Endgame

The End of The Debt Supercycle And How It Changes Everything

By: John Mauldin

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 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.

©2011 John Mauldin (P)2011 Gildan Media Corp

Canada Vanishes!

Overall the book was informative for someone who has never read or studied anything about economics. It certainly seemed to present an eyes open view of financial realities to come. I do have a couple of criticisms, one cynical and one national.

First, it appears that the USA, Japan, Great Britain and most of the world are doomed ... probably ... almost certainly, but it's OK because in a few generations we'll be able to look back with fondness on the, as yet, imminent tough times. Meanwhile, exciting technological advances will anesthetize us into thinking the pain isn't so bad.

Second, I find it rather amazing, that even though Canada is the largest or second largest trading partner with the USA, there was more in this book about the economies of Latvia & Estonia than us in the frozen wasteland to America's north. If like me, you are a Canadian, let me sum up; gather as many Loonies (that's Cdn$, not whacko's) as possible as opposed to other currencies and, the Canadian housing bubble hasn't burst, yet.

I don't regret using a credit for this audiobook because I did learn a lot about an important, albeit dry subject. If you choose this for your own library, do it for the education not the excitement and if you want to know what's in store for us polite, igloo living schmucks north of 49 you better ask Prime Minister Harper. I hear he's an economist too.

Scary but riveting

This book was written at the end of 2010; however, it is as relevant now as it was back then. Their summary of what is happening/could happen in Greece is spot on. It makes you re-evaluate what can happen over the next few years. Being forewarned is a powerful advantage. One of those books that you need to listen to twice to get ever point and detail.

Economic big picture. Global & historical context.

You will be better able to make your own financial and even political choices. You will understand how global debt/leverage creates instability, and how that affects national and global economy.

Both scholarly and readable, this is a thorough, practical report in very palatable form, and in terms understandable by the curious layman.

The book is a perfectly clear description and explaination of the effect of debt/leverage on financial/economic dynamics, on national and global scales, and in historical context. Its theses are extremely well explained and supported.

Great book, but not so easy to understand

I give this book a 5 star rating because it is a great book and it deserves it. In my case I not a person will great knowledge of the economic scenery around the world and in the USA. He uses many terms that I was not familiar which had me search on the web. The book allowed me how integrated the economies around the world affect and depend of she other. I would recommend this book with the comment that it may require some research to understand in depth. I benefited from this book and I'm more aware of what is going on with the USA economy and how it is affected by China, India and Europe.

Excellent macro view of the word

Must read to any one exposed to financial markets. Looking forward to more books from this author.

I learned alot!

Economics can be very difficult to understand and i am just beginning to learn. This book has a lot of good useful information that i could easily understand.

A completely useless book

From the first sentence, the author reveals his abysmal ignorance of economics, banking and international finance. The book has nothing to contribute to an understanding of "the debt crisis" A total waste of a credit.

AMATEURISH

The authors attempt to string together material from books by others and fail to come up with a cohesive whole.

I got the impression that they didn't fully understand what they were writing about. The frequent cliches, put downs, and repetitions drove me silly. The topic is obviously beyond them and they should leave it to the experts.

As for the narrator, there is only one word to describe his performance - Disastrous!

Skip It

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

If you read the title, you got all of the information this book has to offer. The author provides only the most basic of analysis, and even for this cites others, specifically Rogoff, over and over again. He takes the basic premise that is in the title and repeats it over and over and over again, using anecdotal stories, not facts, figures, or data. I really dislike it when authors do this, because it screams that they wanted the book revenue, or to get their name out there, in other words writing the book was about them, not about the person who was going to read it. I agree with the author's premise, but lets face it, so do millions of others, and this is written about constantly on the internet, and in the non-mainstream financial press. To make this book compelling the author would need to cite something new, new data, or a new way of looking at the old data. He does none of this. I turned it off half way through. Spend your money elsewhere.

Not impressed.

Author clearly drinking the central bank kool-aid. Funny in a sad way, listening to this in 2016. Hind sight is 20/20.