- Bonner, William with Addison Wiggin.
Financial Reckoning Day.
Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. ISBN 0-471-44973-3.
-
William Bonner's
Daily
Reckoning newsletter was, along with a few others like
Downside,
a voice of sanity in the bubble markets of the turn of millennium.
I've always found that the best investment analysis looks well beyond
the markets to the historical, social, political, moral,
technological, and demographic trends which market action ultimately
reflects. Bonner and Wiggin provide a global, multi-century tour d'horizon here, and make a convincing case that
the boom, bust, and decade-plus “soft depression” which Japan
suffered from the 1990s to the present is the prototype of what's in
store for the U.S. as the inevitable de-leveraging of the mountain of
corporate and consumer debt on which the recent boom was built
occurs, with the difference that Japan has the advantage of a high
savings rate and large trade surplus, while the U.S. saves nothing
and runs enormous trade deficits. The analysis of how Alan
Greenspan's evolution from supreme goldbug in Ayn Rand's inner circle
to maestro of paper money is completely consistent with his youthful
belief in Objectivism is simply delightful. The authors readily
admit that markets can do anything, but believe that in the long run,
markets generally do what they “ought to”, and suggest an investment
strategy for the next decade on that basis.
November 2004 