By John Mauldin
Take a Deep Breath
It is easy to find bad news these days, and the torrent that seems to keep coming can ruin a person's summer (or winter, for my southern hemisphere readers). The credit crisis, as noted last week, is nowhere near an end. Housing, as we will see, is actually getting worse. Foreclosures, auctions, government bailouts, higher taxes, inflation, the price of energy and food - the list goes on and on.
I thought, since so many think of me as a rather bearish person, I would show you my more optimistic side. Yes, I am bearish in the short term, for reasons I have documented at length in this letter. But long-term I am a wild-eyed optimist.
With all the negative news thrown at us today, why is the United States not in the midst of a deep recession? How, many of you ask, can I be so sanguine as to suggest a milder recession and a Muddle Through Economy?
First, things are somewhat different now than in the '70s and early '80s. Back then, a great deal of the US and developed world economies and their resulting employment were linked to manufacturing, which was largely geared to domestic sales. Exports were a much smaller part of the economy for most businesses. When the economy and consumption slowed down, manufacturers laid employees off rather rapidly. Unemployment would soar and a V-shaped recession would occur.
Now, the number of people employed in manufacturing is less in percentage terms than it was back then, and more of what is produced in the developed world is bought by a growing developing world. Exports from the US are booming. The number of TEUs (the large containers on ships: Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) moving through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is up 23% in May year over year and up 26% since the beginning of the year. Because of the weak dollar, imports are down by 7% year to date. It is export growth that is keeping the US from sliding into the usual deep recession.
So, not only is manufacturing not down as in usual cycles, it is up quite handsomely for many products, except of course for automobiles, which are not just in a recession but facing a depression. But that growth in exports is keeping unemployment from going to 9%.
But let's take a longer-term outlook. My view has been, and is, that we are in for a period of very tepid growth that will last through at least 2009. We have to work our way through the after effects of the twin bubbles of housing and the credit crisis bursting. There is no magic Fed wand. That simply takes time. No (rational) government or Fed policy is going to change the facts on the ground (although they can make things worse). But, in the fullness of time, we will in fact get through this.
If you look back over the decades, things are getting better. Goldman Sachs estimates about 70 million people a year worldwide are entering the "middle class" and that by 2030 two billion people will be in a far better condition than the poverty they experience today. That will also keep demand steady for all sorts of products and services produced in the developed world, even as our population (except for the US) declines.
The old joke is that a recession is when your neighbor loses his job and a depression is when you lose yours. And a rise in unemployment and lower corporate profits are no laughing matter. But the simple trend is that we will adjust and free markets in America and the world will grow, as they have always done.
My daughter and business partner Tiffani is getting married in three weeks on 08-08-08. Next year there will be 2.3 million weddings in the US, at an average cost of $30,000 (we have helped increase the average this year considerably). That is $72 billion on weddings. And many of those new families start with the need to find a place to live, furnish a home, and build their nest.
Tiffani and her fiancée are an example. They have bought a home at a pretty good price in an older neighborhood that is fast becoming trendy, as there are a lot of wonderful restorations and teardowns. They have lived rather simply and find they "need" all sorts of items to make their house a home. Each day sees another delivery of gifts from their registry and a smile on her face.
(Sidebar: When I first got married I seem to remember getting three toasters and not a lot of other things we needed. Now, couples register online for what they need and want, and when an item is bought it is taken off the list. How cool is that?)
Last year a record 4.3 million babies were born in the US. Each of them will need all sorts of "stuff" - food, education, and places to live - in (hopefully) 20-25 years.
Yes, consumers are cutting back, but they are still buying the basics. (See more below.) Manufacturing in the US is starting to make a comeback, with the lower dollar and management driven to compete globally. In free-market economies, every economic slowdown is followed by a period of solid growth driven by innovation. The point is that life goes on. Births, weddings, eating, living and enjoying friends and family. It is all part of the cycle.
The next 20 years are going to see the most powerful wave of technologically driven growth the world has ever seen. The accelerating pace of technological change did not slow down last century through multiple world wars, scores of "minor" wars, a depression, all sorts of natural disasters, and an unbelievable amount of government folly. Why should that trend stop now?
As we add two billion people to the middle class, we are also going to bring the internet to even billions more. The explosion in information and creativity that we have seen in the last 20 years will double and double again. A small percentage of those people are going to invent amazing new technologies, new drugs, and create companies that will make life better for all of us.
That is one reason that technological growth will continue to accelerate. We will simply be throwing more people at an ever wider array of problems, and they will be able to share their discoveries at the speed of light.
We are on the verge of a revolution in biotechnology that is going to truly revolutionize medicine. No one in 20 years will look back on today as the good old days. And it will probably create yet another stock market bubble, but that is a story for another letter.
US diplomats are talking to Iran. Iraq may actually work out. In most places of the world, most people are better off today than they were 20 years ago. There is still a lot of progress to be made, but the point is that we are making it. There is a ton of opportunity for those prepared to look for it. It may not be in the usual places, it may not be where we would like it to be, but it is there. World GDP will have roughly doubled (or more) by the end of the next decade.
Yes, I know there are a lot of problems. Really big scary ones. I write about a lot of them all the time. But go back to any year ending in 8 for the last 100 years. When were there not problems? And in most times and places, the problems were bigger. And in the next ten years? There will be lots of problems. Some will be the same old problems and some will be new. I am not certain why mankind seems to have a need to find new ways to create mischief and lose money when the old ways work so well. But those too will pass.
So, when you read about current problems - and I will point some out in the next few pages - just remember that things will work out. Markets will adjust, and the world will be a better place. Things will work out better for you as an individual if you anticipate the problems and make the proper adjustments, as much as possible, in advance.
The next 20 years are going to be the most exciting time that the human race has experienced. Yes, there will be issues, but we will adjust. That is what we do. And now, let's look at some of the adjustments going on in the markets.
More here:
http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/thoughts_from_the_frontline/archive/2008/07/18/the-world-will-not-end.aspx
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