumsfeld more or less said, there are things we know and things we
don’t know and things that we can’t even imagine. Brexit falls into all of
those categories. So before we start speculating ourselves, let’s take a trip
down Reality Lane in Europe. Then, after we have, I will offer a few of my
own … speculations.
What may surprise people is that I see a trend developing
(admittedly it’s still nascent) that could actually mean that Brexit helps
the European Union to come together in a more realistic and workable manner.
Whatever – it won’t be smooth sailing.
Before
we turn to Brexit, we need to look back in time. Just 102 years ago, on June
28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. We now mark that date as the beginning of World War
I.
Europe
was relatively peaceful in 1914. The bond markets certainly weren’t
predicting trouble, as they were stable across the board. And even when it
developed that countries were actually going to war, young British soldiers
were very worried that by the time they were trained and got to the front,
the war would be over.
At
the time, World War I didn’t have a number. It was simply the Great War,
which quickly developed into the most horrendous war Europe had ever seen –
and Europe had seen plenty of wars over the centuries. Some called it the War
to End All Wars – but it didn’t do that. An even greater war was in store for
Europe two decades later.
I
review this history for a couple of reasons. One is to point out how fast the
world can change. By 1916 the Great War was a full-blown horror show.
The
other reason is to point out what happened after 1945. The Continent was in
shambles, millions were dead, and no one wanted to fight ever again. The
agreements that would evolve into today’s European Union were designed, in
part, to prevent another and potentially even more disastrous European war.
The thinking was that nations bound together economically would have less
incentive to destroy each other.
No
one alive today saw the blood spilled at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. If
we had, we would gladly do whatever is necessary to prevent another such
massacre.
We should recognize that, however badly the EU experiment may have
gone off track, the EU grew out of noble and necessary motives. Europe must
preserve positive intentions, before all else, as it reconfigures for a
different kind of world.
The
United Kingdom’s vote to exit the EU was in no way a vote for war, but it
still represents a major change afoot in the European political and economic
order. Yet the reality is that change was already underway in countries all
across Europe. Europe is a minefield of potential change, and the United
Kingdom was just the first mine to go off.
In
the pages that follow, we’ll tiptoe into that minefield and think about how
Europe might get through it. The good news: I think there are several
feasible paths to the other side.
Furthermore,
the European leaders who will decide which way to turn aren’t stupid.
Nobody
wants to step on a mine. But in the process of getting through, they will
sometimes be one small step away from going boom. Inches (or centimeters, if
you prefer) matter when the slightest misstep can kill you.
Europe
was already well into the minefield before the Brexit vote. The UK’s decision
may have made a bad situation more volatile, but Europe would still be in a
fix if “Remain” had won.
I could
go on, but you get the point.
Europe
already faced a
whole host of serious problems before the Brexit vote. It has done perilously
little to resolve them and could yet make some of them worse.
The EU
routinely takes years to achieve consensus, even on trifling issues. It did
not need another challenge. But it has one anyway.
The
Brexit victory surprised many people. I didn’t have a firm expectation either
way, though the populist tide rising in many places around the globe
convinced me that the Leave side had a good shot.
What
did surprise me was the 52%-48% margin. I keep seeing the vote described as a
“big” victory for Leave. Was it? I’m not so sure. We would be having an
entirely different conversation right now if a few more than 2% of the voters
had gone the other way. That’s not what I would call a dramatic difference,
at least on the national level. The margin was much more lopsided in certain
areas like Scotland, which went heavily Remain.
The
conversation might be different, too, if the youth turnout had been higher.
Voters under 25 went decisively for Remain – but most of that age group
didn’t vote at all. There were lots of stories about young people complaining
about the vote, but they shouldn’t be complaining about older people’s
leanings; they should be complaining about their cohort’s not voting.
We
should also note that the Brexit vote very nearly didn’t occur at all. David
Cameron made a terrible mistake by promising a referendum if his Conservative
Party took control in 2015. He did win, so of course he had to deliver, but
his original promise was to allow a vote by 2017. He could have delayed
another year or more. The outcome might have been the same, but at least he
would have had more time to make his case.
As
it happened, the whole process unfolded very quickly. Cameron announced the
referendum date on February 22, so Brexit went from “unlikely” to “certain”
in just four months. It’s a good reminder of how fast the world can change.
