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Endgame: The End of the Debt SuperCycle and How It Changes Everything
Greece isn't the only country drowning in debt. The Debt Supercycle--when the easily managed, decades-long growth of debt results in a massive sovereign debt and credit crisis--is affecting developed countries around the world, including the United States. For these countries, there are only two options, and neither is good--restructure the debt or reduce it through austerity measures. Endgame details the Debt Supercycle and the sovereign debt crisis, and shows that, while there are no good choices, the worst choice would be to ignore the deleveraging resulting from the credit crisis. The book:
Reveals why the world economy is in for an extended period of sluggish growth, high unemployment, and volatile markets punctuated by persistent recessions Reviews global markets, trends in population, government policies, and currencies Around the world, countries are faced with difficult choices. Endgame provides a framework for making those choices.
Reveals why the world economy is in for an extended period of sluggish growth, high unemployment, and volatile markets punctuated by persistent recessions Reviews global markets, trends in population, government policies, and currencies Around the world, countries are faced with difficult choices. Endgame provides a framework for making those choices.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
76 people are currently reading
793 people want to read
About the author
John Mauldin
26 books18 followersJohn Mauldin is a renowned financial expert, a best-selling author, and a pioneering online economic commentator. His weekly e-newsletter, Thoughts From The Frontline, was one of the first publications to provide investors with free, unbiased information. Today, it is one of the most widely distributed investment newsletters in the world, translated into many languages. He is also the President of Millennium Wave Investments.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
September 30, 2012
This is another hideously bad book trying to ride on the GFC.
p69 makes comparison to a NASCAR race,
"Gentlemen, start your engines"
p 136 "just as every schoolchild knows that water is formed by the 2 elements of hydrogen and oxygen...
so bad deflation has its own elements of composition.
What an ugly metaphor!
p 222 "The Greek people never learned to pay their taxes...
because no one is every punished.
It's like a gentleman not opening a door for a lady."
Is that even uglier than the previous composition?
Yet, elsewhere, the author talks about, how if austerity is practiced,
the Greek gov. would collect less taxes, leading to a vicious cycle.
If the Greeks don't pay taxes, how can they pay "less taxes"?
300 pages of drivel.
p69 makes comparison to a NASCAR race,
"Gentlemen, start your engines"
p 136 "just as every schoolchild knows that water is formed by the 2 elements of hydrogen and oxygen...
so bad deflation has its own elements of composition.
What an ugly metaphor!
p 222 "The Greek people never learned to pay their taxes...
because no one is every punished.
It's like a gentleman not opening a door for a lady."
Is that even uglier than the previous composition?
Yet, elsewhere, the author talks about, how if austerity is practiced,
the Greek gov. would collect less taxes, leading to a vicious cycle.
If the Greeks don't pay taxes, how can they pay "less taxes"?
300 pages of drivel.
April 22, 2012
I'm a science-and-engineering guy. I can handle math and statistics well enough, but I am certainly not very well-versed in economics. However, like anyone else who's paying attention, I can see that our economy is in serious trouble and that we've just been forwarding the bill on to the next generation for quite a while now.
Endgame is not a macroeconomics textbook, but the first half of the book makes sure the reader is clear on the difference between inflation and deflation, recession and depression, what "monetizing debt" means, why GDP matters, etc. Economics may seem like voodoo at times, but the authors start with the basic international accounting. An economics major, or someone who reads the Wall Street Journal every day and follows all of it, may find this rather basic, but it was helpful for me.
Mauldin and Tepper look at the entire world's macroeconomic situation and argue that chickens are coming home to roost, the sky is going to fall, etc. etc. However, despite the dire title and some of their dire predictions, they often sound disturbingly optimistic despite telling us that the end of the "debt supercycle" is unlike anything seen in the modern industrial world. This is understandable when you realize that they are mostly talking to the "investor class" -- i.e., rich people. If your big concern for the future is where those spare millions you have lying around can get the best return, then even a Great Depression-level event is not really of heart-palpitating urgency to you. Sure, it will suck a little that you might have to lay off a few of your domestics, but it's not like you're ever going to be hungry.
When the authors talk about "austerity measures" and "age-related liabilities," though, they are talking about social safety nets snapping, jobs evaporating, and pensions disappearing. So there is a certain class of people, whom the authors really aren't talking to, for whom "Endgame" might mean not so much buying fewer boats but trying to stretch the grocery budget with dog food. Throughout the book, they refer delicately to "a rough transition" and "hard economic times," but don't really translate it into what that means for the average middle-class or working class person. However, their worst-case scenarios describe an economic apocalypse in more than one country. They believe we'll eventually get through it, no matter what, and of course we will — just like the people living in Europe got through two world wars. Well, except for the few million who didn't, but never mind.
Is the worst case scenario really going to happen? In the U.S.? Hard to say. The approach Mauldin and Tepper take is to lay out scenarios from bad to worse: there really are no "good' scenarios, since as they point out, we've been putting off dealing with the problem for so long that even if all of our politicians magically turn into sober, responsible adults, there's no solution that doesn't involve pain. It's just a matter of how much pain, and spread over how long a period. If the Powers That Be act rationally and responsibly, they can do a certain amount of harm reduction. If not (and let's be honest, even the authors' money is on "not"), then it will just keep piling up until nothing can delay it any longer.
What is "it"? Well, the bill on all our borrowing coming due, basically. The U.S. has been able to get away with running huge deficits forever because we are the goddamn U.S. of A., but even the United States can't do that forever. Endgame isn't just about the U.S. though. Tepper and Mauldin look at the whole world and then run through scenarios for several countries, including the US and the UK, Australia, Japan, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe. As bad as things may get in the US and the UK, the situation for other countries is even worse. Some countries could be facing hyperinflation and complete economic meltdown. Theoretically, so could the U.S., though we're so big and have so many natural resources and so much human capital that it really is unlikely the country will literally go bankrupt. What might happen politically, though, is beyond the scope of this book.
I've been pretty vague on what specifically Endgame describes, but that's because I don't want to try describing 300 pages of charts and economics terms. This is a very "technical" (in economic terms) book, with all the graphs and tables and discussions of interest rates and deleveraging and credit and sovereign debt and the like you could possibly want. In a nutshell, the authors say there are exactly three things a country can do when its debt becomes unmanageable:
Inflate it away.
Default on it.
Devalue their currency.
None of those are good. But there is no magical fourth option. Well, the magical fourth option is "Some new industry comes along that brings a boom of prosperity." Not exactly something to count on, though that is in fact what politicians and other people opposed to change tend to do.
The whole book goes through all the variations on the above three options, what they mean, which ones are most likely for which country, and which ones are worse.
For Americans, default is pretty unlikely. Mauldin and Tepper predict a period of severe deflation followed by inflation -- i.e., first our economy shrinks, and then prices will go way, way up. The best-case scenario, according to them, is cutting way, way back on spending and reducing taxes; they're definitely more on the Republican end of the spectrum, as evidenced by the fact that they mostly talk about cutting way back on things like Social Security and Medicare and not so much about our enormous defense budget. Still, their points are hard to argue — we simply can't keep funding entitlements at the levels we currently do.
Do I feel more educated after reading this book? A little. Do I feel better-prepared for whatever financial catastrophe is going to befall us? Well, I'm better off than the average person but definitely not in the "investor class," so I still feel pretty much like everyone else, subject to the whims of forces far beyond my control. Basically, their best advice for the average person is to save and be thrifty and be ready for a bumpy ride. Oh, and if you live in Greece or Spain? Sorry, it sucks to be you.
Endgame is not a macroeconomics textbook, but the first half of the book makes sure the reader is clear on the difference between inflation and deflation, recession and depression, what "monetizing debt" means, why GDP matters, etc. Economics may seem like voodoo at times, but the authors start with the basic international accounting. An economics major, or someone who reads the Wall Street Journal every day and follows all of it, may find this rather basic, but it was helpful for me.
Mauldin and Tepper look at the entire world's macroeconomic situation and argue that chickens are coming home to roost, the sky is going to fall, etc. etc. However, despite the dire title and some of their dire predictions, they often sound disturbingly optimistic despite telling us that the end of the "debt supercycle" is unlike anything seen in the modern industrial world. This is understandable when you realize that they are mostly talking to the "investor class" -- i.e., rich people. If your big concern for the future is where those spare millions you have lying around can get the best return, then even a Great Depression-level event is not really of heart-palpitating urgency to you. Sure, it will suck a little that you might have to lay off a few of your domestics, but it's not like you're ever going to be hungry.
When the authors talk about "austerity measures" and "age-related liabilities," though, they are talking about social safety nets snapping, jobs evaporating, and pensions disappearing. So there is a certain class of people, whom the authors really aren't talking to, for whom "Endgame" might mean not so much buying fewer boats but trying to stretch the grocery budget with dog food. Throughout the book, they refer delicately to "a rough transition" and "hard economic times," but don't really translate it into what that means for the average middle-class or working class person. However, their worst-case scenarios describe an economic apocalypse in more than one country. They believe we'll eventually get through it, no matter what, and of course we will — just like the people living in Europe got through two world wars. Well, except for the few million who didn't, but never mind.
Is the worst case scenario really going to happen? In the U.S.? Hard to say. The approach Mauldin and Tepper take is to lay out scenarios from bad to worse: there really are no "good' scenarios, since as they point out, we've been putting off dealing with the problem for so long that even if all of our politicians magically turn into sober, responsible adults, there's no solution that doesn't involve pain. It's just a matter of how much pain, and spread over how long a period. If the Powers That Be act rationally and responsibly, they can do a certain amount of harm reduction. If not (and let's be honest, even the authors' money is on "not"), then it will just keep piling up until nothing can delay it any longer.
What is "it"? Well, the bill on all our borrowing coming due, basically. The U.S. has been able to get away with running huge deficits forever because we are the goddamn U.S. of A., but even the United States can't do that forever. Endgame isn't just about the U.S. though. Tepper and Mauldin look at the whole world and then run through scenarios for several countries, including the US and the UK, Australia, Japan, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe. As bad as things may get in the US and the UK, the situation for other countries is even worse. Some countries could be facing hyperinflation and complete economic meltdown. Theoretically, so could the U.S., though we're so big and have so many natural resources and so much human capital that it really is unlikely the country will literally go bankrupt. What might happen politically, though, is beyond the scope of this book.
I've been pretty vague on what specifically Endgame describes, but that's because I don't want to try describing 300 pages of charts and economics terms. This is a very "technical" (in economic terms) book, with all the graphs and tables and discussions of interest rates and deleveraging and credit and sovereign debt and the like you could possibly want. In a nutshell, the authors say there are exactly three things a country can do when its debt becomes unmanageable:
Inflate it away.
Default on it.
Devalue their currency.
None of those are good. But there is no magical fourth option. Well, the magical fourth option is "Some new industry comes along that brings a boom of prosperity." Not exactly something to count on, though that is in fact what politicians and other people opposed to change tend to do.
The whole book goes through all the variations on the above three options, what they mean, which ones are most likely for which country, and which ones are worse.
