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!