I
spent considerable time last week discussing Brexit with my good friend
George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures. If you haven’t done so already,
check out his Monday This
Week in Geopolitics letter and the Outside the Box Special
Edition I sent on Tuesday.
George’s
opinion is invaluable to me because he is the most dispassionate person I
know. He analyzes geopolitics by looking at facts and following them wherever
they lead. George is no one’s cheerleader or nemesis. He calls the shots
exactly as he sees them, and he’s usually right.
As
for Brexit, George says it is the logical consequence of the European Union’s
decisions in recent years. Some country was going to take this step. As it
turned out, the UK was first, but it would have happened somewhere eventually.
George
also excels at distinguishing between political posturing and actual
messages. He was not at all surprised to hear the EU bureaucrats in Brussels
instantly take a hard line after the vote. Of course they say they’ll treat
the UK harshly. Bureaucrats, and especially those of the EU Commission,
always resist when someone tries to escape their grasp.
The
important point to remember is that the EU Commission, which is the executive
body that implements policy, is not in charge of the EU. The leaders of the
member states, collectively called the European Council, are the real power.
(Europe is a hodgepodge of governmental authorities. You need a cheat sheet
to know who is doing what to whom.) And within the European Council is a
smaller group of powerful states that usually get their way. Their opinion is
what counts.
So what did they think of Brexit?
Last
Saturday the foreign ministers of the so-called “EU 6” original members
(Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) issued an
unusual joint statement. For Europe, that is moving lightning fast. The
statement leads off with the usual platitudes about the EU’s magnificent
achievements, then expresses regret at the UK’s decision to leave. But then
we see reality begin to seep in. These Inner Six countries basically said,
“Okay, we get it, some people are justifiably upset. Maybe we haven’t run
this railroad quite as well as we should have. We are going to listen to you
and change.” Now here’s the key paragraph of this short statement:
It
is to that end that we shall also recognize different levels of ambition amongst Member
States when it comes to the project of European integration. While not
stepping back from what we have achieved, we have to find better ways of dealing with these
different levels of ambition so as to ensure that Europe
delivers better on the expectations of all European citizens.
This
is a big deal. The Brexit vote made it inevitable that smaller and less
wealthy members will try to follow the UK out. The EU 6 have little choice
but to drop their hard line and look for compromise. George and I both read
that statement Saturday afternoon, sitting around his pool in Austin, and we
came away with the same “aha!” moment. The acknowledgement of “different
levels of ambition” was a message to those less-advantaged countries,
essentially saying, “Don’t
go away.
We can negotiate.”
But
that wasn’t the end of it. The full European Council met to discuss Brexit on
Wednesday, with the UK’s David Cameron leaving the meeting early as the other
27 countries pondered their next moves. Their statement
reads much like the earlier one from the EU 6.
Here
is the key part, again.
5.
The outcome of the UK referendum creates
a new situation for the European Union. We are determined to
remain united and work in the framework of the EU to deal with the challenges
of the 21st century and find solutions in the interest of our nations and
peoples. We stand ready to tackle any difficulty that may arise from the
current situation.
6.
The European Union is a historic achievement of peace, prosperity and
security on the European continent and remains our common framework. At the
same time many people
express dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, be it at the European or national level.
Europeans expect us to do better when it comes to providing security, jobs
and growth, as well as hope for a better future. We need to deliver on this,
in a way that unites us, not
least in the interest of the young.
7.
This is why we are starting today a
political reflection to give an impulse to further reforms,
in line with our Strategic Agenda, and to the development of the EU with 27
Member States. This requires leadership of the Heads of State or Government.
We will come back to
this issue at an informal meeting in September in Bratislava.
Strip
away the banalities and we again see the EU leaders recognizing how the game
has just changed and acknowledging that they need a different approach to
governance.
The
conclusion of the statement is important, too. They will “come back to this
issue” in September. What happens between now and then? Probably a series of
informal, closed-door meetings among the members. Factions may form as they
each set priorities and seek allies.
We’ll
probably hear a lot of conflicting rumors in the coming weeks, but the
important point is clear: Brexit
changed everything. Formerly settled issues are back on the
table. They won’t be resolved next week or even next month. The resulting
uncertainty won’t be good for markets, but I think it’s likely the situation
will fall off the front pages as the media move on to other stories. We have
two political conventions coming up in the US, for example. That will take
the spotlight off Brexit for a while.
That
being said, pay very close attention to whether it is the EU Council or the
EU Commission that gets to take the lead role in negotiating with Britain.
This point is already the subject of a very acrimonious debate in Europe. If
the Commission (basically the Brussels bureaucracy) wins, they will want to
punish Britain. If the EU Council gets the right to be the lead negotiator,
they will want to try to figure out a way to make it all work, especially
trade and commerce. The lawyers from both sides are arguing forcibly that
it’s their team that should be responsible for the negotiations. This is a
legal battle with real consequences.
While
the other 27 plot their next moves, the UK will be dealing with its own
leadership vacuum. David Cameron’s resignation set off a frenzy of activity
within his Conservative Party as well as the opposition Labour party. This
New York Times story explains some of the parliamentary maneuvering. It
is a mess. One scenario would involve Cameron’s party having to vote
no-confidence in itself.
There
have been several people that have thrown their hat in the ring, but notably
Boris Johnson made it clear he was not running. It is also clear that he
would like to be prime minister some day, but (my speculation) knows that
whoever actually is tasked with negotiating with the EU is likely to make
everyone mad, because any ultimate resolution is going to require numerous
compromises. He doesn’t want to appear to be compromising. But the compromise
required for resolution ultimately means everybody’s ox is going to be gored
a little, or maybe even a lot. Given the nature of British politics, being
associated with this agreement, unless we see some miraculous changes of
heart all around, is not the material from which a long-term residence at 10
Downing St. is gained.
In
any case, someone
will eventually become prime minister and have to deal with Brexit. Whoever
it is will face the same fundamental reality as the EU. Neither side can
afford to sacrifice trade with the other. Germany in particular must maintain
free trade with both the UK and the rest of the EU. That part is
non-negotiable.
Exports
account for around half of Germany’s GDP. This is already presenting
challenges as economic weakness reduces sales to China and the rest of the
EU. If barriers go up to reduce trade with Britain and the US slips into
recession (which I think is quite possible in the next year or two), Germany
will have two very serious problems.
First,
unemployment will rise and tax revenue will fall, stretching the country’s
social insurance programs.
Second,
unemployment will rise in other states that trade with Germany, sending
workers from those places to what will still be the EU’s strongest (or
least-weak) economy: Germany. And Germany can’t very well complain about the
influx of foreigners at the same time it scolds the UK for resisting foreign
workers.
How
that situation will sort out is anyone’s guess. The German economy is an
industrial export machine, one of the best in history. That’s great as long
its customers keep buying – and a huge problem if volume dries up. China is
dealing with shrinking export volumes right now. Germany will face a similar
challenge soon.
This
is why, whatever Angela Merkel says for public consumption, I expect her to
be very flexible in dealing with the UK. To this point she and the other EU
core have tried to hold a hard line, threatening dire consequences for the UK
as a signal to other potential defectors. Tough talk isn’t working, and I
think they now realize that tactic won’t ever work.
Merkel,
or indeed anyone who might take her place in the coming years, is in a box.
Germany must keep the export machine running. That means preserving free
trade with every large market in the world, including the UK. Germany will
sacrifice whatever it takes to accomplish this.
The
result could be a very different Europe a few years down the road. But other
problems will pop up first.
Italian
banks have a big problem: something like €400 billion in nonperforming loans.
Imagine a much larger version of Greece (in terms of total government debt
and banking problems) only a few years ago, and that’s Italy. The Italians
have successfully extended and pretended for years, but working that magic
gets harder every day. With the banks, government debt, the refugee crisis,
and now Brexit, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has his hands full.
The
EU’s harsh demands haven’t helped. Do you remember the Cyprus bank crisis
back in 2013? Italians do. They saw EU authorities enact “bail-in”
arrangements that forced large depositors to take haircuts on their accounts.
For
Americans, recognize that the EU has no central deposit insurance comparable
to our FDIC. They consider deposit insurance a responsibility of each nation.
EU rules prohibit members from bailing out banks with taxpayer money and
practically force bail-ins.