For Americans, default is pretty unlikely. Mauldin and Tepper predict a period of severe deflation followed by inflation -- i.e., first our economy shrinks, and then prices will go way, way up. The best-case scenario, according to them, is cutting way, way back on spending and reducing taxes; they're definitely more on the Republican end of the spectrum, as evidenced by the fact that they mostly talk about cutting way back on things like Social Security and Medicare and not so much about our enormous defense budget. Still, their points are hard to argue — we simply can't keep funding entitlements at the levels we currently do.
Do I feel more educated after reading this book? A little. Do I feel better-prepared for whatever financial catastrophe is going to befall us? Well, I'm better off than the average person but definitely not in the "investor class," so I still feel pretty much like everyone else, subject to the whims of forces far beyond my control. Basically, their best advice for the average person is to save and be thrifty and be ready for a bumpy ride. Oh, and if you live in Greece or Spain? Sorry, it sucks to be you.
May 15, 2013
The sort of economic summary that only anglophiles write.
The english speaking world is dominated by Keynesian and Austrian economists. From an American prospective, they like the Democrats and the Republicans. They agree (ie, are opposed to) all the things to make middle class citizens better off long term, but they profess a long list of differences that fire up the masses, getting us to line up against each other.
The actual economic strategy of the United States if Military Keynesianism. Instead of creating welfare or public works "handouts", we channel a high percentage of those handouts through the military, including intelligence/surveillance departments and a massive array of related contractors.
For Americans, the good thing about this arrangement is that for now we have unassailable control over world oil. Gold, the metal frequently cited as the benchmark for stable money, is far less important to a modern economy than oil. We can print 1000x the number of dollars that are already in existence, and our allies and trade partners will be forced to absorb them. Don't forget that Japan's attack on Pearl was within six months of trade sanctions that cut all Japanese oil imports. In the fall of 1941, Tokyo taxis were converted from burning oil to burning charcoal. We've got hundreds of permanent bases and a blue water Navy that controls all ocean transit, control over most global airspace, and control over low earth orbit. From a geopolitical prospective, there is nothing any foreign power can do to challenge the United States or the dollar. Invasion of Iraq was a warning to anyone (France? Russia? China?) who was considering otherwise.
The author of endgame often criticizes the efficient market model driven economists in favor of an accounting, common sense mindset. They are correct, that we need to step back from models that don't accurately reflect the real world, but they don't step back far enough. They don't bring geopolitical realities and the US's special situation into their discussion. They accept the Austrian economic midset as the status quo, and assume that we can do no better.
The reality is that once upon a time, Americans, led by Alexander Hamiltion's "Infant Industries" grew our economy far faster than the British economy. America adopted the British Empire's system of trade after WWII, at the same time, the East Asian's developed along the lines of Hamilton's old American System. The British system first led them toward empire, and then to bankruptcy. We're following in their footsteps as we expand the empire, and if you look at our economy, we're moving toward bankruptcy rather than the trade surpluses and expanding middle class that we once had.
If you're interested in understanding our economy from a very long term prospective, see "1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created" discussing the global integration that started once Columbus arrived in the Americas and has never stopped.
Our current situation can not be understood without also understanding American Militarism and geopolitics. "Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire" is by far the most interesting book on where the American empire stands today.
The actual invisible hand/laissez-faire/free market economics espoused by Washington are also very misleading. "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism" is by far the best description of how national economies actually interact in the real world (as opposed to economics in idealized computer models, the kind that helped facilitate the subprime crisis).
Lastly, this one is a little bit further out there, but is a counterpoint to overall British and American foreign policy over the last 100 years. There are a few accusations here that I'm quite skeptical of, but the premise is pretty common sense: USA policy is all about control over oil. A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order.
If you want to understand how the world actually works and why the *experts* are so often wrong, you should also read:
* Black Swan and Antifragile: Explaining why our historical understanding of possibility doesn't account for the unprecedented.
* Alchemy of Finance: Famous global investor Soros explains why belief in the "magic of the market" is as superstitious as belief in the witch doctor, the self reinforcing nature of boom and bust cycles, and the financial reason American 1980's deficit spending didn't immediately cause dollar devaluation, but helped plant the seeds for ever larger financial crisis.
* Investment Biker, Adventure Capitalist & Street Smarts. Famous investor Jim Rogers explains history and economics close to the ground as he travels round the world.
* In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony concerning the long term impact of American "one directional free trade" with East Asia, a battle that the west has been loosing for decades, but with the scale of China's massive population, the west will not be able to absorb the losses the way we have previously.
* Confessions of a Spy where double agent Aldrich Ames describes what the forever hyped cold war bogey monster, the KGB, could and could not actually do. The interesting thing is comparing the CIA to the KGB, and seeing how ever creeping government secrecy to defend against the enemy of the moment has eroded our civil rights. Note that this is by no means the primary point of the book, but nowhere else have I seen more candid discussion about what the KGB was actually capable of, and our political response to that knowledge.
The english speaking world is dominated by Keynesian and Austrian economists. From an American prospective, they like the Democrats and the Republicans. They agree (ie, are opposed to) all the things to make middle class citizens better off long term, but they profess a long list of differences that fire up the masses, getting us to line up against each other.
The actual economic strategy of the United States if Military Keynesianism. Instead of creating welfare or public works "handouts", we channel a high percentage of those handouts through the military, including intelligence/surveillance departments and a massive array of related contractors.
For Americans, the good thing about this arrangement is that for now we have unassailable control over world oil. Gold, the metal frequently cited as the benchmark for stable money, is far less important to a modern economy than oil. We can print 1000x the number of dollars that are already in existence, and our allies and trade partners will be forced to absorb them. Don't forget that Japan's attack on Pearl was within six months of trade sanctions that cut all Japanese oil imports. In the fall of 1941, Tokyo taxis were converted from burning oil to burning charcoal. We've got hundreds of permanent bases and a blue water Navy that controls all ocean transit, control over most global airspace, and control over low earth orbit. From a geopolitical prospective, there is nothing any foreign power can do to challenge the United States or the dollar. Invasion of Iraq was a warning to anyone (France? Russia? China?) who was considering otherwise.
The author of endgame often criticizes the efficient market model driven economists in favor of an accounting, common sense mindset. They are correct, that we need to step back from models that don't accurately reflect the real world, but they don't step back far enough. They don't bring geopolitical realities and the US's special situation into their discussion. They accept the Austrian economic midset as the status quo, and assume that we can do no better.
The reality is that once upon a time, Americans, led by Alexander Hamiltion's "Infant Industries" grew our economy far faster than the British economy. America adopted the British Empire's system of trade after WWII, at the same time, the East Asian's developed along the lines of Hamilton's old American System. The British system first led them toward empire, and then to bankruptcy. We're following in their footsteps as we expand the empire, and if you look at our economy, we're moving toward bankruptcy rather than the trade surpluses and expanding middle class that we once had.
If you're interested in understanding our economy from a very long term prospective, see "1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created" discussing the global integration that started once Columbus arrived in the Americas and has never stopped.
Our current situation can not be understood without also understanding American Militarism and geopolitics. "Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire" is by far the most interesting book on where the American empire stands today.
The actual invisible hand/laissez-faire/free market economics espoused by Washington are also very misleading. "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism" is by far the best description of how national economies actually interact in the real world (as opposed to economics in idealized computer models, the kind that helped facilitate the subprime crisis).
Lastly, this one is a little bit further out there, but is a counterpoint to overall British and American foreign policy over the last 100 years. There are a few accusations here that I'm quite skeptical of, but the premise is pretty common sense: USA policy is all about control over oil. A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order.
If you want to understand how the world actually works and why the *experts* are so often wrong, you should also read:
* Black Swan and Antifragile: Explaining why our historical understanding of possibility doesn't account for the unprecedented.
* Alchemy of Finance: Famous global investor Soros explains why belief in the "magic of the market" is as superstitious as belief in the witch doctor, the self reinforcing nature of boom and bust cycles, and the financial reason American 1980's deficit spending didn't immediately cause dollar devaluation, but helped plant the seeds for ever larger financial crisis.
* Investment Biker, Adventure Capitalist & Street Smarts. Famous investor Jim Rogers explains history and economics close to the ground as he travels round the world.
* In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony concerning the long term impact of American "one directional free trade" with East Asia, a battle that the west has been loosing for decades, but with the scale of China's massive population, the west will not be able to absorb the losses the way we have previously.
* Confessions of a Spy where double agent Aldrich Ames describes what the forever hyped cold war bogey monster, the KGB, could and could not actually do. The interesting thing is comparing the CIA to the KGB, and seeing how ever creeping government secrecy to defend against the enemy of the moment has eroded our civil rights. Note that this is by no means the primary point of the book, but nowhere else have I seen more candid discussion about what the KGB was actually capable of, and our political response to that knowledge.
March 1, 2012
I think this may be the most important economics book of our current time. I found out about John Mauldin from a friend (an interesting "blue-collar" fellow who became a millionaire by investing, it is what happens when you read and don't waste your time drooling in front of a TV or computer).
Endgame is split into two parts. Part one is "The End of the Debt Supercycle." In my opinion it is the most consumable and understandable explanation of macroeconomics that anyone could ever read. Mauldin makes for a better teacher than any professor I ever had in college. To think, this education only cost $27.95. The basic concept behind the debt supercycle is that many countries have spent way more than they can afford and that this has consequences, Mauldin terms it "endgame." Yes, it is as ominous as it sounds. Part two of the book is a mini-world tour of all of the countries that are staring at "endgame." Mauldin goes through the United States (oh, man are we in trouble), the European periphery, Eastern Europe, Japan ("a bug in search of a windshield"), the United Kingdom, and Australia. I hope you have your seat belt on because the ride ahead is going to get be a little bumpy.
The beauty in this book is how Mauldin is able to write a non-partisan analysis. Even the most partisan of people will finish this book because it doesn't take a political side. Mauldin's "side" is on educating and asking people to do what is right. The reality is, the medicine may be worse than the disease, and no politician or the average voter they represent wants to hear this. I highly encourage you to pick up this book if you want to know what is going on in the world economy today.
Endgame is split into two parts. Part one is "The End of the Debt Supercycle." In my opinion it is the most consumable and understandable explanation of macroeconomics that anyone could ever read. Mauldin makes for a better teacher than any professor I ever had in college. To think, this education only cost $27.95. The basic concept behind the debt supercycle is that many countries have spent way more than they can afford and that this has consequences, Mauldin terms it "endgame." Yes, it is as ominous as it sounds. Part two of the book is a mini-world tour of all of the countries that are staring at "endgame." Mauldin goes through the United States (oh, man are we in trouble), the European periphery, Eastern Europe, Japan ("a bug in search of a windshield"), the United Kingdom, and Australia. I hope you have your seat belt on because the ride ahead is going to get be a little bumpy.
The beauty in this book is how Mauldin is able to write a non-partisan analysis. Even the most partisan of people will finish this book because it doesn't take a political side. Mauldin's "side" is on educating and asking people to do what is right. The reality is, the medicine may be worse than the disease, and no politician or the average voter they represent wants to hear this. I highly encourage you to pick up this book if you want to know what is going on in the world economy today.
