Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ‘twixt that darkness and that light.

– James Lowell, 1845

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

– Reinhold Niehbuhr

“Happy New Year. We enter 2012 with a great deal of hope, but our hopes are not for more bailouts, or money printing, or any of the myriad policies that investors seem to hope will save bad investments and sustain elevated valuations. Instead, our hope is that in 2012, the market will finally “clear,” in the sense that bad debt around the world will be recognized as bad and restructured; that overleveraged financials will be taken into receivership instead of forcing austerity on every corner of the global economy in order to make them flush again; that rates of return will rise enough to compensate and encourage saving – and high enough to encourage borrowers and other users of capital to allocate the funds productively.

To be able to make wise choices means understanding and dealing with the real problems and not just the symptoms. In the US, the old joke was that doctors routinely told their patients to “Take two aspirin and see me in the morning” (which simply shows that I am old enough to remember an era when everyone had their doctor’s home phone). And that was often the best advice, as most things do eventually take care of themselves, one way or another.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/mauldin-2012-hard-choices-2012-1#ixzz1iouH8AGN

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/mauldin-2012-hard-choices-2012-1#ixzz1iotV051z