Italians
know this very well. They also saw what happened in Cyprus. Renzi has been
asking for a Band-Aid of €40 billion for quite some time. The EU bureaucrats
have basically been saying no. But that was before, and this is now. In a
surprise move late Thursday, they somehow figured out that maybe they could
find a rule or two in their big old rule book that would allow them
individually to help Italy. Voila: “The European Commission on Sunday
authorized Italy to use government guarantees to provide liquidity support to
its banks, a spokeswoman said, disclosing the first intervention by a
European Union government into its banking system following the UK vote to
leave the EU.” (WSJ)
Then,
just a few minutes ago, Pippa Malmgren tweeted this,
from Zero Hedge. Seems the Band-Aid is now the original €40 billion in direct
capital injections plus
€150 billion in Italian government guarantees to its banks; and Angela
Merkel, who just last Monday stated emphatically that there would be no
bailout for Italian banks, will apparently have nothing more to say about it.
Oh, and (says the Commission) “… only solvent banks would qualify for the
liquidity support program, which has been authorized until the end of the
year.” As Zero Hedge wryly notes, “The problem is that with €360 billion in
NPLs, every bank in Italy is insolvent, which implicitly means that they will all be found to be solvent or
otherwise nobody will benefit.”
This
is just the beginning of accommodation in Europe. New Europe, new
rules.
Given the two public statements above by the EU Council and then
the unusual banking relief given to Italy in the space of a few days, it is
obviously beginning to dawn upon European leaders that, if they want to hold
it together, things are going to have to change.
A
few more comments on Italy. Italian GDP is around $2 trillion. At today’s
exchange rate, Italy’s nonperforming bank loans total roughly 25% of GDP.
Compare Italy to the US, where nonperforming loans amount to only 1.2% of
GDP, or $128 billion. If nonperforming loans in the US were 25% of US GDP,
they would amount to an astronomical $4.5 trillion.
In
reality, €190 billion is a Band-Aid over a major gash, one that is still
bleeding and getting bigger. But that Band-Aid will get Renzi through the
next election, and he (along with institutional Europe) hopes that he gets
the mandates he needs to start the long-past-due reforms that Italy will
require to pull itself back from the brink. If he doesn’t and the Five Star
Movement maintains the momentum it has achieved in the regional elections,
the ball game will change. Or at least there will be new players on the
field, contending with the same problems.
The
reality is that much of the assets against those nonperforming loans will end
up being like the homes that were pledged against subprime loans. Once the
cascade starts, the underlying value of the assets plunges and the number of
nonperforming loans swells, perhaps dramatically. I’ve written about this
domino effect before and used a colorful map to visually demonstrate that the
large majority of the nonperforming loans are in Southern Italy. Italy is one
good global recession away from a major crisis. But now that the ECB has
decided that it can use the funding mechanisms created in the last crisis, it
will be able to print the money, piling the resulting debt on the back of all
of Europe. Then, of course, there will be Spain or Portugal or whichever
domino falls next.
That
brings us to one of the most dangerous parts of Europe’s minefield: France.
Last
week my friend Ben Hunt of Salient Partners made a fascinating and scary
point on his firm’s Brexit conference call. Ben thinks Brexit is comparable
to the Bear Stearns collapse in March 2008.
At
the time, Bear was thought to be the main culprit in the subprime mortgage
meltdown. After months of drama, the firm’s big hedge fund clients started
withdrawing money – enough to render Bear illiquid. The Fed stepped in,
essentially executed Bear Stearns, and handed the corpse to JPMorgan Chase.
Everyone
then breathed a huge sigh of relief, thinking the Fed had done its job and
the crisis was over. Markets recovered somewhat, and all seemed well. Six
months later the second shoe dropped when Lehman Brothers was allowed to
collapse, and then AIG and Merrill Lynch all got “resolved” at enormous cost.
If
Brexit is like Bear Stearns, then we can expect a calmer period just ahead –
followed by another, bigger calamity. Ben thinks it will happen in France.
Opinion surveys show the French are at least as unhappy with the EU as the
British are, and possibly more so. They will have a chance to express their
discontent in their presidential election next April. So, the interval before
the next shoe drops may be longer than six months, but Europe is always
slower.
Socialist
President François Hollande has not yet said whether he will stand for
re-election (he wouldn’t even make it into the runoff), but we know Marine Le
Pen of the National Front is running. She has a fair shot at winning, too. If
she does, a National Front victory would be a thunderbolt at least as serious
as Brexit.
Le
Pen congratulated the Brexit voters in a New
York Times op-ed
last week, at the end of which she summarized her own manifesto. I’ll quote
her at length because what she says is so important. In particular, pay
attention to what she says about Merkel and Germany.
