Laughing it up to keep from crying

November 29, 2012
Mogambo Guru

   Laughing it up to keep from crying

I was taking a much-needed break from keeping an eye on my weird neighbors, whom I suspiciously think are some of the idiots who elected the commie knot-head Obama instead of electing the religious knot-head Romney.
Of course, my heart was with Ron Paul the whole time, who would have been a good president -- perhaps even a terrific president!  -- forty years ago when there was still enough time to stop the suicidally-stupid deficit-spending, money-printing, entitlement-creating, government-centric, "impossibly huge government taking care of everyone," typical Democrat horse-crap nonsense.
And maybe back then he would even have gotten get us back on a gold standard monetary system, with no fractional reserve banking allowed, to automatically make the currency as strong as the inflation-free economy, because it would be based, as it should be, on real, sustainable demand, instead of relying on phony government deficit-spending-financed demand, with a crazy Federal Reserve creating the excess money and credit to buy up all the gluttonous globs of government debt.
And, as reasons to print money, let's not forget that Consumer Installment Debt astoundingly went up by about $250 billion -- a quarter of a trillion dollars! -- over the past year, and that money had to come from somewhere, too!
I mean, it's all freak, freak, freaking me out here! Gaahhhh!
So, I was trying to focus my Mighty Mogambo Mind (MMM) on something new to stop my thinking about what idiots we are and how completely devastating it will be when that far-left Obama (who has horrifically given himself, Stalin-like, the power to order Americans murdered without a trial!) really gets started.
I was thinking of starting a completely new career, never to think of that ugly economics stuff again.  Sleep well at night without waking up screaming in fear at the inflationary horror that awaits us, dreaming of devouring demons!
It's that kind of "fear" thing that makes me figure that people would LOVE to have some comedy when the whole thing starts falling apart because the evil Federal Reserve is creating so much, so much, so impossibly much money, and, predictably, inflation in prices is skyrocketing, people are rioting, cities are burning, murderous gangs roam the streets, zombies are eating the dead, aliens from outer space have landed, and blah blah blah. You know.
So, seeing the obvious opportunity, I was considering being a (ta-da!) stand-up comedian! 
I had even been working on my new act, as the other choice that occurred to me was "homicidal maniac," instead of being just an irritating, gold-bug, paranoid, angry, cynical old man and all-around nice guy.
And since it doesn't take a lot of planning or training to be a homicidal maniac, I chose that option as my "fallback" position, and was working on my stand-up comedy routine. In fact, I had already written one terrific joke! I was on my way!
It goes, "Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he wanted to get the hell out of this stupid country before the monetary and fiscal madnesses of, respectively, the evil Federal Reserve and the corrupt governments of the federal, state and local varieties destroy our money, the economy, the Whole Freaking Country (WFC), and probably the Whole Freaking World (WFW) with horrendous inflation in prices caused by such irresponsible over-creation of money and debt, all to create a huge, suffocating, government-centric economy, so that you slowly starve to death because you can't afford food. 
"But the 'all natural and organic' weight-loss makes looks you look fashionably thin the whole time! Hahahaha!"
After a brief pause, I deliver the boffo punch line, which is "Except for maybe, you know, that part at the end, right before you die, where your bones literally stick through your skin.  Hahahaha!"
I deliberately put that "Hahahaha!" at the end so that the audience --  and maybe Jay Leno would be watching! -- would all know that it was a joke, and that they should applaud like maniacs and laugh heartily at this classic Mogambo Dark Humor Of The Damned (MDHOTD).
So you can see that my life was, for a change, working out just fine, and I was really getting into this comedy thing, when I, coincidentally, got a devastating email from Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Paul P, who had written a much funnier original joke.
After the obligatory sniveling and servile salutation "Oh Mighty Mogambo," JMR Paul humorously writes "With the economy being so crappy I have decided to join the army and change my name to Clifford Fiscal.  That way, during roll call when they call out 'Fiscal, Cliff', I can yell back 'It's here!  Here I tells ya!'"
I, of course, laughed, even as my Mighty Mogambo Heart (MMH) was breaking because his joke was better than my joke, all my plans are for suddenly and cruelly for naught, and I'm actually kind of pissed about it, now that I think about it.
So, I am laughing, sad, and angry, all at the same time.  You can see how that "homicidal maniac" idea seems suddenly so easy and natural.
Of course, when it comes to easy and natural, 4,500 years of history says ain't nuthin' easier than capitalizing on these kinds of inflationary idiocies of government:  Buy gold, silver and oil! And keep on buying them, gradually, more and more, month by month.  And when any one of them drops significantly in price for no apparent reason, as they mysteriously do from time to time because of all the corruption and manipulation of markets these days, then buy LOTS more!
See? It's easy! Repeat along with me: "Whee! This investing stuff is easy!"

At the Store

November 20, 2012

 

Mogambo Guru

 

 

                                               At the Store

 

As I stood in the line at the grocery store, I watched the family in front of me, which reminded me of a Norman Rockwell painting; an all-American family, out happily shopping together, what with the mom, the dad, and the two little kids.

 

As I watched, my heart went out to them, knowing that they had no clue as to the economic cataclysm that is going to befall all of them, especially the cute little kids.  So I kindly stepped forward to help them.

 

I leaned forward towards them and politely said "Pardon me, but I see that you are buying Froot Loops cereal for, I assume, your darling children. And speaking of Froot Loops, did you know that the horrid Obama deliberately deficit-spent a monstrous $1.5 trillion every year for the last four years, which was on top of the $2.4 trillion that the government already collected in taxes, fees, expenses, tip, tag and title?"

 

Well, bless their hearts, they predictably tried their best to ignore me, and I could see them furtively looking around for a way to get away from me.  Unfortunately, there were other shoppers in the checkout line ahead of them, blocking their path.   And I had cleverly stationed my shopping cart between them and me, both blocking the aisle to prevent their retreat, and (very importantly!) keeping out of range.

 

In their best interests, I earnestly continued my loud line of highly-instructional questioning by asking them "And did you know that his blithely increasing the national debt by a whopping, eye-watering, gag-inducing, terrifying six trillion bucks in 4 short years is equal to a staggering 40% of our $15 trillion GDP? That's almost half of our Entire Freaking Economy (EFE)!"

 

I could feel my panic growing as I continued instructing them "And did you know that it was all outrageously heaped on the aching backs of the 300 million overly-indebted men, women and children living in this country?"

 

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the store manager coming towards us, huffing and puffing, with that "Oh, no! Not you again!" look on his stupid face.  

 

Instantly I knew that I had to make a crucial tactical decision: Whether or not to abandon my groceries, leap atop the checkout counter, run to the end to make a glorious, fabulous, flying leap towards the door and thus making my getaway, taking my leave with my standard shout of farewell, "Buy gold, silver and oil, you morons!"

 

To do so, however, would be to suffer the sad, sorry loss of a lot of delicious "buy one, get two free" frozen burritos, and who knows when they are going to have a sale like THAT again? I mean, c'mon! What to do? What to do?

 

I thought to myself "My time to educate these people grows short if I am to, heroically, before the manager gets here, teach these morons about how the evil Federal Reserve is creating So Freaking Much Money (SFMM) that inflation in prices will destroy those who do not wisely buy gold, silver and oil!"

 

Quickly, I summed up by saying "And this is just the INCREASE in the national debt to an incomprehensible $16 trillion, which is already bigger than the aforementioned Entire Freaking Economy (EFE), which comes to a debt of $53,000 dollars for each of you two adults, and the two little tykes, too, which comes to a nice, round $212,000 just for YOUR little family. How you like them apples?" 

 

I was hoping they would, at least, enjoy my witty reference to apples as we are in a grocery store.

 

But no. Seeing that I was getting nowhere with the adults, I turned to the kids and said, "Kids, enjoy that Froot Loops cereal, because soon prices will be so high that you will be eating horrible, soupy, microwave gruel, making the huge assumption that your folks will have a microwave oven and can afford the electricity to cook gruel, unless your parents wise up and start buying gold, silver and oil!"

 

Just then, the little manager comes storming up and says, predictably, "You again?"

 

I said "Yes!  'Tis I, The Wise And Wonderful Mogambo (TWAWM), spreading the gospel of TWAWM, namely the revelation to buy gold and silver to capitalize on the guaranteed cataclysmic inflation in prices that you get whenever your idiot government is allowing the Federal Reserve to create so excessively much, so monstrously much, so stupendously much, so impossibly much money and credit. And proud to do so, sir!"

 

I was thinking to myself, of course, "And there ain't nothing you can do about it, you little bastard who probably has all his retirement funds idiotically 'invested' in common stocks and/or in the most ludicrously overpriced asset of all, namely bonds, and who is going to tragically get The Royal Screw Job (TRSJ) because of it."

 

The bad news is that the store manager stood there, glaring at me, the whole time I am in his stupid little store, and I am wisely keeping my mouth shut, just in case I put a lot of innocent frozen burritos in jeopardy.

 

But the good news is not only did I, Mogambo, heroically help a young family with TWAWM, but when their turn soon came to check out, they just pushed their cart out of the way and ran out the door!   I was able to start checking out right away! Great!

 

It just goes to show you one more way, on top of a million other ways, that good things happen to those who buy gold, silver and oil.

 

And that is, perhaps, also one more reason that people who buy gold, silver and oil say "Whee! This investing stuff is easy!"

 

Mogambo Time!

November 12, 2012

Mogambo Guru

 

                                                Getting it good and hard

 

 

The elections being over, I shall not unduly comment on the reelection of the horrid Obama, or the un-professional, traitorous hacks of the leftist media that kept his many scandals, incompetences and disgraceful lies out of the news, or about the trusting, gullible, ignorant, greedy and stupid people who elected him, except to quote the immortal Thomas Jefferson, who said "The government you elect is the government you deserve."

 

But it was H.L. Mencken who said it best, as far as I am concerned, when he quipped "People deserve the government they get, and they deserve to get it good and hard," which naturally brings to mind all those times in life when one has, indeed, gotten it "good and hard," dredging up, as it does, painful memories, usually replete with scars, either physical or mental, often both, and with a deep, dark, dangerous desire for some kind of vicious, bloodthirsty revenge on some worthless bastard who deserves it "good and hard."

 

So ol' H.L. (as I like to call him since it implies that I am a hotshot smart guy on a collegial, first-name basis with a fellow famous and cynical intellectual, but who died when I was seven years old, which is pretty weird, probably says a lot about OTHER weird things about me, when you stop and think about it) was exactly right with the getting it "good and hard" thing.

 

Now, getting it "good and hard" perfectly describes the current situation, which is that there is No Way In Hell (NWIH) that our aforementioned "current situation" CAN'T end badly, as in "very badly," as in "financially and economically fatal" because trillions and trillions of dollars pumped into the welfare economy via federal government deficit-spending Every Freaking Year (EFY), and tragically combined with "and there ain't nothin' you can do about it, moron."

 

Even worse, if the government truly reflects the population, then (not to put too fine a point on it) we are a nation of lying, corrupt, greedy, stupid, ignorant, superstitious, bankrupted, lowlife, low-IQ murderers and thieves.

 

My low, low opinion of the government and the general population of the USA is, by sheer coincidence, perfectly reflected in a CNSNews.com news item sent to me by Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Phil S.   It read "On Aug. 2, 2011, President Obama signed a deal he had negotiated with congressional leaders to increase the debt limit of the federal government by $2.4 trillion. But, now, after only 15 months, almost all of that additional borrowing authority has been exhausted."

Now, to the casual reader who knows anything about economics, this seems like bad news. And it is! Congratulations on your perspicuity!

You know things are getting weird when I, out of the blue, use words like "perspicuity," and, I am sorry to say, it is worse than that.   This is to be expected since the government is (as previously described) a group of lying, corrupt, greedy, stupid, ignorant, superstitious, bankrupted, lowlife, low-IQ murderers and thieves, as is proved when, later in the same news item, we learn that "according to the Daily Treasury Statement (DTS), the portion of the federal debt subject to the legal limit was $16,222,235,000,000--just $171.765 billion below the $16,394,000,000 debt limit."

 

Did you see the part that read "the portion of the federal debt subject to the legal limit"? What?  What in the hell is THIS? There is a portion of government spending NOT subject to the debt limit?!?  There is some secret debt not subject to limits? What in the hell is going on here?!?

 

Oh! Oops! I forgot!  Lying, corrupt, greedy, stupid, ignorant, superstitious, bankrupted, lowlife, low-IQ murderers and thieves. Ah so! It all makes sense now!

 

Thus it is, I am horrified to say, a gigantic, gagging-up-blood, "We're Freaking Doomed (WFD)!" disastrous expansion of the money supply via the evil Federal Reserve creating the money to monetize the debt, thus committing the worst sin of central banking!

And if the words "gigantic,"  "gagging-up-blood,"  "We're Freaking Doomed (WFD)!" and "disastrous" are not enough to scare the hell out of you that inflation in prices from such a whopping huge increase in the money supply is going to destroy you and everyone you love, even when punctuated with an exclamation point for additional emphasis, then perhaps an actual number will convince you: $2.4 trillion over 15 months equals a massive 13% of GDP in One Freaking Year (OFY)!!"

Please note the TWO exclamation points, conveniently provided to you by yours truly, to instantly draw the appropriate (and only) conclusion without any thinking, of any kind, on your part, which is the handy kind of conclusion I like best, as do, I'll guess, you.