November 15, 2025
John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper’s Endgame (2011) occupies a prominent place in the literature on global macroeconomics produced in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. The book seeks to diagnose the structural imbalances underlying the global economy—especially the accumulation of public and private debt—by situating contemporary conditions within the concept of the “Debt SuperCycle.” Written at a moment of intense uncertainty, Endgame offers both an analytical framework and a series of country-level case studies intended to illuminate the constraints and choices facing governments, investors, and policymakers. This review evaluates the book’s theoretical claims, empirical grounding, and contributions to debates on sovereign debt sustainability and macroeconomic adjustment.
At the center of Endgame is the authors’ interpretation of the “Debt SuperCycle,” a long-term process in which nations accumulate leverage over decades until reaching a point at which traditional policy tools—monetary expansion, fiscal stimulus, credit creation—lose effectiveness. According to Mauldin and Tepper, the global financial crisis was not a conventional business-cycle downturn but the culmination of a deeper, multi-decade pattern of indebtedness. This framing, while not novel—echoing earlier long-wave theories of credit cycles from economists such as Hyman Minsky and Charles Kindleberger—provides a unifying lens through which the authors analyze disparate national experiences.
The book is structured thematically but grounded in comparative analysis. The authors discuss the United States, Europe, Japan, and several emerging markets, emphasizing how demographic pressures, political constraints, and institutional arrangements affect a country’s pathway into—and potential escape from—a debt-saturated environment. Their treatment of Japan’s “lost decades” stands out as an instructive example of how persistent deflation, aging populations, and high public debt can produce a prolonged macroeconomic malaise. Similarly, their analysis of Europe captures the vulnerabilities embedded in the eurozone’s institutional design, particularly the tension between monetary union and fiscal fragmentation.
One of the book’s strengths lies in its ability to synthesize complex macroeconomic concepts into accessible prose without sacrificing analytical clarity. Mauldin and Tepper explain sovereign debt dynamics, current-account imbalances, and central bank policy in terms that are approachable for general readers yet still interesting for experts. Their discussions of deleveraging, austerity, and the limits of quantitative easing reflect a serious engagement with mainstream macroeconomic debates, albeit through the lens of market-oriented commentary.
Yet Endgame also exhibits notable limitations. Methodologically, the book draws heavily on stylized facts, historical analogies, and the authors’ own interpretations of macroeconomic risks. While this approach provides narrative coherence, it sometimes lacks the empirical rigor or formal modeling that characterizes academic analyses of sovereign debt crises. Certain claims—such as the inevitability of severe fiscal retrenchment or the limited long-term effectiveness of monetary policy—are presented assertively but without extensive engagement with alternative theoretical frameworks.
Additionally, the book’s tone is often cautionary, and at times alarmist. Mauldin and Tepper frame the future in stark terms: economies must choose among “bad,” “worse,” and “dire” outcomes, typically involving some combination of austerity, default, restructuring, or inflation. While the severity of post-2008 challenges justified concern, the authors’ predictions occasionally oversimplify political and institutional responses. Subsequent developments—particularly in the United States and parts of Europe—suggest that advanced economies retain greater fiscal and monetary flexibility than Endgame acknowledges.
The book’s normative thrust also reflects its roots in financial commentary. Mauldin and Tepper frequently write with an investor-oriented perspective, emphasizing market implications of macroeconomic trends and offering strategic considerations for navigating periods of volatility. While this focus enhances the book’s practical relevance, it may limit its utility for readers seeking a more theoretical or policy-oriented analysis.
Nevertheless, Endgame remains valuable as a synthesis of post-crisis anxieties and as a framework for understanding long-run debt dynamics. Its central insights—that excessive leverage constrains policy choices, that demographic and structural factors shape macroeconomic outcomes, and that sovereign debt crises often unfold through prolonged, nonlinear adjustments—continue to resonate within academic and policy-driven debates. The book also contributes to the wider discourse on secular stagnation, fiscal sustainability, and the institutional architecture of modern capitalism.
Endgame offers an accessible, wide-ranging, and provocative examination of global indebtedness in the early twenty-first century. While its analytical approach is more interpretive than formal and its forecasts sometimes overdrawn, the book provides a coherent lens through which to view the challenges of deleveraging and economic adjustment. For scholars of macroeconomic history, political economy, and financial stability, Endgame serves as both a historical artifact of post-crisis intellectual climate and a useful—if imperfect—contribution to ongoing debates about the dynamics of debt, growth, and policy constraint.
GPT
At the center of Endgame is the authors’ interpretation of the “Debt SuperCycle,” a long-term process in which nations accumulate leverage over decades until reaching a point at which traditional policy tools—monetary expansion, fiscal stimulus, credit creation—lose effectiveness. According to Mauldin and Tepper, the global financial crisis was not a conventional business-cycle downturn but the culmination of a deeper, multi-decade pattern of indebtedness. This framing, while not novel—echoing earlier long-wave theories of credit cycles from economists such as Hyman Minsky and Charles Kindleberger—provides a unifying lens through which the authors analyze disparate national experiences.
The book is structured thematically but grounded in comparative analysis. The authors discuss the United States, Europe, Japan, and several emerging markets, emphasizing how demographic pressures, political constraints, and institutional arrangements affect a country’s pathway into—and potential escape from—a debt-saturated environment. Their treatment of Japan’s “lost decades” stands out as an instructive example of how persistent deflation, aging populations, and high public debt can produce a prolonged macroeconomic malaise. Similarly, their analysis of Europe captures the vulnerabilities embedded in the eurozone’s institutional design, particularly the tension between monetary union and fiscal fragmentation.
One of the book’s strengths lies in its ability to synthesize complex macroeconomic concepts into accessible prose without sacrificing analytical clarity. Mauldin and Tepper explain sovereign debt dynamics, current-account imbalances, and central bank policy in terms that are approachable for general readers yet still interesting for experts. Their discussions of deleveraging, austerity, and the limits of quantitative easing reflect a serious engagement with mainstream macroeconomic debates, albeit through the lens of market-oriented commentary.
Yet Endgame also exhibits notable limitations. Methodologically, the book draws heavily on stylized facts, historical analogies, and the authors’ own interpretations of macroeconomic risks. While this approach provides narrative coherence, it sometimes lacks the empirical rigor or formal modeling that characterizes academic analyses of sovereign debt crises. Certain claims—such as the inevitability of severe fiscal retrenchment or the limited long-term effectiveness of monetary policy—are presented assertively but without extensive engagement with alternative theoretical frameworks.
Additionally, the book’s tone is often cautionary, and at times alarmist. Mauldin and Tepper frame the future in stark terms: economies must choose among “bad,” “worse,” and “dire” outcomes, typically involving some combination of austerity, default, restructuring, or inflation. While the severity of post-2008 challenges justified concern, the authors’ predictions occasionally oversimplify political and institutional responses. Subsequent developments—particularly in the United States and parts of Europe—suggest that advanced economies retain greater fiscal and monetary flexibility than Endgame acknowledges.
The book’s normative thrust also reflects its roots in financial commentary. Mauldin and Tepper frequently write with an investor-oriented perspective, emphasizing market implications of macroeconomic trends and offering strategic considerations for navigating periods of volatility. While this focus enhances the book’s practical relevance, it may limit its utility for readers seeking a more theoretical or policy-oriented analysis.
Nevertheless, Endgame remains valuable as a synthesis of post-crisis anxieties and as a framework for understanding long-run debt dynamics. Its central insights—that excessive leverage constrains policy choices, that demographic and structural factors shape macroeconomic outcomes, and that sovereign debt crises often unfold through prolonged, nonlinear adjustments—continue to resonate within academic and policy-driven debates. The book also contributes to the wider discourse on secular stagnation, fiscal sustainability, and the institutional architecture of modern capitalism.
Endgame offers an accessible, wide-ranging, and provocative examination of global indebtedness in the early twenty-first century. While its analytical approach is more interpretive than formal and its forecasts sometimes overdrawn, the book provides a coherent lens through which to view the challenges of deleveraging and economic adjustment. For scholars of macroeconomic history, political economy, and financial stability, Endgame serves as both a historical artifact of post-crisis intellectual climate and a useful—if imperfect—contribution to ongoing debates about the dynamics of debt, growth, and policy constraint.
GPT
August 5, 2013
Macroeconomics is largely a failed science. Everyone who has ever read a macroeconomics textbook has an opinion on economic policy, and almost everyone will be wrong. Why? Because the economy is too large a system to forecast the effects of policies over any significant length of time. In other words, it's chaos. Show me an economist that can predict the future and I'll show you a weather man that can predict the weather. Yeah, right!
The authors of this book are like any other macroeconomists, they've got the crystal ball and they are ready to peer into the future. They've got advice for the Fed, advice for the Treasury, advice for the executive branch, advice for Congress, and advice for you.
So what's the plan to get us out of the economic muck? Austerity austerity, austerity. Apparently if you're going take your lumps, best to take them all at once, and the sooner the better. The authors do love their von Mises and Austrian economics. The authors did manage to name-drop "friend" Ron Paul, so that should give you some insight into what you're going to get. If you find Ron Paul and his flock to be as annoying as they are persistent, arrogant, and immoral, then this book isn't going to do much for you. In other words: taxes bad, government bad, business owners good. I couldn't possibly disagree any more.
The author does break from the conservative and libertarian principles in suggesting a rise in the gas tax until the United States is energy-independent. Now, the author may not have been aware of this, but the United States will be energy independent very soon due to the recent homeland oil and natural gas rush. Economically, this matters not. The price of oil will continue to rise on average because it is a finite resource. Oil isn't going to be sold more cheaply in the United States simply because it was produced here. It's going to be sold at the commodity price. Oil prices will continue to drain the disposable income of consumers. The more important reason to raise the gas tax is climate change. I won't go so far to say that the authors are climate change deniers, as they don't mention it. Sadly, they at a very minimum don't seem to care.
What are you going to get out of this book? If you're a libertarian or a conservative, then this book will reinforce your strongly-held beliefs. If you aren't, leave this on the shelf.
The authors of this book are like any other macroeconomists, they've got the crystal ball and they are ready to peer into the future. They've got advice for the Fed, advice for the Treasury, advice for the executive branch, advice for Congress, and advice for you.
So what's the plan to get us out of the economic muck? Austerity austerity, austerity. Apparently if you're going take your lumps, best to take them all at once, and the sooner the better. The authors do love their von Mises and Austrian economics. The authors did manage to name-drop "friend" Ron Paul, so that should give you some insight into what you're going to get. If you find Ron Paul and his flock to be as annoying as they are persistent, arrogant, and immoral, then this book isn't going to do much for you. In other words: taxes bad, government bad, business owners good. I couldn't possibly disagree any more.
The author does break from the conservative and libertarian principles in suggesting a rise in the gas tax until the United States is energy-independent. Now, the author may not have been aware of this, but the United States will be energy independent very soon due to the recent homeland oil and natural gas rush. Economically, this matters not. The price of oil will continue to rise on average because it is a finite resource. Oil isn't going to be sold more cheaply in the United States simply because it was produced here. It's going to be sold at the commodity price. Oil prices will continue to drain the disposable income of consumers. The more important reason to raise the gas tax is climate change. I won't go so far to say that the authors are climate change deniers, as they don't mention it. Sadly, they at a very minimum don't seem to care.
