John Mauldin's Outside the Box

This week I offer a main course, a veritable piece de resistance, for Outside the Box readers, from my friend Rich Yamarone. Rich is Chief Economist for Bloomberg and one really sharp talent. He helps write Bloomberg Brief: Economics, a daily notebook that comes out every business morning with an all-encompassing view of what's happening and will happen.

We woke up this weekend to a €100 billion "rescue" of Spanish banks, and the initial reaction of the market was relief. But did we not just see this movie, but with Greek subtitles rather than Spanish? Was this another of those "necessary but not sufficient" plot lines that Europe is so good at? Kick the can down the road and hope for a happy ending?

It is the season when students all over the country are graduating and listening to graduation speeches. I have heard more than my share over the years. But never one like this week's Outside the Box essay, from my friend and world-class demographer Neil Howe. Neil was co-author of The Fourth Turning, which way back in 1997 absolutely nailed the coming generational changes we are now living through, giving us a fascinating and eerily accurate guide to our future. The premise is that a generation is a 20-year period and that generational social tendencies repeat roughly every 80 years and have done so in the Anglo-Saxon world for hundreds of years. And now the Millennial generation is coming of age in a world dominated by Boomers, and we are seeing another cycle change.

There are plenty of books about the entitlement disaster in our future, but few come with the backing of an academic press. The Clash of Generations is an exception. Written by economist Larry Kotlikoff, one of the creators of generational accounting, and my good friend of long standing, Scott Burns, Clash shows what current policies have already done to young people, tells stories about how both parties have allowed it to happen, and offers actual policy solutions– for banking, taxes, healthcare, and Social Security.

I recently had a chance to speak at a conference where Dr. Ian Bremmer spoke after me. I was very impressed with his thought process and asked him to give me an outline of his speech to share with you for this week's Outside the Box. It's a shorter version of his powerhouse book, Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World. I highly recommend it.

I want to emphasize that I do not think Spain is hopeless. Rather, it has a narrow set of limited options that will require a great deal of austerity and economic pain on the part of Spain and significant help from the rest of Europe, combined with the forbearance and patience of the bond market or massive buying of Spanish bonds by the ECB for an extended period of time. I think it will need to be the latter, as the bond market is on the brink of breaking down on Spanish debt, failing a realistic path to economic balance and growth. The way ahead is most difficult and treacherous. It appears to me that at the end of the day only ECB participation can buy Spain the time it needs. If they give Spain the time, it can get through. But the pain will then be spread to the valuation of the euro and thus the entire eurozone.

I debated with myself about what to send as this week's Outside the Box. I have decided on a recent short but important post from my friend David Kotok, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Cumberland Advisors. He calls it "I'm Worried." There are some very thought-provoking ideas here, but what makes it particularly interesting is that I'm running into this sentiment more and more as I travel around the US; and when I'm abroad I also hear from people who are worried about the US. These are folks who rightly realize the world needs a strong US, both as an economic engine and as a leader –a chairman of the board, if you will –of a growing world. (Can the world grow and prosper without us? Of course, but not as easily, and the transition will not be pretty.)

For your Outside the Box today I treat you to another big, juicy slab of Grant Williams' Things That Make You Go Hmmm… I don't want to be all Grant all the time, but this is just so good I couldn't resist. This week, Grant is digging deep into the history and mystery of the European Union, taking us all the way back to the first inter-country treaty in April 1951 and then following the rather tortuous bureaucratic proceedings that led, by hook and by crook, to today's increasingly problematic eurozone.