Brexit
may not have been the first cry of hope, but it may be the people’s first
real victory. The British have presented the union with a dilemma it will
have a hard time getting out of. Either it allows Britain to sail away
quietly and thus runs the risk of setting a precedent: The political and
economic success of a country that left the European Union would be clear
evidence of the union’s noxiousness. Or, like a sore loser, the union makes
the British pay for their departure by every means possible and thus exposes
the tyrannical nature of its power. Common sense points toward the former
option. I have a feeling Brussels will choose the latter.
One
thing is certain: Britain’s departure from the European Union will not make
the union more democratic. The hierarchical structure of its supranational
institutions will want to reinforce itself: Like all dying ideologies, the
union knows only how to forge blindly ahead. The roles are already cast —
Germany will lead the way, and France will obligingly tag along.
Here
is a sign: President François Hollande of France, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi
of Italy and acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain take their lead
directly from Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, without running through
Brussels. A quip attributed to Henry Kissinger, “Who do I call if I want to
call Europe?” now has a clear answer: Call Berlin.
So
the people of Europe have but one alternative left: to remain bound
hand-and-foot to a union that betrays national interests and popular sovereignty
and that throws our countries wide open to massive immigration and arrogant
finance, or to reclaim their freedom by voting.
Calls
for referendums are ringing throughout the Continent. I myself have suggested
to Mr. Hollande that one such public consultation be held in France. He did
not fail to turn me down. More and more, the destiny of the European Union
resembles the destiny of the Soviet Union, which died from its own
contradictions.
The
People’s Spring is now inevitable! The only question left to ask is whether
Europe is ready to rid itself of its illusions, or if the return to reason
will come with suffering. I made my decision a long time ago: I chose France.
I chose sovereign nations. I chose freedom.
That
does not sound like someone who is going to be all that compromising with
Brussels and the EU. There is the real possibility that Sarkozy will be in
the runoff with Le Pen, and like Bernie Sanders moved Hillary Clinton to the
left, Le Pen will force Sarkozy’s politics even further to the right. The Financial
Times reports that Marine Le Pen “has already promised a
straight ‘in-out’ vote on France’s EU membership if she is elected next year,
convinced it will tap the same well of dissatisfaction that propelled the Brexit
campaign.”
Austria
came within a hair’s breadth of just electing what is, for Europe, a far
right-wing party, which means it is something that would be familiar to many
Republicans here in the US, with a few glaring exceptions. The two finalists
in the recent election were from the Green Party and from the Freedom Party
of Austria (FPO), the top finishers in the first round of elections. Both
trounced the traditional parties. Even though the FPO was the clear leader in
the first round, the entire establishment of Austria fled back to the Green
Party, which eked out a very narrow victory at 50.3% to 49.7%. The FPO would
have been the first such right-wing party to win in Europe. And now the
Austrian Supreme Court has invalidated the election and has told the parties
to go back and have another election. This is one to watch.
In
Holland, Geert Wilders’ Party of Freedom is currently topping the polls, and
in Germany the anti-Islamic Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) has caused
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, to warn of a return to nationalism.
Establishment
politicians across Europe will look at a FPO victory in Austria, and many
will be very afraid. They should be.
I
began this letter by recalling the Great War between France and Germany.
Geography and history have pitted the two nations against each other many
times. And if it wasn’t Germany, then it was England or Spain or one empire
or another going back for 1000 years. The EU’s greatest accomplishment was to
break that cycle.
I am
not at all suggesting that France and Germany will go to war. I see no chance
of that. What I do see, though, is bad enough: Marine Le Pen portraying the
EU as a threat to French liberty and prosperity, with Germany acting as the
EU’s puppeteer, and a substantial part of the French population agreeing with
Le Pen. The problem is, there is a ring of truth to what she says.
I
have readers in every country in Europe; it’s not my place to take a side
here. As an outside observer, I see a level of frustration and antagonism
that is reflected in the US and certainly is evident in England. Unless this
frustration is addressed, it will not help the post-Brexit EU rebuild itself
into an alliance that can handle Europe’s many challenges more effectively.
We
should not underestimate the EU’s ability to postpone the inevitable. They’ve
done it far longer than I thought possible seven years ago. Maybe they will
again paper over the unpleasant disagreements and buy a few more years. Yet I
think hanging on is getting harder for them. We may in fact be near the big
turn.
The
minefield we’ve talked about has a very narrow path through to safety. Europe
is just now taking the first hesitant steps on that path. Any misstep will
have appalling consequences.
I
actually view Brexit as potentially quite positive, as it offers the
opportunity for a reset along lines that are more realistic. To see the EU
Council move as rapidly as they have to acknowledge the problem – something
they would not have done without the vote in the United Kingdom – actually
sparks a little bit of hope.
For
the last 17 years, the EU has tried to make the old agreement work when it
clearly doesn’t. Now that EU member nations know what doesn’t work,
maybe they can design something that looks more like a trade union, with some
additional characteristics that don’t impinge too much upon national identity
– and maybe they can acknowledge the problem with immigration and borders
(don’t even ask me how that gets solved).
That
would be an EU far different than we see today. Forging it will require a
completely different vision of the future than what we have seen in both the
founding and the running of the current EU. Brexit was a wake-up call. The
first few steps of the EU Council have been in the right direction. Now they
have to rework 10,000+ pages of agreements, with bureaucrats fighting every
inch of the way, trying to maintain their control. The task is daunting, and
it’s not altogether clear that they can pull it off.
We
are told by every twelve-step program that the first step in solving a
problem is to acknowledge the problem. Until two weeks ago, that had not
happened in Europe. Now it has, so all we can really do is wait to see if
there is the willingness for step two. As I said at the beginning, there will
be no end of rumors and personality clashes and trial balloons.
First,
let me remind you that the offer to buy the audio replay and transcripts from
my recent Strategic Investment Conference will go down in a few days, so if
you have been meaning to get them, don’t procrastinate. You can find the link
here.
I
know, I said I wouldn’t leave Dallas until I finished my book; but Mark
Skousen talked me into coming to his big libertarian blowout in Vegas,
called FreedomFest.
Since I’m not really doing a vacation this summer, I thought I could go and
moderate a few panels with old friends like Steve Forbes and Rob Arnott. I
have tons of friends coming to the conference, and I’ll also do a breakout
speech that I’ve have been wanting to do for quite some time but that I know
nobody will pay me to do, entitled “The Invisible Hand, Evolution, and Why I
Am an Economic Atheist.” It will be a short speech on a topic I have thought
about a great deal and am passionate about.
Shane
and I will catch a few shows (I will once again see the Cirque du Soleil show
called “Love,” featuring the music of the Beatles) and spend time with
friends. I will even catch some of the other conference speeches and panels.
You can see the lengthy list of speakers and topics by going to freedomfest.com.
It happens July 13–16 at the Planet Hollywood casino. It is actually a fairly
inexpensive conference and venue. I think there will be something like 2,000
attendees, representing all wings of the libertarian world.
Trump spoke there
last year, and I think Gary Johnson is speaking this year. If you are at the
conference, my speech is on a Saturday afternoon, and I would appreciate your
dropping by. And if you see me wandering around, walk over and say hello.
For
the last 10 years, the first Friday of every August has found me and my
youngest son, Trey, in Grand Lake Stream, Maine, for what is now
affectionately known as Camp Kotok, after David Kotok, who founded the annual
the event many years ago. It is a gathering of economists and financial
types, along with their friends, who spend three days talking economics and
politics, sharing stories, fishing, and drinking. I will leave from Maine on
Sunday and spend the next few days in New York doing media and some meetings.
The
last few weeks have been rather emotionally stressful for me, with family and
business issues to work out. I often talk about countries that are left with
no good decisions, but we all know that sometimes that happens in our
personal lives as well. Yet you have to make a decision and move on. The
reality is that very few people (and that includes me) would feel all that
sorry for me, as my life is really quite good, with just the odd bump here
and there that is part of the human condition. If you have seven kids, there’s
going to be a little drama every now and then.
But
then Dad gets it sorted out (or maybe he gets himself sorted out), and things
return to normal. I have to remember that, as I am still in the sorting-out
phase.
In
any event, there will be a smallish gathering of friends, neighbors, and
family for barbecue and watching fireworks from my apartment on the Fourth.
Year before last we actually saw 12 different fireworks displays around the
region from the balconies.
Admittedly, some were 15 miles away, but it was
still fun to watch, especially the much closer ones. Stay safe, enjoy the
holiday, and have a great week!
Your
wondering how Europe sorts this out analyst,
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» EUROPE IS A MINEFIELD / JOHN MAULDIN´S WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
martes, 5 de julio de 2016
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