What are you going to get out of this book? If you're a libertarian or a conservative, then this book will reinforce your strongly-held beliefs. If you aren't, leave this on the shelf.
November 15, 2012
I've read several of these financial doomsaying books now, and this is without a doubt the best. It's obvious they've done their homework, and they present it matter-of-factly, without ranting or whining, supported by many, many graphs. Most of the graphs are quite illustrative, but some of them are hard to dicipher. This book treats the subject globally, as it truly is, rather than just griping about America. There are other countries quite worse off than us. This book does a fabulous job at explaining the economics behind everything. It includes the best explanations I've seen for inflation and deflation, and the problems each cause. And I absolutely loved the policy recommendations in the chapter about the United States. They're reasonable, balanced, and insightful.
However, the main author has an annoying habit of quoting things at great length, referring to himself in the third person, and bragging that he has five adopted children. All three combined to be downright sappy in one chapter, the entirety of which is a reproduction of a letter he wrote to his children, explaining in simple terms the economic problems we face in the future. It definitely helped to explain his point, but I could have done without the repeated "daddy loves you!" declarations. The authors also have a habit of waxing unrealistically optimistic about the promises of science and technology. Although it's nice to see this book isn't just pure pessimism, this lost them a few trust points with me. Anyone that over-the-top with optimism is also likely to be over-the-top with pessimism, so I somewhat discounted the dire predictions as possibly exaggerated. Nonetheless, the data speaks for itself. The situation is very bad, and there doesn't seem to be any painless way out of it. Forewarned is forearmed!
However, the main author has an annoying habit of quoting things at great length, referring to himself in the third person, and bragging that he has five adopted children. All three combined to be downright sappy in one chapter, the entirety of which is a reproduction of a letter he wrote to his children, explaining in simple terms the economic problems we face in the future. It definitely helped to explain his point, but I could have done without the repeated "daddy loves you!" declarations. The authors also have a habit of waxing unrealistically optimistic about the promises of science and technology. Although it's nice to see this book isn't just pure pessimism, this lost them a few trust points with me. Anyone that over-the-top with optimism is also likely to be over-the-top with pessimism, so I somewhat discounted the dire predictions as possibly exaggerated. Nonetheless, the data speaks for itself. The situation is very bad, and there doesn't seem to be any painless way out of it. Forewarned is forearmed!
August 11, 2014
If you think the global debt crisis doesn't effect you, read this book and you'll be as freaked about our global economy and political climate as I am. What a mess we've gotten ourselves into!
Don't read this book if you're looking for investment advice. There isn't any of that in here. It is just a well-researched compendium of why the global debt crisis will be hard for everyone - and I do mean everyone! The authors go country by country and explain what is happening, what should have been learned from it, what is not being learned from it, and how it will play out painfully. Hold onto your butts everyone because our politicians are not about to help us out of this in any kind of responsible way! I hate them.
Don't read this book if you're looking for investment advice. There isn't any of that in here. It is just a well-researched compendium of why the global debt crisis will be hard for everyone - and I do mean everyone! The authors go country by country and explain what is happening, what should have been learned from it, what is not being learned from it, and how it will play out painfully. Hold onto your butts everyone because our politicians are not about to help us out of this in any kind of responsible way! I hate them.
November 9, 2011
The debt supercycle phrase is intruiging and verbally appealing like a giant contraption or a whirlygig and brings to mind Immanuel Wallerstein's long and short cycles in Wallerstein's World Systems Theory. And Yet, in the global economy that cycles I ask, has the global IPE ever been in quite a debt situation this humongous? Maybe it is more like the debt super-spiral.
The charts and numbers in the pages are a teeny-tiny, making it very hard to see the big claims in the tiny big numbers.
The charts and numbers in the pages are a teeny-tiny, making it very hard to see the big claims in the tiny big numbers.
December 5, 2016
I may have found this book more interesting if I had read it closer to its publication date (2011). I found much of the information out of date. For example, one of his examples of financial success is Brazil.
July 30, 2018
I thought it was very dated. other books I would recommend.
May 10, 2013
Endgame: The End of the Debt SuperCycle and How It Changes Everything by John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper
"Endgame" is a very solid, evenhanded book about the somber realization that we are at the end of the debt supercycle; we are at endgame. The book is broken out into two main parts. In the first part, the authors go through the basics of global economics and try to explain what happened. In the second part, they go around some of the most influential countries and explain the unique economic challenges that they will face. Financial experts, John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper, take us on a global journey and provide some country-specific signposts that will help investors make educated choices in this era of endgame. This enlightening 336-page book is composed of the following fifteen chapters: 1. The Beginning of the End, 2. Why Greece Matters What Does Greece Mean to Me, Dad? 3. Let's Look at the Rules, 4.The Burden of Lower Growth and More Frequent Recessions, 5. This Time Is Different, 6. The Future of Public Debt, 7.The Elements of Deflation, 8.Inflation and Hyperinflation, 9.The United States, 10.The European Periphery, 11.Eastern European Problems, 12.Japan, 13.The United Kingdom, 14.Australia, and 15.Unintended Consequences.
Positives:
1. Accessible, well-researched book.
2. The important subject of the global economy. Global endgame.
3. Authors are even-handed. The authors do a wonderful job of staying focused on the economics and treating it with utmost respect.
4. Effective use of charts and illustrations.
5. This book revolves around debt. "There is not a fixed limit for debt or some certain percentage of GDP where it all breaks down. Rather, the limit is all about confidence."
6. It's amazing how much clearer things are when we look backward. The authors do a very good job of looking back and insist that we are in the endgame era. "As individuals and government come to the end of their ability to borrow massively, growth must come from different sources."
7. The realization that our deficits are exploding off the charts...dark and gloomy indeed. "The extremely important point is this: for the most part, debts have not been extinguished, merely transferred. Debt is moving from consumer and household balance sheets to the government. While the debt supercycle was about the unsustainable rise of debt in the private sector, endgame is the crisis we will see in the public sector debt."
8. Economics is a very difficult topic...the authors make use of helpful analogies to convey the concepts. The use of sand piles to help explain critical state. Fingers of instability.
9. Important concepts that sets the stage of things to come. "Hyman Minsky, points out that stability leads to instability. The longer a given condition or trend persists (and the more comfortable we get with it), the more dramatic the correction will be when the trend fails."
10. The importance of knowing economic history. "Why is Greece important? Because so much of their debt is on the books of European banks. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth. And just a few years ago, this seemed like a good thing. The rating agencies (yes, the same guys who said those subprime bonds were AAA!) made Greek debt AAA, and banks could use massive leverage (almost 40 times in some European banks), buy these bonds, and make good money in the process."
11. Make good use of research and provide citations to back their points. "The research shows that tax increases may have as much as a negative three-times effect on GDP, or the growth of the economy."
12. Understanding the four main factors behind the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The only two ways to grow your economy: increase your (working-age) population or increase your productivity.
13. The three large structural changes in the U.S. economy moving forward: 1. Higher volatility, 2. Lower trend growth, and 3. Higher structural levels of unemployment.
14. Probably the best chapter of the book and worth the price of admission, "Chapter 5. This Time is Different." A look at how our current crisis resembles elements of a catalog of crises of the past.
15. The elements of deflation: excess capacity and unemployment, wealth effect in reverse, collapsing home prices, collapse of money and lending, and Government austerity.
16. A discussion on inflation and hyperinflation. "Companies and households typically deal with excessive debt by defaulting; countries overwhelmingly usually deal with excessive debt by inflating it away. While debt is fixed, prices and wages can go up, making the total debt burden smaller. People can't increase prices and wages through inflation, but governments can create inflation, and they've been pretty good at it over the years."
17. The second half of the book focuses on the economic Aunt Minnies (a particular set of symptoms that are characteristic of a specific disease) of individual countries and the global impact. Countries featured: U.S., Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Germany, Spain, Hungary, the Baltics (Latvia, Lituania, and Estonia), Japan, U.K., and Australia.
18. The five things that matter: debt, the structure of the balance sheet, volatility, the structure of the investor base, and the composition of the investor base.
19. The mess we are in. "Unfortunately, the debate in Washington is partisan and poisoned. Any serious effort at fiscal reform goes nowhere, and every congressperson is in favor in principle of reducing spending and curtailing entitlements, but few are willing to do so in practice."
20. Investment advice based on deflation or if inflation predominates.
Negatives:
1. Let's face it, unless you are a financial expert (and heck they don't even get it right as the book illustrates with the example of Iceland) economics is a difficult topic. There are so many variables at play, not to mention the emotional factor (confidence) of the masses. If you want to gain an understanding of the impact of government debt to
2. I liked the fact that the author provided his opinion. I would have liked a disclosure of what the general economic consensus is. Perhaps a chart that showed how the approach would vary by economic philosophy.
3. Is it just me? I never get the same satisfaction out of economics as I do with the traditional sciences. Perhaps that explains my background in engineering...oh well.
4. I would have liked a chapter on China and Russia.
5. The book's formatting did not translate as well on the smaller Kindle devices.
6. No mention of climate change and its global impact.
7. The author prefers the Friedman approach over Keynes...I'm of the latter school but I'm always willing to listen. Some of the elements are compelling.
8. This book warranted a glossary. Some of the terms should have been better defined.
9. Lacks a formal bibliography. In all fairness though, the authors put a lot of emphasis on specific books and makes the readers aware of them.
In summary, this was an enlightening read. I appreciated the somber yet realistic tone of the situation. The authors made the book accessible, but economics is quite complex and a basic understanding of the dynamics involved would enhance the enjoyment. I always take investment advice with a grain of salt; I don't get the same satisfaction from economics that I do from traditional science. I gave this book 3.5 stars and I round it up to 4. A recommended read with shortcomings noted.
Further recommendations: "Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis" by James Rickards, "This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly By Carmen M. Reinhart, Kenneth Rogoff" by "Red Ink: Inside the High-Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget" by David Wessel, "The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future" by Joseph E. Stiglitz, "End This Depression Now!" by Paul Krugman, "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class" by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, "The Benefit and The Burden: Tax Reform-Why We Need It and What It Will Take" by Bruce Bartlett, "Perfectly Legal" by David Cay Johnston, "Aftershock" by Robert B. Reich, "Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present (Vintage)" by Jeff Madrick, "The Monster" by Michael W. Hudson, "The Great American Stickup" by Robert Sheer, "The End of Growth" by Richard Heinberg and "The Crash Course" by Chris Martenson. I must admit that most of my recommended reading is left-leaning.
"Endgame" is a very solid, evenhanded book about the somber realization that we are at the end of the debt supercycle; we are at endgame. The book is broken out into two main parts. In the first part, the authors go through the basics of global economics and try to explain what happened. In the second part, they go around some of the most influential countries and explain the unique economic challenges that they will face. Financial experts, John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper, take us on a global journey and provide some country-specific signposts that will help investors make educated choices in this era of endgame. This enlightening 336-page book is composed of the following fifteen chapters: 1. The Beginning of the End, 2. Why Greece Matters What Does Greece Mean to Me, Dad? 3. Let's Look at the Rules, 4.The Burden of Lower Growth and More Frequent Recessions, 5. This Time Is Different, 6. The Future of Public Debt, 7.The Elements of Deflation, 8.Inflation and Hyperinflation, 9.The United States, 10.The European Periphery, 11.Eastern European Problems, 12.Japan, 13.The United Kingdom, 14.Australia, and 15.Unintended Consequences.
Positives:
1. Accessible, well-researched book.
2. The important subject of the global economy. Global endgame.
3. Authors are even-handed. The authors do a wonderful job of staying focused on the economics and treating it with utmost respect.
4. Effective use of charts and illustrations.
5. This book revolves around debt. "There is not a fixed limit for debt or some certain percentage of GDP where it all breaks down. Rather, the limit is all about confidence."
6. It's amazing how much clearer things are when we look backward. The authors do a very good job of looking back and insist that we are in the endgame era. "As individuals and government come to the end of their ability to borrow massively, growth must come from different sources."
7. The realization that our deficits are exploding off the charts...dark and gloomy indeed. "The extremely important point is this: for the most part, debts have not been extinguished, merely transferred. Debt is moving from consumer and household balance sheets to the government. While the debt supercycle was about the unsustainable rise of debt in the private sector, endgame is the crisis we will see in the public sector debt."
8. Economics is a very difficult topic...the authors make use of helpful analogies to convey the concepts. The use of sand piles to help explain critical state. Fingers of instability.
9. Important concepts that sets the stage of things to come. "Hyman Minsky, points out that stability leads to instability. The longer a given condition or trend persists (and the more comfortable we get with it), the more dramatic the correction will be when the trend fails."
10. The importance of knowing economic history. "Why is Greece important? Because so much of their debt is on the books of European banks. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth. And just a few years ago, this seemed like a good thing. The rating agencies (yes, the same guys who said those subprime bonds were AAA!) made Greek debt AAA, and banks could use massive leverage (almost 40 times in some European banks), buy these bonds, and make good money in the process."
11. Make good use of research and provide citations to back their points. "The research shows that tax increases may have as much as a negative three-times effect on GDP, or the growth of the economy."
12. Understanding the four main factors behind the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The only two ways to grow your economy: increase your (working-age) population or increase your productivity.
13. The three large structural changes in the U.S. economy moving forward: 1. Higher volatility, 2. Lower trend growth, and 3. Higher structural levels of unemployment.
14. Probably the best chapter of the book and worth the price of admission, "Chapter 5. This Time is Different." A look at how our current crisis resembles elements of a catalog of crises of the past.
15. The elements of deflation: excess capacity and unemployment, wealth effect in reverse, collapsing home prices, collapse of money and lending, and Government austerity.
16. A discussion on inflation and hyperinflation. "Companies and households typically deal with excessive debt by defaulting; countries overwhelmingly usually deal with excessive debt by inflating it away. While debt is fixed, prices and wages can go up, making the total debt burden smaller. People can't increase prices and wages through inflation, but governments can create inflation, and they've been pretty good at it over the years."
17. The second half of the book focuses on the economic Aunt Minnies (a particular set of symptoms that are characteristic of a specific disease) of individual countries and the global impact. Countries featured: U.S., Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Germany, Spain, Hungary, the Baltics (Latvia, Lituania, and Estonia), Japan, U.K., and Australia.
18. The five things that matter: debt, the structure of the balance sheet, volatility, the structure of the investor base, and the composition of the investor base.
19. The mess we are in. "Unfortunately, the debate in Washington is partisan and poisoned. Any serious effort at fiscal reform goes nowhere, and every congressperson is in favor in principle of reducing spending and curtailing entitlements, but few are willing to do so in practice."
20. Investment advice based on deflation or if inflation predominates.
Negatives:
1. Let's face it, unless you are a financial expert (and heck they don't even get it right as the book illustrates with the example of Iceland) economics is a difficult topic. There are so many variables at play, not to mention the emotional factor (confidence) of the masses. If you want to gain an understanding of the impact of government debt to
2. I liked the fact that the author provided his opinion. I would have liked a disclosure of what the general economic consensus is. Perhaps a chart that showed how the approach would vary by economic philosophy.
3. Is it just me? I never get the same satisfaction out of economics as I do with the traditional sciences. Perhaps that explains my background in engineering...oh well.
4. I would have liked a chapter on China and Russia.
5. The book's formatting did not translate as well on the smaller Kindle devices.
6. No mention of climate change and its global impact.
7. The author prefers the Friedman approach over Keynes...I'm of the latter school but I'm always willing to listen. Some of the elements are compelling.
8. This book warranted a glossary. Some of the terms should have been better defined.
9. Lacks a formal bibliography. In all fairness though, the authors put a lot of emphasis on specific books and makes the readers aware of them.
In summary, this was an enlightening read. I appreciated the somber yet realistic tone of the situation. The authors made the book accessible, but economics is quite complex and a basic understanding of the dynamics involved would enhance the enjoyment. I always take investment advice with a grain of salt; I don't get the same satisfaction from economics that I do from traditional science. I gave this book 3.5 stars and I round it up to 4. A recommended read with shortcomings noted.
Further recommendations: "Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis" by James Rickards, "This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly By Carmen M. Reinhart, Kenneth Rogoff" by "Red Ink: Inside the High-Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget" by David Wessel, "The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future" by Joseph E. Stiglitz, "End This Depression Now!" by Paul Krugman, "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class" by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, "The Benefit and The Burden: Tax Reform-Why We Need It and What It Will Take" by Bruce Bartlett, "Perfectly Legal" by David Cay Johnston, "Aftershock" by Robert B. Reich, "Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present (Vintage)" by Jeff Madrick, "The Monster" by Michael W. Hudson, "The Great American Stickup" by Robert Sheer, "The End of Growth" by Richard Heinberg and "The Crash Course" by Chris Martenson. I must admit that most of my recommended reading is left-leaning.
November 22, 2012
Endgame; The End of the Debt Supercycle and How it Changes Everything
John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper
Reviewed by Graham Mulligan
In the introductory essay the authors sum up the problem, quoting Wimpie from the Popeye cartoon, “I will gladly repay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” and Jean Mannet, “People only accept change in necessity and see necessity only in crisis”. The debt supercycle started more than 60 years ago and the first half of this book examines economic theory and recent economic research to make the case of the argument about debt. The second part of the book looks at particular countries, mostly in the developed world, to see what problems each faces.
The authors lean heavily on the 2009 book by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, “This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly”. There is no exactitude in economic theory, things can be described as they go along and then suddenly everything changes. The authors call this a “bang” that no one expects, like Russia in the late 1990’s, or Greece in 2011, or Japan sometime in the near future (“a bug in search of a windshield”) or the US perhaps. The key point, they emphasize, is that debt went from homebuyers, to banks, to government. When people have too much debt they can default on it (bankruptcy rules exist for this). When countries have too much debt they can inflate it away (Germany in the 1920’s, Argentina in the 1980’s); or default (the ‘haircut’ imposed on Greece in 2011); or devalue the currency (a variant of inflation).
In the chapter on Rules (of economic theory) they point out that there are four theories competing for attention: Irvine Fisher, classical economics; John Keynes, the keynsian school; Ludvig von Mises, the Austrian school; and Milton Friedman, the monetist school or Chicago school.
Unintended consequences lie like minefields in any of these theories. Keynsians come in for the author’s criticism with respect to one of these minefields. Simultaneous government spending and consumer saving, especially by aging baby boomers, work against recovery.
Double-entry bookkeeping gets a turn in helping explain how the Rules affect us:
Domestic Private Sector Financial Balance + Governmental Fiscal Balance – Current Account Balance (either Trade Deficit or Surplus) = 0
Individual countries by themselves must obey this rule but every country wants to trade up and every country can’t have a trade surplus at the same time. Europe is stuck here, especially Southern Europe. They can’t devalue their currency to make their products cheaper.
Structural changes in the US economy will mean more frequent recessions and slow growth with significant unemployment ahead. It will be like this for a period of six or seven years as the debt deleveraging process works itself out. (see: www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/deb... for a 10-page summary of this idea).
The point of Endgame is that increasing government spending (debt) will have to end and in fact be reduced. The authors use the work of Cechetti, Mohanty and Zampolli, “The Future of Public Debt: Prospects and Implications”, to build their argument. (see: www.bis.org/publ/work300.pdf?noframes=1)
The critical issue is the interest rate on borrowing money. If interest rates are higher than the growth rate there is no way to stabilize the debt owed. The study quoted above makes a 30-year projection for the path of the debt/GDP ration in a dozen major industrial economies. Unsustained debt growth is driven by another factor – age-related government spending. “Most of the obligations countries now have is to their pensioners and senior citizens” (p.129). There is a political imperative to act now, say the authors, because the majority of voters (in the US) will be pensioners by 2020.
Both inflation and deflation will continue to occur over the next few years. Collapsing home prices is an example of deflation. Classical economics (Irving Fisher) describes debt deflation as when everyone in a market tries to reduce debt which results in distress selling. Inflation, on the other hand, “is always and everywhere, a monetary problem” (Milton Friedman).
The second part of the book examines industrial countries and their likely, future bad choices, all with over-sized and growing debts. The chapter on the US situation plays heavily on the likelihood that instead of a gradual worsening leading to an eventual plan to resolve the debt issues, there will be a crisis situation, some kind of catastrophic situation that leaves no time to make a plan. Much of this chapter is, despite the author’s attempt to disguise their analysis as non-partisan, a polemical argument targeting the current president (Obama) and his policies, particularly obligations in the social areas of health and education. They point to the 2014 election as the key date for the change they seek particularly, not 2012.
Policy suggestions are offered as well. One idea is to follow Canada’s immigration policy that requires immigrants to have degrees and money enough to cover housing and health care. Another idea is a large tax on gasoline consumption earmarked for infrastructure. Other energy ideas like converting the truck fleet to natural gas (T Boone Pickins), which is an abundant resource, and building nuclear power plants to reduce dependence on foreign oil. US Education comes in for a kicking here too, but without any solid suggestions, just union bashing. Tax policy can also be changed to encourage saving and creation of new businesses. (To see the updated situation on Europe (eg. Spain), go to: www.johnmauldin.com/PIGS type in email address and ‘Endgame’ as password)
‘A grain of sand’ is an analogy that the authors use to motivate the requisite anxiety or sense of urgency throughout the book. The idea of an event occurring suddenly, like a “bang” leading to disaster is continually present. Here is the analogy:
Imagine dropping one grain of sand after another onto a table. A pile of sand soon develops. Eventually, just one grain of sand starts an avalanche. Some avalanches are just small, ten grains or a hundred, sometimes the whole side collapses. The sand pile reaches a ‘critical state’ with ‘fingers of instability’ throughout, making it susceptible to collapse.
The analogy is effective and may or may not be true when transferred to the social world we call economics. (For more on the analogy see: Mark Buchanan, “Ubiquity, Why Catastrophes Happen”)
John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper
Reviewed by Graham Mulligan
In the introductory essay the authors sum up the problem, quoting Wimpie from the Popeye cartoon, “I will gladly repay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” and Jean Mannet, “People only accept change in necessity and see necessity only in crisis”. The debt supercycle started more than 60 years ago and the first half of this book examines economic theory and recent economic research to make the case of the argument about debt. The second part of the book looks at particular countries, mostly in the developed world, to see what problems each faces.
