John Mauldin Tries to Answer a Question

I've become a fan of the John Mauldin investment letters.  He preaches a kind of unterrified tough-love style of investment analysis, with an obligatto of "this too will pass."   I can't say I actually take his advice--I'm still an almost compulsively passive investor.  But reading him can have a consolatory effect.

Mauldin can be pompous and a bit full of himself although perhaps that comes with the territory, particularly if you are successful at it, as he seems to be.  But he strikes me as reasonably conscientious at attending to critics and doubters.  Here, for example, he offers up (from a skeptic) what you'd have to call a well-formulated  cry of pain:

[P]oliticians in DC, you, and your guest pundits warn us that the world as we know it will end if we don't somehow reduce the average Joe's Social Security, pension, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Oh and let’s not forget the budget, which is being argued in Washington as I type this. The line is that we have to make drastic reductions to spending on domestic programs, on our schools, on our infrastructure, on unemployment entitlements, on all the things that serve to give working people a chance at a dignified life. You're a smart guy. You can recognize what is fair and what is greed and excess. When the nation is as troubled as it is today and yet the wealthy are living even better than they did 30 years ago, what does that say about America?

 Over to you, John.   Do we really have to strip ourselves and our neighbors to the parched bones, so the toffs can feast on ortolans and whipped cream?   Mauldin doesn't like to be cut up into snippets so I won't try to give him to you  here.  But if you're curious as to how he might response, go read the full unvarnished version here.