Just a few weeks ago, I published “Tell Me I’m Wrong,” my latest list of things in the investment environment that I find worth worrying about. I’m going to devote a few pages here – I promise this’ll be the shortest memo in years – to a point I touched on in “What Worries Me” (August 28, 2008) but omitted from the more recent piece.
This memo will be about one of the inarguably most depressing topics of our time: the seeming inability of governments and politicians to solve – or even tackle – the financial problems we face. Here’s the situation in Washington:
· Many of our most sweeping financial problems, such as deficits, national debt, healthcare costs, Social Security and Medicare, are long-term problems.
· It’s important that we tackle them early, since limiting their further growth can reduce the eventual cost and difficulty of fixing them.
· But the process of solving them will be unpleasant in the short term, entailing bad-tasting medicine, while the benefits will only be seen in the long term, when today’s politicians will have left the stage.
· Finally, most politicians’ main concern seems to be getting themselves and other members of their party elected. Voting for short-term pain in order to solve long-term problems is generally viewed as the wrong way to go about that.
Continue to read the full text of Howard Marks's latest commentary entitle: "I'd Rather Be Wrong":
Id Rather Be Wrong - 031710
This memo will be about one of the inarguably most depressing topics of our time: the seeming inability of governments and politicians to solve – or even tackle – the financial problems we face. Here’s the situation in Washington:
· Many of our most sweeping financial problems, such as deficits, national debt, healthcare costs, Social Security and Medicare, are long-term problems.
· It’s important that we tackle them early, since limiting their further growth can reduce the eventual cost and difficulty of fixing them.
· But the process of solving them will be unpleasant in the short term, entailing bad-tasting medicine, while the benefits will only be seen in the long term, when today’s politicians will have left the stage.
· Finally, most politicians’ main concern seems to be getting themselves and other members of their party elected. Voting for short-term pain in order to solve long-term problems is generally viewed as the wrong way to go about that.
Continue to read the full text of Howard Marks's latest commentary entitle: "I'd Rather Be Wrong":