The authors lean heavily on the 2009 book by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, “This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly”. There is no exactitude in economic theory, things can be described as they go along and then suddenly everything changes. The authors call this a “bang” that no one expects, like Russia in the late 1990’s, or Greece in 2011, or Japan sometime in the near future (“a bug in search of a windshield”) or the US perhaps. The key point, they emphasize, is that debt went from homebuyers, to banks, to government. When people have too much debt they can default on it (bankruptcy rules exist for this). When countries have too much debt they can inflate it away (Germany in the 1920’s, Argentina in the 1980’s); or default (the ‘haircut’ imposed on Greece in 2011); or devalue the currency (a variant of inflation).
In the chapter on Rules (of economic theory) they point out that there are four theories competing for attention: Irvine Fisher, classical economics; John Keynes, the keynsian school; Ludvig von Mises, the Austrian school; and Milton Friedman, the monetist school or Chicago school.
Unintended consequences lie like minefields in any of these theories. Keynsians come in for the author’s criticism with respect to one of these minefields. Simultaneous government spending and consumer saving, especially by aging baby boomers, work against recovery.
Double-entry bookkeeping gets a turn in helping explain how the Rules affect us:
Domestic Private Sector Financial Balance + Governmental Fiscal Balance – Current Account Balance (either Trade Deficit or Surplus) = 0
Individual countries by themselves must obey this rule but every country wants to trade up and every country can’t have a trade surplus at the same time. Europe is stuck here, especially Southern Europe. They can’t devalue their currency to make their products cheaper.
Structural changes in the US economy will mean more frequent recessions and slow growth with significant unemployment ahead. It will be like this for a period of six or seven years as the debt deleveraging process works itself out. (see: www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/deb... for a 10-page summary of this idea).
The point of Endgame is that increasing government spending (debt) will have to end and in fact be reduced. The authors use the work of Cechetti, Mohanty and Zampolli, “The Future of Public Debt: Prospects and Implications”, to build their argument. (see: www.bis.org/publ/work300.pdf?noframes=1)
The critical issue is the interest rate on borrowing money. If interest rates are higher than the growth rate there is no way to stabilize the debt owed. The study quoted above makes a 30-year projection for the path of the debt/GDP ration in a dozen major industrial economies. Unsustained debt growth is driven by another factor – age-related government spending. “Most of the obligations countries now have is to their pensioners and senior citizens” (p.129). There is a political imperative to act now, say the authors, because the majority of voters (in the US) will be pensioners by 2020.
Both inflation and deflation will continue to occur over the next few years. Collapsing home prices is an example of deflation. Classical economics (Irving Fisher) describes debt deflation as when everyone in a market tries to reduce debt which results in distress selling. Inflation, on the other hand, “is always and everywhere, a monetary problem” (Milton Friedman).
The second part of the book examines industrial countries and their likely, future bad choices, all with over-sized and growing debts. The chapter on the US situation plays heavily on the likelihood that instead of a gradual worsening leading to an eventual plan to resolve the debt issues, there will be a crisis situation, some kind of catastrophic situation that leaves no time to make a plan. Much of this chapter is, despite the author’s attempt to disguise their analysis as non-partisan, a polemical argument targeting the current president (Obama) and his policies, particularly obligations in the social areas of health and education. They point to the 2014 election as the key date for the change they seek particularly, not 2012.
Policy suggestions are offered as well. One idea is to follow Canada’s immigration policy that requires immigrants to have degrees and money enough to cover housing and health care. Another idea is a large tax on gasoline consumption earmarked for infrastructure. Other energy ideas like converting the truck fleet to natural gas (T Boone Pickins), which is an abundant resource, and building nuclear power plants to reduce dependence on foreign oil. US Education comes in for a kicking here too, but without any solid suggestions, just union bashing. Tax policy can also be changed to encourage saving and creation of new businesses. (To see the updated situation on Europe (eg. Spain), go to: www.johnmauldin.com/PIGS type in email address and ‘Endgame’ as password)
‘A grain of sand’ is an analogy that the authors use to motivate the requisite anxiety or sense of urgency throughout the book. The idea of an event occurring suddenly, like a “bang” leading to disaster is continually present. Here is the analogy:
Imagine dropping one grain of sand after another onto a table. A pile of sand soon develops. Eventually, just one grain of sand starts an avalanche. Some avalanches are just small, ten grains or a hundred, sometimes the whole side collapses. The sand pile reaches a ‘critical state’ with ‘fingers of instability’ throughout, making it susceptible to collapse.
The analogy is effective and may or may not be true when transferred to the social world we call economics. (For more on the analogy see: Mark Buchanan, “Ubiquity, Why Catastrophes Happen”)
January 11, 2025
Had potential to be a great book. Takes a lot of ideas, but doesn't fit them into one message. Instead, goes partway then retreats to the safety of the current eocnomic world while claiming the flaws of it. First half is better than the second
October 29, 2018
A bit verbose for me. Not to many actionable items for investors
May 6, 2020
Hasn’t aged well given the number of predictions the book made about future economic outcomes.
January 28, 2012
Narrated by Sean Pratt
9 hrs and 40 mins
Publisher's Summary
"We all know we have seen the end of an era, and now we have courtside seats to watch the Endgame unfold. We are watching the end of Act I: The Debt Supercycle. Now we will get to see how Act II: The Endgame plays out."—John Mauldin & Jonathan Tepper (Chapter 1)
Hundreds of books have been written about the financial crisis that engulfed the world after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. But what if the bigger financial crisis is ahead of us, not behind us? As John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper deftly illustrate in this controversial audio book, the crisis was more than a half-century in the making. The Great Financial Crisis, however, was merely Act I. Act II has now begun.
The massive household deleveraging and historic shift of private debt onto government balance sheets now underway all over the world represents the end of a 60-year global Debt Supercycle. We have now entered the Endgame, a time when bankruptcies and defaults (disguised as "restructuring") will not be of households and companies but of governments. The stakes are now higher. The coming crises will offer policymakers few good choices and many bad ones. It will require extraordinary clarity and courage from leaders, courage that so far is largely completely lacking. Yet, despite the authors' dark forecast, the message in Endgame is not all gloom and doom. The book lays out positive steps governments can take to weather the worst of the stormy days ahead, minimize the inevitable pain and discomfort most of us can expect to experience, and chart a bold new course to sustained economic growth and prosperity. It also offers investors an abundance of useful analysis and expert advice on how to protect their assets during the worst of it and prosper from the many new opportunities that will emerge globally as they present themselves.
In Part 2, the authors take listeners on a country-by-country tour—including the United States, UK, European countries, and Japan—clearly explaining the problems each country faces, as well as the good and bad policy options open to each, and the investment pitfalls and opportunities likely to be found in each national economy.
Whether you call it the Great Recession, the Great Financial Crisis, or the Global Debt Crisis, what we are experiencing is unlike anything seen in 80 years. Now is not the time to succumb to panic and superstition. It is a time for courage and intelligent decision making informed by the brand of rational analysis and wisdom you'll find in Endgame.
9 hrs and 40 mins
Publisher's Summary
"We all know we have seen the end of an era, and now we have courtside seats to watch the Endgame unfold. We are watching the end of Act I: The Debt Supercycle. Now we will get to see how Act II: The Endgame plays out."—John Mauldin & Jonathan Tepper (Chapter 1)
Hundreds of books have been written about the financial crisis that engulfed the world after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. But what if the bigger financial crisis is ahead of us, not behind us? As John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper deftly illustrate in this controversial audio book, the crisis was more than a half-century in the making. The Great Financial Crisis, however, was merely Act I. Act II has now begun.
The massive household deleveraging and historic shift of private debt onto government balance sheets now underway all over the world represents the end of a 60-year global Debt Supercycle. We have now entered the Endgame, a time when bankruptcies and defaults (disguised as "restructuring") will not be of households and companies but of governments. The stakes are now higher. The coming crises will offer policymakers few good choices and many bad ones. It will require extraordinary clarity and courage from leaders, courage that so far is largely completely lacking. Yet, despite the authors' dark forecast, the message in Endgame is not all gloom and doom. The book lays out positive steps governments can take to weather the worst of the stormy days ahead, minimize the inevitable pain and discomfort most of us can expect to experience, and chart a bold new course to sustained economic growth and prosperity. It also offers investors an abundance of useful analysis and expert advice on how to protect their assets during the worst of it and prosper from the many new opportunities that will emerge globally as they present themselves.
In Part 2, the authors take listeners on a country-by-country tour—including the United States, UK, European countries, and Japan—clearly explaining the problems each country faces, as well as the good and bad policy options open to each, and the investment pitfalls and opportunities likely to be found in each national economy.
Whether you call it the Great Recession, the Great Financial Crisis, or the Global Debt Crisis, what we are experiencing is unlike anything seen in 80 years. Now is not the time to succumb to panic and superstition. It is a time for courage and intelligent decision making informed by the brand of rational analysis and wisdom you'll find in Endgame.
Read
August 2, 2013Q. Which one among the following has been included as a parameter for the first time under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), based on central pollution Control Board and IIT, Kanpur research, WHO guidelines and European Union limits and practices?
1 Sulphur dioxide
2 Oxides of nitrogen
3 Ozone
4 Carbon monoxide
Ans: 3
Q. Which one among the following regarding G-20 is not correct?
1 A group of developed countries
2 An integral part of the United National
3 Outside the World Bank and IMF
4 An offshoot of G-7
Ans: 1
Q. Some atheists, skeptics and nonbelievers called to celebrate 'December 25' as Newtonmas Day instead of observing Christmas Day. The reason they propose that-
1 Both Isaac Newton and Jesus Christ were great
2 Isaac Newton was born on 25th December
3 'Skeptic Society' was founded on 25th December
4 Isaac Newton was a deep believes of Christianity
Ans: 2
Q. The Rohingya are the minorities of -
1 South Africa
2 Canada
3 Myanmar
4 Bhutan
Ans: 3
Q. Which one among the following was added in the year 2012 in the list of World Heritage Sites of the UNESCO?
1 Western Ghat
2 Agra Fort
3 Ajanta Cavesa
4 Meenakshi Temple
Ans: 1
Q. Mention the odd man out -
1 Didier Drogba
2 Oliver Kahn
3 Lionel Messi
4 Cristiano Ronaldo
Ans: 2
Q. Who among the following is the author of the book, Sachin: Born to bat-The Journey of Cricket's Ultimate Centurian?
1 Khalid AH Ansari
2 Boria Majumdar
3 Kiran Nagarkar
4 Ed Hawkins
Ans: 2
Q. Who among the following is/are the Indian Writer(s) shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for the year 2013?
