Endgame

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

An Educational Fear Ride

At first I was turned off by this book. In the first part of the book the author treats the reader like a third grader. In a section entitled ???Why Greece Matters??? the author, in a letter which he apparently wrote to his own children, first begins with a 15 minuet preamble where he repeatedly stresses that he is about to tell us why Greece matters. I couldn???t bear it any longer, so I left the book alone for a couple of months. Finally after finishing other similarly themed books such as The Real Crash by Peter Schiff, which by the way makes many of the exact same arguments, I decided to keep reading. I was pleasantly surprised. The book is actually filled with all kinds of in-depth and interesting details about market risks, debt troubles, inflation and deflation possibilities. It also includes some very specific predictions country by country towards the end. It seems that the authors??? are just not use to relating their knowledge to a general audience.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Set "HOLYCRAP!" meters to '10'...

The book is extremely well-performed and well-written. It builds complex concepts from simple ones and uses a style that delivers similarly-concerning messages for different countries in fresh ways. I kept looking forward to coming back to the book and hoping I could reach the end before one of the many economic time-bombs went off.

Read it and start voting for people who will make hard choices quickly.

16 of 17 people found this review helpful

There's never been a more timely and useful book

Would you listen to Endgame again? Why?

Yes, and again and again and again. Very dense with information and the more time that passes, the clearer it becomes that his forecasts are coming true.

Any additional comments?

This is a sobering book about the reality of the unwinding of the global debt that has accumulated over the last 50-odd years, which both explains how we got there (without pointing political fingers) and describes the road ahead for regions around the world. While Mauldin does his best to end on a high note, the assessment of the dramatic change in how we've been living for the last several decades are alarming even for those who've been trying to keep up with current events. Mauldin explains how the wealth and prosperity of the last several decades was created and how there are few options going forward to preserving the affluence we've been accustomed, at least in the short to mid-term 5-10 years.

The information he provides is useful and when combined with common sense strategies for minimizing debt and asset protection, can be very helpful looking forward.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

Get This Now, and Understand How Bad Things Are

There are a lot of titles about the economic crisis, and I've listened or read most of them. While almost all of them are very good, this title stands above the rest. You will not listen to hope, change, or promises here. Rather, you will get the crap scared out of you if governments, in particular ours in the USA, do not act NOW to stop spending like drunken sailors and pay down the massive debt that has been rung up for years and years.

Does this mean that grandma gets thrown into the snowbank and our kids grow up illiterate? No. What it does mean is that our economy (and others) cannot sustain current spending and debt and this needs to be fixed soon, or things will get so much worse that 2008 will be remembered as 'good times' a few years from now. Structural change now, or we go bust...a MUST listen.

12 of 13 people found this review helpful

The Best Explanation of what's Happening Now

Would you listen to Endgame again? Why?

I will listen to it several more times.
This is a brilliant assessment of our current problems
which the national media does not understand.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The author's logic and conclusions are undeniable. This is not a doom and gloom book, although what we will face in this decade is gloomy. This work is both elegant and brilliant.

What about Sean Pratt’s performance did you like?

This was an ok reading, not great, not bad. The reader makes a concerted job to do a good reading. A better adaption of the book is preferred.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, unless you have all day. Listen to this is 45 minutes chunks of time. This is an incredible amount to absorb. I work in Financial Services and I have to listen to some passages more than once.

Any additional comments?

This is a must for anyone who is concerned about where our country is headed, what will happen to us in the next decade, how we got in the mess we are in now and how to get out of it.

This is 5 star writing.

11 of 12 people found this review helpful

Interesting, scary, informative

It is hard to make a book on economics both informative and interesting but John Mauldin has done it. He paints a richly detailed picture of the "endgame" for America's and the world's economies. As a nation our leaders (yes we voted for them) have over many decades continued to make very poor decisions and now the time has come to pay the piper. How bad will it end? Read the book and see. You may not agree with all of the writer's opinions but you will understand where and why we are in the current economic crisis.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Layman's explanation of debt crisis; it's not over

This book gives the listener an explanation of the the 2008 debt crisis and how ongoing economic policies in most of the advanced countries are further deepening the problem. It is a very well done documentary-type book with numerous references to other studies, yet is very easy to understand and is actually entertaining. I will have to buy the actual book just for reference.
I read the "Economist" every week and thought I had a handle on the debt crisis for most countries, but this book lays it all out in easy to understand cause and effect terms. Highly recommended!

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

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.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Most Important Book I Have Read In 30 Years

This book is without question one of the most important books I have ever read.
If you vote, care about the future value of your savings/investments, and/or
care about the economic future of your children & grandchildren, read it.
Then, if you agree with me about its value, send it to your Federal
Representatives. It is a fascinating "world tour" of our Macro Economic
future, is easy to read and understand, written for a broad audience.

10 of 12 people found this review helpful

If you do not play by the rules, it's Endgame.

Over the last few years I have read so many books about the economy and basic economic theory. Most of them were too hard and were difficult to understand. John Mauldin, Endgame book is very easy to understand. He uses lots of very simple examples to get his point across. As he points out governments are no different then people, both can get themselves into financial difficulties. He compares governments to households with a mortgage. It's easy to pay down your mortgage with easy monthly payments. But if your mortgage payments are going up faster than your income, your debt level will grow. For countries it is the same. And can reach a point of no return for countries, when interest rates are rising faster than their growth rates. At that stage, there is no hope of stabilizing the deficit. This is the situation so many countries in the developed world now find themselves in. Mr J D Thomson, Wellington, New Zealand.

12 of 16 people found this review helpful

Awesome!

I have read/listerned to over 300 investing/finance books and this one is right up there with the best of them. I can honestly say the author's understanding on the end of the debt cycle is second to none. 10/10

Something to Know About Our World

This is an essential aspect of our world that you must know about. John Mauldin is an astute observer of what is going on out there - contrarian but far from cuckoo.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful