Stupendous Mogambo Advice (SMA)

I was recently in a spirited conversation with a small crowd of people about how my Stupid Mogambo Advice (SMA) to buy gold, silver and oil has not been working very well recently, and various theories were advanced as to why that should be the case.

One particular participant in the conversation volunteered to me that perhaps the reason is that I am stupid.  He looked right at me and said "You're a stupid, lying moron!", whereupon everyone agreed by cheering and clapping.

Yet another opined that they have not become fabulously wealthy overnight because I am a "Halfwitted loudmouth blowhard who doesn't know anything about anything", which was followed by more cheering and clapping.

Yet another pronounced "The Mogambo is a big fat stupid loser! And he eats like a pig! And he smells like a pig, too!" which was followed by even more cheering and clapping, and more than a few "oink oink" noises, which is not as charming as it sounds.

Now, I certainly agree that while there is considerable merit to these carefully-considered viewpoints, the truth is actually somewhere in between, namely that all of these idiotic, hateful people can go to hell as far as I am concerned.

In fact, no sooner do I get the soothing words "All of you idiotic, hateful people can go to hell as far as I am concerned!" out of my mouth, than suddenly everybody wants to argue about that, too! 

I mean, I can't win here!

Their stupid line of argument is that my "allowing" someone to go to hell is not actually an explanation of WHY investing in gold, silver and oil has been such a poor investment so that they did not become fabulously wealthy overnight, as they had so hopefully and carefully planned, and thus were not knee-deep in wicked debauchery and hedonistic excesses of one titillating kind or another.

So, always being the kindly gentleman and helpful teacher, I carefully explain to them "You bunch of ugly, greedy, mental-defectives and borderline psychopaths think that normal, expected fluctuations in the prices of gold, silver and oil, especially with all of the attendant manipulative shenanigans of various corrupt governments and corrupt regulators, should not, somehow, affect you?"

They all looked at me with their mouths hanging open. It was about here when I first sensed that the conversational ball had been dropped by these mental-case carbon blobs, so I continued "Before you answer, let me first tell you losers that you make me laugh -- Hahahaha!  -- at your Earthling stupidity, and I have nothing but revulsion and scorn for you, not only for your slovenly wardrobe, bad manners and ugly shoes, but mostly for your even thinking that, somehow, normal volatilities and statistical probabilities that affect everything, everywhere, all the time, all through the universe and beyond, somehow don't apply to you, personally, and that you -- alone! -- should be blessed as the only exemption in the Whole Freaking Universe (WFU) from the laws of probability."

I ended with the usual caveat "Don't make me laugh and laugh and laugh until I puke from too much laughing and I vomit on those shoes of yours that that are, as previously referred to earlier in the paragraph, ugly!"

Surprisingly, I could see I was still not getting my point across.
So, to change the mood and wrap this up, I suddenly put a big grin on my face and asked, in a perfect metaphor, "Was Rome destroyed in a day? Taa-daa!"

I naturally expected that the crowd would spontaneously erupt into a chorus of delighted laughter and hearty cheers -- Bravo! Author! Bravo!  -- in admiration of my cleverly changing the phrase that defines the gradual nature of things ("Rome was not built in a day") into such a delicious bon mot that I should be instantly hailed as the greatest writer since Mark Twain.

Alas, it was not to be. And too bad, too, because if they had shown the least bit of sycophantic fawning and slavish obeisance to me, or even offered me a lousy slice of pizza, then I would have gladly informed them that to be successful in investing, all you needed to do is be on the correct side of the long-term trend.

As George Soros is so famously to have said "The trick to investing success is identify the trend whose premise is false, and then bet against it."

In particular, the world's central banks have been creating excess money and credit to such a preposterous degree, for so preposterously long, that they long ago passed the point where it was possible to stop creating excess money and credit.

This is, obviously, a trend whose premise ("There is such a thing as a free lunch, and all the government has to do is print more money to pay for it!") is as false as this phony-baloney smile on my face.

Thus, since there is no free lunch, the lunch we have been providing for so long at no cost to so many has been paid for, and will continue to be paid for, in higher prices (price inflation), as all that extra money enters into the free market ("I'll take one of that and two of those!") and bids up the prices of things.

Thus the trend, as it always has been and always will be when so much new money is created, will be for more and more, and faster and faster, price inflation, ending in economic collapse.

And the investments to make to capitalize on this trend? I thought you'd never ask! Gold, silver and oil!

And how much to invest? I thought you'd never ask that, either!  Dollar-cost-averaging! Buy the same dollar-amount of gold and silver each month!

That way, you will buy more gold and silver when prices are down, and less of them when their prices are high.
How could anything be more correct, more timely, more timeless or more easy? It can't!

That is why people, just as Junior Mogambo Rangers (JMRs) around the world, who are happily buying gold, silver and oil to bet against the trend whose premise is false, are known to giddily exclaim "Whee! This investing stuff is easy!"

The Heroic And Brave Mogambo (THABM)

I woke up alone in the Mogambo Bad Mood Bunker (MBMB), drenched in sweat, exhausted from tossing and turning all night, tormented by the same horrific nightmare. 

It's the age-old horror story where vast hordes of desperate, starving people cannot afford to buy food because prices are so high and rising so fast, all because their idiot central bankers are creating so much excess money that the economy gets twisted by odious mal-investments and ruinous inflation in prices into a cancerous economic grotesquerie, and then the people had nothing to eat except dead people, and then they ate the dead people, and then it turned them into zombies with the undead stumbling through the long, shadowy night seeking screaming victims so as to kill them and eat their brains.

And, in the middle of it all, there I am, The Heroic And Brave Mogambo (THABM), shooting the hell out of hordes of moaning zombies with twin .50 caliber machine guns, one in each hand, the rope-like sinews of my brawny, muscular arms standing out like taut cords as I mow down zombies with a hail of red-hot lead.

Many people, when I tell them that I have had that nightmare, cavalierly say "Who cares about you or your stupid dream? Quit stealing my French fries and breathing on my food!"

So, being the kind and grandfatherly kind of stranger who only wants to help people, I gently turn and politely inform their children that they, and their parents, are going to suffer a painful, prolonged economic death, probably ending up wallowing in the filth and dirt of the gutter, eating bugs and weeds and dead people to survive, and that they had better enjoy that burger and fries while they can.

In a kind of "out the mouths of babes" surprise, the kids are suddenly all ears, and they want to know what will happen next!
Well, "What will happen next" is a subject upon which I am somewhat of an expert since the same thing has always -- as in Every Freaking Time (EFT) in the last few thousands of years -- happened when any stupid government is so stupid as to get so stupidly indebted for one stupid reason or another, and it usually involves desperate people with nothing to lose making an angry mess of things.

In my particular nightmare, the new twist was the inclusion of a remark by Ben "Butthead" Bernanke, laughable chairman of the Federal Reserve.    As he said in reality he says again in the nightmare, telling the frenzied mobs of zombies "Don't panic! Everything will be fine! Just do NOT try to buy food or energy with your money!  Invest your money instead, and maybe you will earn a return that will offset the inflation in prices that I am causing!"

This is, surprisingly, not actually exactly what he said, as I have, of course, paraphrased his actual remarks so that it is insultingly skewed towards making him look like the arrogant, lowlife, ignorant bastard that he is, but the disgusting, treacherous gist is all in there, in spades.

To be fair, he is exactly like all neo-Keynesian econometric trash infesting universities across this great land, land of the brave, home of the free, from sea to shining sea, who embarrass themselves by bleating on and on about the Consumption Function and how to manipulate it with algebra and calculus to say anything they want! To triple-digit decimal precision! Hahahaha! What buffoonery!

And I am likewise viciously scornful to anybody else who does not advocate for a stable money supply, as required by the Constitution of the United States, and as guaranteed by gold.

The more astute of you will notice that I am rude and disrespectful in a loud disdainful voice, full of contempt for anybody with a differing opinion, which is because I have heard the prattling of all those neo-Keynesian econometric opinions for decades, and thus I am completely sure that, as economists, they are all incompetent blowhards, which I prove by merely asking you to get up off of your fat butt and go over to the window to merely look out at the world ruined by the Federal Reserve creating so much, so damnably much, so idiotically much money and credit -- and dollar-for-dollar attendant debt! -- for the last half century, but especially in the last few decades, and most especially in the last two decades, and most especially, especially most, in the last three years as the evil Federal Reserve created enough money to buy an astounding $5 trillion of US government debt!

Why worry? Because only with a stable money supply can aggregate prices not rise, and thus aggregate prices do not rise because there is no extra money with which to pay higher prices, and there is no extra money since the money supply could not grow.

To be fair, Bernanke actually said that inflation in prices was only a problem for people who buy things or stick their money under a mattress to save it, but that if people invested the money, then they would find that, hopefully, inflation in prices will be no problem.

Thus he has given himself and the Federal Reserve the "green light" to create as much monetary inflation and as much price inflation as he wants, as completely insane as that obviously is, as completely contrary to what was clearly intended by the Constitution of the United States as that obviously is, and as completely contrary to the mission of the Federal Reserve to maintain stable prices and a stable dollar as that obviously is.
And thus this should give you the "green light" to panic, frantically hop in your car, turn the radio up loud, and screech the tires as you burn out to buy as much gold, silver and oil as you possibly can as quickly as you possibly can.

And if you do not, then you will soon have an epiphany about the phrase We're Freaking Doomed (WFD)! Or end up as a zombie. We'll see.

Mogambo Editorial Genius (MEG)

As one of the unfortunate few who can only imagine success in anything, and envy it in others, I am, of course, extremely jealous of Ron Paul, presidential candidate, Austrian-school economist, physician and all-around nice guy among, I assume, other laudatory attributes of which I am personally unaware, making me all the more jealous and spiteful.

My latest grievance with Ron Paul is that he recently had an essay published in the prestigious Financial Times. It was placed at the tippy-top of the op-ed section, and was titled "Our central bankers are intellectually bankrupt."

Now, I will agree that that was a pretty good title, as titles go, as it was certainly eye-arresting, pithy, completely accurate, and with a deliciously unmistakable undertone of loathing and contempt for central bankers, as is so richly, richly deserved. 

Now, here is where I try to get the attention that I desperately crave by bizarrely criticizing and improving upon Ron Paul, instead of trying (and failing again and again) to come up with anything new or (I wish!) clever.  

I figure that I can do this because, right off the bat, he's not here to stop me, and in fact, nobody is here to stop me.

Secondly, I would be foolish to forego an opportunity to show off by displaying my Mogambo Editorial Genius (MEG) when I can immediately -- immediately, I tells ya! -- see a vast, VAST improvement if I merely appended the title to produce the much more accurate, and distinctly more powerful at the expense of pithy, "Our central bankers are an intellectually bankrupt and lying bunch of neo-Keynesian econometric wankers."

Additionally, in case there was somebody considering reading the essay by examining the headline who does not immediately understand that I have a loathing disdain for the Federal Reserve, for Keynesian theory and for their laughable econometric ignorance and arrogance, I would have also cleverly used a sub-head!

 In smaller print, but in bolder print, it would blare out "Read this essay and find out why We're Freaking Doomed (WFD) because the evil Federal Reserve has been creating so impossibly much money that roaring inflation in consumer prices will destroy us, you lowlife moron!"

By now, I am sure that you see how I am a gifted genius by the way I am chopping this Ron Paul guy to pieces here!  And I haven't even gotten started criticizing him on the text of his essay, although he did a really, really good job demolishing the Federal Reserve, its stupid policies, its stupid theories, its stupid actions and, by extension, its loathsome apologists, too.

So I feel a little guilty here because only a really, really hateful guy -- a guy like me! -- who was psychotically desperate for attention -- again, a guy like me! -- would be so tacky as to dare criticize the rightfully-famous Ron Paul after doing such a superb job of it.

For instance, he goes on that there is confusion between money and wealth, and that it "reflects the idea that prosperity stems from high asset prices and large amounts of money and credit."

Well, I got some news for Ron Paul, big-shot doctor, intellectual and economist extraordinaire, because you CAN have the semblance of prosperity with high asset prices and large amounts of money and credit anytime you want, as long as you don't mind higher and higher consumer prices, and grumpier and grumpier poor people, and more and more ruinous distortions and cancerous mal-investments Every Freaking Day (EFD) of your life.

Of course, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, so famously said that inflation is only a problem for people who buy things or put the money under their mattress to save it instead of putting the money into investments that will, hopefully, grow as fast as inflation, to which I reply, with all the sarcastic scorn and loathing that I can muster at such idiocy, "Hahahaha!"

Alas, Ben "Call Me Dumb-Ass" Bernanke neglected to mention (or perhaps he doesn't even know, which would explain why his middle name is "Call Me Dumb-Ass", although I thought that I had just made it up, suddenly giving everything a spooky, weird Twilight Zone feeling) that it is numerically impossible -- emphasize "impossible" -- for the majority of people to make a real, inflation-adjusted profit by investing in the stock market.

And the reason why it is impossible for the majority of people to make a profit by investing is contained, almost koan-like, in the question "Where would the money come from?"

And -- again with a reason why his middle name might really be "Call Me Dumb-Ass"!  -- the tax due on any realized nominal (not inflation-adjusted) gain radically worsens your chances of even keeping pace with inflation -- which was probably zero in the first place -- by literally taking money away from you! Hahaha!

You're screwed and there's nothing that you can do about it as long as interest rates on savings is less than the rate of inflation.

Now I think you are ready to ask yourself these questions. "Why am I wasting my time reading this insulting drivel? Is this stupid essay even marginally educational when denouncing the Federal Reserve as a festering, fetid cesspool of neo-Keynesian econometric wankers?  Is a wanker what I think it is?  Is this Mogambo guy right when he says to buy gold, silver and oil because of the devastating price inflation caused by the evil Federal Reserve creating so much excess money and credit so that the horrid Obama administration can borrow and spend it in a disgusting orgy of deficit-spending to support a suffocating welfare/police state, like Right Freaking Now (RFN)?"

If you answered "Yes" to ALL of those questions, then I am happy to tell you that you may consider yourself a true Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR), proudly taking your place parading arrogantly amongst other intelligent persons, all of whom also know that the answer to these questions, and many more, is, of course, "Yes."

The difference between a real JMR and the mere poseur is revealed by noting who actually takes action in acquiring gold, silver and oil, shouting "Whee! This investing stuff is easy!"

And with a Federal Reserve doing what it is doing, and a federal government doing what it is doing, indeed it is easy! Whee!

 

Fabulous Mogambo Essay (FME)

I recently had a revelation of sorts, distilled from my merely noticing what happens when passing by my neighbors, out on their stupid lawns, playing with their stupid kids, or washing their stupid cars, or just doing something stupid.

I am sure that you wonder how I can tell that they are stupid.  Easy. I've been telling them to buy gold, silver and oil, for so long, and to such little effect, even in the face of such enormous gains accruing to those who followed such Fabulous Mogambo Advice (FMA), that one can only conclude that they are stupid or deaf.

And I know they are not deaf because when I helpfully say to them "Hey, you drooling moron! Buy gold, silver and oil stocks or kiss your stupid, ugly butt goodbye!", where by "ugly" I mean "big", they always reply, all huffy, "Who are you calling a drooling moron, you moron?", thus proving that they can, indeed, hear.

Anyway, being the friendly, peach-of-a-helpful guy that I am, as I pass by them in my snazzy Mogambo-Mobile, I always honk the horn several times to get their attention, and then we exchange the usual pleasantries, usually along the lines of them saying to me "Shut up that stupid horn, you dumb Mogambo bastard!", with me responding by cheerfully reminding them of their many, many errors, delivered along the lines of "I told you that your economic hell was going to happen, you lowlife cretin of a moron, because the Federal Reserve is creating so much excess money and credit!"

If I don't think that they are near enough to actually hit my car with anything, I can go slow enough to manage to throw in a little free history lesson for them, too, as in "And if you had bought gold, silver and oil when I told you to, then maybe you would be wealthy by this time, instead of just being older, uglier, fatter and (as far as I can tell) even stupider now than you were when you were too damned stupid to buy gold, silver and oil like I told you to, way back when, which was, QED, pretty damned stupid of you, and a complete waste of my Precious Mogambo Time (PMT)!"

They, of course, voice their displeasure at my reminding them of what imbeciles they are, mostly by engaging in making crude gestures, shouting rude profanities and flinging pet excrement at me, all of which are low-class behaviors that you would naturally expect from morons that are so, as previously postulated, stupid.

To be accurate, and just to set the record straight, my idiot neighbors only act hateful and cruel because they foolishly think that I am NOT carrying some kind of weapon that might "accidentally" fire, usually in the direction of somebody being hateful and/or cruel to me, and who is, obviously, asking to have their middle finger shot clean off.

But as to stupidity, if you want a frustrating afternoon, trying explaining the simple idea that the continual creation of a larger money supply leads to price inflation, even though Milton Friedman famously said -- long enough ago that they should have heard of it by now! -- that "Price inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon."

So, I honk my horn at these boneheads, and I disdainfully huff in my haughty condescension that they deserve what they get for ignoring Friedman, and ignoring the enormous increases in the money supply created by the evil Federal Reserve, a lot of which was used to buy the $5 trillion of new Treasury debt issued by the evil Obama spendthrift administration in the last 3 years!.

So, I mean, you would think that some, or at least one, of these proletariat halfwit neighbors of mine would have been impressed with Friedman's profound economic truism, especially considering the fact that nobody has disproved it yet!

Nor has anyone even found any time in history where such increases in the money supply did NOT produce inflation in prices, which of course hurts the poor by making things cost more.

As to the economy today, in case you are wondering on the edge of your seat what will happen, pull your chair up here closer to me so that you can look deep, deep into my eyes, and thus be impressed by my Awesome Mogambo Sincerity (AMS).  

Perhaps then you will understand the terrible enormity of what is happening because the evil Federal Reserve created, and is still creating, so much excess money and credit for the last 25 years, and maybe that explains why the soundtrack to this Fabulous Mogambo Essay (FME) sounds so spooky and foreboding, a sonic mishmash with crashing, clashing horns making your skin crawl at the horrible dissonance, but not quite able to disguise the sound of ravenous wolves and government-employees unions approaching, one to eat you, and the other to eat your wallet.

If you don't hear the soundtrack on your computers, it is bad news for those of us who are both paranoid and have no idea how computers or soundtracks work.  I figure that it means that the government is censoring me, crushing me under its hob-nailed boot heel, to keep me from giving you the vital, VITAL advice to buy gold, silver and oil as protection (and enormous wealth-generation!) against the raging price inflation that will rain down upon us because of the foul Federal Reserve.

In fact, the vital, VITAL information to buy gold, silver and oil, distilled, as it is, from thousands of years of history, is so important (as indicated by the repeated use of the word "vital" over and over, which I use to make myself feel important) that I expect secret government agents to take action against the spread of this Immortal Mogambo Message (IMM) at any secon...