1. Amitabh Ghosh
2. Jeet Thayil
3. Uday Prakash
select the correct answer using the code given below:
1 1, 2 and 3
2 1 and 2 only
3 2 and 3 only
4 1 only
Ans: 1
Q. 'Global Dimming' means
1 Gradual loss of biodiversity hot spot
2 Gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the earth surface
3 Gradual increase of the temperature of ionosphere
4 Gradual increase in the melting of ice in polar regions
Ans: 2
Q. Which of the following occupations are included under secondary sector as per the national income accounts?
1. Manufacturing
2. Construction
3. Gas and water supply
4. Mining and quarrying
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
1 1, 2, 3 and 4
2 1, 2 and 4 only
3 1, 2 and 3 only
4 3 and 4 only
1 Sulphur dioxide
2 Oxides of nitrogen
3 Ozone
4 Carbon monoxide
Ans: 3
Q. Which one among the following regarding G-20 is not correct?
1 A group of developed countries
2 An integral part of the United National
3 Outside the World Bank and IMF
4 An offshoot of G-7
Ans: 1
Q. Some atheists, skeptics and nonbelievers called to celebrate 'December 25' as Newtonmas Day instead of observing Christmas Day. The reason they propose that-
1 Both Isaac Newton and Jesus Christ were great
2 Isaac Newton was born on 25th December
3 'Skeptic Society' was founded on 25th December
4 Isaac Newton was a deep believes of Christianity
Ans: 2
Q. The Rohingya are the minorities of -
1 South Africa
2 Canada
3 Myanmar
4 Bhutan
Ans: 3
Q. Which one among the following was added in the year 2012 in the list of World Heritage Sites of the UNESCO?
1 Western Ghat
2 Agra Fort
3 Ajanta Cavesa
4 Meenakshi Temple
Ans: 1
Q. Mention the odd man out -
1 Didier Drogba
2 Oliver Kahn
3 Lionel Messi
4 Cristiano Ronaldo
Ans: 2
Q. Who among the following is the author of the book, Sachin: Born to bat-The Journey of Cricket's Ultimate Centurian?
1 Khalid AH Ansari
2 Boria Majumdar
3 Kiran Nagarkar
4 Ed Hawkins
Ans: 2
Q. Who among the following is/are the Indian Writer(s) shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for the year 2013?
1. Amitabh Ghosh
2. Jeet Thayil
3. Uday Prakash
select the correct answer using the code given below:
1 1, 2 and 3
2 1 and 2 only
3 2 and 3 only
4 1 only
Ans: 1
Q. 'Global Dimming' means
1 Gradual loss of biodiversity hot spot
2 Gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the earth surface
3 Gradual increase of the temperature of ionosphere
4 Gradual increase in the melting of ice in polar regions
Ans: 2
Q. Which of the following occupations are included under secondary sector as per the national income accounts?
1. Manufacturing
2. Construction
3. Gas and water supply
4. Mining and quarrying
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
1 1, 2, 3 and 4
2 1, 2 and 4 only
3 1, 2 and 3 only
4 3 and 4 only
July 27, 2019
A "must read" for Financial Professionals and anyone managing money over the next 10 years
Just finished this book and I really enjoyed it. I've been a subscriber to John Maudlin's newsletter for a few months now, so I was curious about 'Endgame'. The book did not disappoint. I read a great deal of economic commentary, and in this context I found several aspects of John's book most useful and enjoyable.
For starters, John's stylistic perspective is very well-balanced. While his message is a somber one, it is not told from the same vantage point as Robert Prechter, Gary Schilling, or other market bears. John has some bad news, but he delivers it in a fairly even handed and matter-of-fact manner. After delivering a bitter pill, he will often step back and point out cause for hope and cues that one can look for to see when the situation is actually beginning to improve. I found his style refreshing - aspiring to editorial neutrality while being honest about his own personal biases.
On the usefulness front, I found his "Three Structural Changes" most helpful:
1.) Higher Volatility;
2.) Lower trend growth; and
3.) Higher structural levels of unemployment.
When using these three 'lenses' to view any particular macroeconomic situation, patterns begin to emerge and make themselves much more clear. These three pillars illuminate the remaining analysis in the book.
I also appreciated his nuanced approach to the issues of inflation and deflation. Who will experience which scourge, in what order, and why. Many macroeconomic authors take a pretty binary approach when discussing these issues, but Maudlin's analysis does a great job of really dissecting the underlying root causes of each, and how they work together in a sort of 'yin and yang' relationship.
In summary, I believe John does an excellent job of writing a very thorough yet imminently readable analysis on the current economic mess our world finds itself in today. A sober view of our challenges ahead, with clear eyed guidance on how best to tackle these, and react to them when things don't go as planned. Highly recommended.
Just finished this book and I really enjoyed it. I've been a subscriber to John Maudlin's newsletter for a few months now, so I was curious about 'Endgame'. The book did not disappoint. I read a great deal of economic commentary, and in this context I found several aspects of John's book most useful and enjoyable.
For starters, John's stylistic perspective is very well-balanced. While his message is a somber one, it is not told from the same vantage point as Robert Prechter, Gary Schilling, or other market bears. John has some bad news, but he delivers it in a fairly even handed and matter-of-fact manner. After delivering a bitter pill, he will often step back and point out cause for hope and cues that one can look for to see when the situation is actually beginning to improve. I found his style refreshing - aspiring to editorial neutrality while being honest about his own personal biases.
On the usefulness front, I found his "Three Structural Changes" most helpful:
1.) Higher Volatility;
2.) Lower trend growth; and
3.) Higher structural levels of unemployment.
When using these three 'lenses' to view any particular macroeconomic situation, patterns begin to emerge and make themselves much more clear. These three pillars illuminate the remaining analysis in the book.
I also appreciated his nuanced approach to the issues of inflation and deflation. Who will experience which scourge, in what order, and why. Many macroeconomic authors take a pretty binary approach when discussing these issues, but Maudlin's analysis does a great job of really dissecting the underlying root causes of each, and how they work together in a sort of 'yin and yang' relationship.
In summary, I believe John does an excellent job of writing a very thorough yet imminently readable analysis on the current economic mess our world finds itself in today. A sober view of our challenges ahead, with clear eyed guidance on how best to tackle these, and react to them when things don't go as planned. Highly recommended.
July 5, 2012
As i'm sure everyone here reading this knows, there has been allot of pessimist running around preaching their "End of the world" sermons. I for one, do not trust the intelligence of people who just read any random articles they can find on the internet that caters to their belief systems.People don't verify their information when they learn it, a much needed habit that we should have in our society of today. Especially since this is the information age. I wanted an unbiased opinion, from some people with a comprehensive and credible understanding, and although the authors are optimists I would say that they did give a fairly decent and unbiased opinion on what's to come
The Author's sure do know what there talking about. But I do have some (two) quarrels with this book. For one the pacing was rather to slow. I found my self with a pinch full of pages (about 50-70) and all I managed to learn was that "The US is coming to an end of the debt supercycle, the deleveraging will be painful. some countries (i.e.Greece) will be in much worse shape than others. I'm certain that the information could have been sufficiently condensed down to much less pages without being difficult to comprehend. And secondly, my discontent has to do with the fact that this book felt completely derivative to me, completely derivative of other's work that is. I really disliked the constant referencing, I don't have a problem with a little referencing here and there, in fact I welcome it, but this book was going a bit overboard in my opinion. But I guess that may not bother other readers
Verdict:
If you do not have any respectable understanding of how this current economic crisis may unfold, then this book shall serve well. I disliked the pacing and constant referencing, but still i recommend you pick this up.
Physical Quality:
The book is published by Wiley who have a good history of producing strong books. The hardback is strong, the jacket is decent. And the text is of fair size.
Hoped my review was of some help, email me if you'd like a chat
Ken James
London Based Capitalist
December 21, 2016
Endgame is a politicians nightmare. It tells the reader what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Rather than talking down the problems facing the world economy, the severe indebtedness, the overleverage, and the lack of good options, Endgame simply tells it like it is.
A decent relief is that Endgame is, unlike most other works, a US-centric book. While it does focus on the US economy, it provides a worldwide tour of similar debt crises, ranging from Japan, to UK, to Hungary, Greece and the Baltics.
The most alarming of them all is Japan, which is the most overleveraged country on Earth. Maudlin describes Japan as a bug in search of a windshield.
An interesting chapter, and one almost never touched upon, is Australia. While there are no, or rather, few economic problems within Australia, Australia has what every other country had prior to financial collapse, a housing bubble. The thing is, most bubbles are normally ignored until they happen. Kudos on Mr Maudlin for spotting it and giving it more attention than other writers normally do.
The only criticism of this work is excessive citation of a recent book, Reinhart and Rogoff's This Time is Different. This book receives a whole chapter of attention, and the coverage made me feel somewhat lacking in the sense that I had not yet read that book, so it may be advisable to read Reinhart and Rogoff first.
Although the Endgame of the title remains somewhat ambiguous, this reader at least comes to the conclusion that it will involve inflating away the debt. Indeed, it seems like the only option on the cards. Maudlin seems distrustful of Keynesianism, although his exact ideology seems difficult to pin.
On the whole, Endgame is a very readable book, perhaps one of the most readable I've read in recent years, and a decent addition to the reading list of anyone who is, like me, still trying to understand the full implications of the Crash of 2008.
A decent relief is that Endgame is, unlike most other works, a US-centric book. While it does focus on the US economy, it provides a worldwide tour of similar debt crises, ranging from Japan, to UK, to Hungary, Greece and the Baltics.
The most alarming of them all is Japan, which is the most overleveraged country on Earth. Maudlin describes Japan as a bug in search of a windshield.
An interesting chapter, and one almost never touched upon, is Australia. While there are no, or rather, few economic problems within Australia, Australia has what every other country had prior to financial collapse, a housing bubble. The thing is, most bubbles are normally ignored until they happen. Kudos on Mr Maudlin for spotting it and giving it more attention than other writers normally do.
The only criticism of this work is excessive citation of a recent book, Reinhart and Rogoff's This Time is Different. This book receives a whole chapter of attention, and the coverage made me feel somewhat lacking in the sense that I had not yet read that book, so it may be advisable to read Reinhart and Rogoff first.
Although the Endgame of the title remains somewhat ambiguous, this reader at least comes to the conclusion that it will involve inflating away the debt. Indeed, it seems like the only option on the cards. Maudlin seems distrustful of Keynesianism, although his exact ideology seems difficult to pin.
On the whole, Endgame is a very readable book, perhaps one of the most readable I've read in recent years, and a decent addition to the reading list of anyone who is, like me, still trying to understand the full implications of the Crash of 2008.
February 24, 2014
I found this book super interesting, hence the five stars.
In 2008 the US housing market went bust, and mayhem followed. This book sheds some light on what went wrong, why it was inevitable, and how the "debt super-cycle" might end for the US, Japan, the UK, and several EU countries.
Being not that familiar with macroeconomics, I found some parts a challenge to understand completely. However, the authors did a good job of attempting to explain them.
Some facts from this book are really shocking, and just shows the extent of the mess some countries are in. I've listed some of them below: *spoiler alert*
- The UK has the largest public debt among all advanced countries. The total debt amounts to a mind-blowing US$ 15 trillion. That's around $250,000 for every single man, woman, and child in the UK!
- There are **more** unsold homes in Spain, than there are in the United States (a country with 7 times the population) during the housing bubble of 2008. This would be the time to buy your mansion in Barcelona or Malaga if you had the money.
- Due to inflated public sector wages in Greece (three times those of the private sector on average), It would be cheaper for the Greek railway company to send all their customers separately in Taxi cabs, rather than on a train!
- The inflation of land prices in Japan caused the land under the imperial gardens in Tokyo (around 4 Sq. Km) to be valued more than all of the real-estate in the state of California (area: 400,000+ Sq. Km) !!!
In 2008 the US housing market went bust, and mayhem followed. This book sheds some light on what went wrong, why it was inevitable, and how the "debt super-cycle" might end for the US, Japan, the UK, and several EU countries.
Being not that familiar with macroeconomics, I found some parts a challenge to understand completely. However, the authors did a good job of attempting to explain them.
Some facts from this book are really shocking, and just shows the extent of the mess some countries are in. I've listed some of them below: *spoiler alert*
- The UK has the largest public debt among all advanced countries. The total debt amounts to a mind-blowing US$ 15 trillion. That's around $250,000 for every single man, woman, and child in the UK!
- There are **more** unsold homes in Spain, than there are in the United States (a country with 7 times the population) during the housing bubble of 2008. This would be the time to buy your mansion in Barcelona or Malaga if you had the money.
- Due to inflated public sector wages in Greece (three times those of the private sector on average), It would be cheaper for the Greek railway company to send all their customers separately in Taxi cabs, rather than on a train!
- The inflation of land prices in Japan caused the land under the imperial gardens in Tokyo (around 4 Sq. Km) to be valued more than all of the real-estate in the state of California (area: 400,000+ Sq. Km) !!!
April 27, 2011
I'm reading this on my NookColor. The "publisher's settings" are dismal, rendering charts as 1"x2" little graphics that are in many cases unreadable, and formulae in a fragmented tiny font that takes a detective to unravel. The margins are too big and the text is too big, and the whole presentation is clunky and frustrating.
Then, there is the miserable typesetting. What does this sentence mean: "..and Kindleberger (as well as some others) are given the credit for the pioneering work debt, which he then trashes as not being usable...". The "work debt"?? Maybe it should have been the "word debt"? In another case, there is this: "As the process shifts from private to public debt, growth the economic and financial environment will be very different...". What is "growth the economic"? Again, maybe it's a typo that should say "both the economic".
And then, there's Mauldin's chatty presentation. He tosses terms around as if we all were "inside" the financial machine and were happily joining his wry asides. But, he specifically targeted this book to the novice reader (he claims even polititions should be able to understand it), the person who, like me, needs explanation, and he is leaving me, again, frustrated. He referred to puts in a way that had me thinking it was a verb, but he meant it as a noun.
Don't get me wrong. I love Mauldin's "Outside the Box" newsletter, and I agree with his thinking. I just think this book deserves a clean-up edit.
Then, there is the miserable typesetting. What does this sentence mean: "..and Kindleberger (as well as some others) are given the credit for the pioneering work debt, which he then trashes as not being usable...". The "work debt"?? Maybe it should have been the "word debt"? In another case, there is this: "As the process shifts from private to public debt, growth the economic and financial environment will be very different...". What is "growth the economic"? Again, maybe it's a typo that should say "both the economic".
And then, there's Mauldin's chatty presentation. He tosses terms around as if we all were "inside" the financial machine and were happily joining his wry asides. But, he specifically targeted this book to the novice reader (he claims even polititions should be able to understand it), the person who, like me, needs explanation, and he is leaving me, again, frustrated. He referred to puts in a way that had me thinking it was a verb, but he meant it as a noun.
Don't get me wrong. I love Mauldin's "Outside the Box" newsletter, and I agree with his thinking. I just think this book deserves a clean-up edit.
November 14, 2013
My poor rating for this book is not based on the subject matter. Sovereign (government) debt levels are important. It is true that Central banks have taken unprecedented steps during the Great Recession to prevent a complete collapse of the money supply. Steps which were necessary to prevent another great depression, but the consequences of such actions are not fully known.
It is difficult to recommend this book because the authors are loose with their analysis and borderline alarmist. The book severally lacks original research, analysis or perspectives. A large portion of the book is simply quoted text and graphs from external resources. It is almost comical the amount of space quotes, graphs, author’s names and book titles take up in this book. I now understand what filler is.
Another pet peeve I have with this book is the use of exclamation points, bold text and sayings like “bang!” When authors write like this it makes me think they are trying to disguise the fact that they don’t have anything meaningful to say.
I think the worst part is after reading the book, I still don’t know what the “debt supercycle” is.
Why two stars and not one? I like economics, I got some good book recommendations and half of part two was interesting.
Bang!
It is difficult to recommend this book because the authors are loose with their analysis and borderline alarmist. The book severally lacks original research, analysis or perspectives. A large portion of the book is simply quoted text and graphs from external resources. It is almost comical the amount of space quotes, graphs, author’s names and book titles take up in this book. I now understand what filler is.
Another pet peeve I have with this book is the use of exclamation points, bold text and sayings like “bang!” When authors write like this it makes me think they are trying to disguise the fact that they don’t have anything meaningful to say.
I think the worst part is after reading the book, I still don’t know what the “debt supercycle” is.
Why two stars and not one? I like economics, I got some good book recommendations and half of part two was interesting.
Bang!
December 6, 2013
Unlike other financial and economic books that I've read, Endgame tackles the current problem in the world crisis. I like this book because unlike reading about history, you are reading the modern crisis and clear cut explanation on what is going on.
For example, the simple example on what is going on with Grease and you don't need a MBA to understand. The author also does a sub par job at explaining what should we do to increase our GOP. While it's not groundbreaking ideas, such as adding 30 cents on fuel to get off from foreign oil and allowing certain illegal immigrants buying homes for taxes, or no capital gain for small businesses, all of his ideas aren't too far fetch on what we should be doing,
As far Europe and after reading Endgame. Like the Great Wall in China, their economic status won't be standing for another 200 years, yet alone 2000.
The payoff of Endgame is during the last two hours in the book. John Mauldin goes global and explain each countries their "current" situation with their financial crisis.
Instead of learning what happened in the past, Endgame is reporting of what is going on in the present times.
Don't read this book after knowing the aftermath, read this book while we are in it.
For example, the simple example on what is going on with Grease and you don't need a MBA to understand. The author also does a sub par job at explaining what should we do to increase our GOP. While it's not groundbreaking ideas, such as adding 30 cents on fuel to get off from foreign oil and allowing certain illegal immigrants buying homes for taxes, or no capital gain for small businesses, all of his ideas aren't too far fetch on what we should be doing,
As far Europe and after reading Endgame. Like the Great Wall in China, their economic status won't be standing for another 200 years, yet alone 2000.
The payoff of Endgame is during the last two hours in the book. John Mauldin goes global and explain each countries their "current" situation with their financial crisis.
Instead of learning what happened in the past, Endgame is reporting of what is going on in the present times.
Don't read this book after knowing the aftermath, read this book while we are in it.
October 23, 2013
Extremely well written review of the status of world finance and macro-economics. A superb and sobering account of how precariously we are living on borrowed time as we wait an inevitable "financial, economic adjustment'. Our government debts, monetary expansion, and trade deficits are unsustainable. The authors lay out the very sound reasons we must change policies or suffer the extreme consequences soon - not during our children's lifetime, but during our lifetime. Of little consolation is that so many other nations are facing the very same issues - UK, Japan, Australia, Greece, Spain, Ireland... And given we live an ever increasingly connected world, we will feel the tremors of instability for a long time to come. The message to all readers - we need national fiscal discipline, private financial discipline, improved business productivity, drastic improvements in energy efficiency, and improved national policies to ensure the conditions that have been the historical foundations of American enterprise and prosperity.
December 3, 2012
I liked the book a lot when he was merely describing the problems facing world economies in layman's terms, but his solutions were kind of a joke to me. Eighty nuclear power plants across America won't cause anything except Armageddon. When I grew up, many of my classmates were Ukrainian immigrants- many of which had horror stories of their relatives picking up nuclear waste with their hands because no one knew any better. These days we all do know better, and we should not be willing to sacrifice the environment to economic growth. I also thought that environmental degradation was really left out of the story, especially in the chapter about Australia.
Some of his other predictions, such as medical advances allowing people to become virtually immortal and lots of singularity and artificial intelligence stuff is just risible to me. If this comes true, feel free to look up this book review to personally say "I told you so" and laugh at me.
Some of his other predictions, such as medical advances allowing people to become virtually immortal and lots of singularity and artificial intelligence stuff is just risible to me. If this comes true, feel free to look up this book review to personally say "I told you so" and laugh at me.
June 17, 2012
Mauldin is a master of making the complex palatable. In Endgame, he often shares conversations between himself and his many (mostly adopted) children about the mind-numbing macro events in the world today, because if he can make them understand, readers should get the gist. Considering the subject matter, Mauldin succeeds more than most in making global fiscal and monetary trends comprehensible. His take is pessimistic, but the arguments are well-researched, quantitatively supported, and often undeniable. Unlike some doomsayers, Mauldin and the co-author show optimism by offering solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems, but the medicine will be bitter. Most adults would benefit from the economic understanding Endgame provides, although a novice to economic study might occasionally find the text dense.
August 18, 2012
Every congressman should read it. There are tough decisions to be made and I'm not sure our leadership is up to it. This would be a tough read (dry) for some, but if you want to avoid reading it, you can watch a presentation he did that is a good summation of the book. The link is "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mn4uj...". Think cutting spending by $200 billion (or more) a year for the next five years. That's what we need to do.
At around 1:12 into the video, I was happy to hear him address an issues that I keep harping on. The things that caused this mess have not been addressed. Credit Default Swaps have not been dealt with. Either put them on an exchange like stocks (his preferable choice, apparently) or regulate them like insurance policies (my preferable choice).
Also, around minute 30 he talks about the bank of dad being closed. Drew a smile; inside joke.
At around 1:12 into the video, I was happy to hear him address an issues that I keep harping on. The things that caused this mess have not been addressed. Credit Default Swaps have not been dealt with. Either put them on an exchange like stocks (his preferable choice, apparently) or regulate them like insurance policies (my preferable choice).
Also, around minute 30 he talks about the bank of dad being closed. Drew a smile; inside joke.
May 20, 2013
Very good, comprehensive overview of the debt problem in the world today. I think Tepper and Mauldin did a very nice job presenting just the right amount of historical background, thereby painting a good picture for the non-economist. I think Endgame would be a very nice compliment to Niall Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money".
One thing to keep in mind is the amount of US public debt held by the Fed. Is this really debt? Truly, I's estimate it is not. The Fed pays all interest back to the US Treasury. As for external holders/buyers such as China, Japan, Russia, etc...they will continue buying as long as we continue importing their products, and thus supporting their economies. What to do with those U$D? Buy gold? I think not. Still, as the authors quote Herb Stein- "If something can't go on forever, it will stop."
One thing to keep in mind is the amount of US public debt held by the Fed. Is this really debt? Truly, I's estimate it is not. The Fed pays all interest back to the US Treasury. As for external holders/buyers such as China, Japan, Russia, etc...they will continue buying as long as we continue importing their products, and thus supporting their economies. What to do with those U$D? Buy gold? I think not. Still, as the authors quote Herb Stein- "If something can't go on forever, it will stop."
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