It’s hard to believe that more than ten years have gone by since we began writing The Daily Reckoning out of a Paris office back in July of 1999…
Since then, a lot has changed. We have seen the dot com boom and bust…a massive expansion of credit…real estate mania and meltdown…and epic highs and lows in the markets. And we have been there throughout, trying to help readers make some sense out of o
ur global economy. And hopefully providing a few laughs along the way. In short, we pen The Daily Reckoning each day – for free — to show you how to live well in uncertain times. We aim to make each article the most entertaining 15-minute read of your day. If you haven’t signed up yet, I urge you to do so right here. And don’t worry. It’s 100% free – no credit card is required. But let’s take a step back for a second…
In the past ten years things have changed for us as well, here at The Daily Reckoning HQ. We grew from just one version of The Daily Reckoning, that focuses solely on the United States, to publishing the DR every day in three languages from offices in six countries. The Daily Reckoning now provides over half a million U.S. subscribers with literary economic perspective, global market analysis, and contrarian investment ideas. We bring you reports from the international financial capitals of London, Hong Kong, Paris, Singapore, and Dubai. As well as from any locale where an important story can be found, be it Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Germany, Egypt, India, South Africa, Nepal, Nicaragua, Thailand, Vietnam, or any other country. And, here in the US, you’ll be covered everywhere – from New York to California, from Maryland to Missouri, and from Utah to Florida. But…why should you listen to what we have to say? Founded in Paris in 1999, as one of the world’s first email newsletters in the beginning of the Internet era, The Daily Reckoning is a pioneer in online publishing. From the outset we’ve chosen to take an honest look at the challenges facing the US economy, and the pitfalls ahead as we see them. As one of our early issues described…
“…Almost everyone expects the next century to be dominated by America… by its culture, its businesses, and its stock market. Nearly every editorial page makes some reference to “American Triumphalism.” Nearly every editorial writer is appalled by McDonalds…and contemptuous of the great hoi polloi of middle-class America…but proud to sit with them on top of the world. My prediction: they will slip from their perch before the end of this decade.”
— from the December 4th, 1999 issue of The Daily Reckoning. More than ten years later we are seeing the concerns first authoritatively voiced by The Daily Reckoning coming to light. That’s not just our own perspective. In 2008, Dave Eberhart at NewsMax described our record of accuracy as, “Calling It First and Calling It Right.”
With a critically acclaimed documentary film I.O.U.S.A., four New York Times bestsellers and updated and expanded books Financial Reckoning Day Fallout , Mobs Messiahs and Markets, and The New Empire of Debt it’s easy to highlight published evidence of our correct forecasts of how the future would look. We alerted readers to the consumption-driven bubbles in the US as we saw them coming. In December of 2004, we warned readers of the total destruction of the US housing market. At that time Fannie Mae had just published a report revealing its exposure to the derivatives market. That was enough for us to see the trouble ahead. We sounded the alarm with enough advance for Daily Reckoning readers to prepare – and protect – themselves. Even more recently, we’ve been ahead of the curve in foreseeing how the current fiscal challenges of the US would be unfolding. As Mark Hulbert of The Hulbert Financial Digest described in The Baltimore Sun, “[They’ve] very consistently railed for a long time about deficit spending, they have earned their bona-fides there.”
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