And if you are not buying gold, silver and oil with every dollar you have, and with every dollar you can weasel out of your wife's purse, or with every dollar gotten by shortchanging the kids on their allowances, then there is something very, very wrong with you, and you should see a therapist of some kind, or at least wear a sign around your neck that says "I am stupid!" so that people will have pity on you instead of laughing at you.

On the other hand, for those of us who ARE furiously buying the aforementioned gold, silver and oil with the aforementioned sources of cash, our "therapy" is the happy, secure feeling we get when we buy them, knowing that their values will soar, soar, SOAR in the catastrophic price inflation and social destruction it causes, and we are merrily thinking to ourselves "Whee! This investing stuff is easy!"

Scary Halloween Time

Mogambo Guru

 

                                                Scary Halloween Time

 

The horror of our economic situation is, for some weird reason, made even more terrifying on Halloween, when the little darlings from the neighborhood come to the door with their annual "Trick or Treat" tomfoolery, knowing that it is going to cost me money.

 

I find that I can no longer frighten them away by popping up with the usual scary masks, fangs, fake blood, or even screaming at them at the top of my lungs, my face bent down to theirs, nose to nose, "You're going to die!  Die!  You and your parents will die horrible, painful, lingering deaths because the evil Federal Reserve is creating so much money that it will cause so much inflation in prices that you will all starve to death! Have some candy! Happy Halloween!"

 

This year, I decided that I was becoming stale.   That is why, this year, I greeted them by saying "Happy Halloween! Have some candy!  Eat up! Enjoy it while you can, kids, and eat all this yummy candy to make yourself fat and sweet because your parents will soon have to kill you, probably while you are sleeping, and then use big, sharp knives to cut out your bones and organs to sell on the black market, and then cut up what's left of you into little pieces before they cook you.  And then they will eat you, maybe topped with some tangy barbeque sauce made out of your congealed blood sautéed in butter with some minced onion, brown sugar, maybe a little mustard, salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste, topped with a festive sprig of fresh parsley, all because the prices of food, and the prices of everything else, are so high that they cannot afford to buy regular food! Fatten up, kids!"

 

As I am dishing out handfuls Halloween candy to each of the kids, I continued in Fine Mogambo Style (FMS), loudly yelling at the kids anew, asking "And you want to know why? Huh? You want to know why you are going to be killed and made into hamburgers?  It's because the evil Federal Reserve is creating so terrifyingly much money, and thus creating horrifying, murderous inflation in prices. And they are doing it to -- incredibly! -- allow the corrupt, insane federal government to give money to literally half the population by irresponsibly deficit-spending the equivalent of a full 10% of the Whole Freaking Economy (WFE), and, in the process, racking up insane, suffocating amounts of painful, bankrupting debt that cannot possibly be repaid!" 

 

By this time, out of the corner of my eye, I can see the concerned parents are no longer patiently waiting in the street, but are coming up to see why I am yelling at their kids and the other trick-or-treaters, making them scream and cry, but still wanting for me to give them more candy, the greedy little beggars.

 

The parents call out anxiously "Angela! Are you okay? Why are you crying?", and "Jimmy, get away from the creepy, horrible man!"  

 

Immediately sensing that they are nervous and distressed, I soothingly tell the concerned  parents "Of course they are okay, you lowlife morons! They are crying in fear because they have seen the ugly future, a destroyed, nasty, barbaric world after an insane Federal Reserve has created untold more trillions and trillions of dollars in new money and debt, until the buying power of the massively over-produced dollars falls to zero. And it scares them, as it should!" 

 

Keeping the kids carefully herded into a tight group standing between me and their strangely-and-suddenly angry parents descending upon me, I quickly explained "I was just trying to help your children learn to buy gold, silver and oil to capitalize on the inflationary horror destined to devour them, since you seem to be too stupid to understand any of it!"

 

Then, surprisingly, one of them yells out "If you are so smart, how come the velocity of money is going down?"  Well, I gotta tell ya, I was pretty astonished at this odd turn of events!

 

And so was everyone else, apparently, as suddenly everything got very quiet, and everyone was looking right at me.

 

Well, of course, the reason is that the velocity of money is merely a plug figure, equal to GDP divided by the money supply. This comes from the famous Fisher equation where the Price of things sold, times Quantity of things sold, equals Money supply times the Velocity of money (turnover in financing transactions), or, more familiarly, PQ = MV.

 

Since PQ is essentially the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the idle calculation of velocity of money is made simplistically easy by simply dividing the money supply into GDP, which are two readily-available figures, thus perhaps explaining its popularity.

 

In general, when the denominator (Money supply) goes up faster than the numerator (Price times Quantity sold, or GDP), the calculation of Velocity will, by simple arithmetic, go down, and when things are vice-versa, vice-versa.

 

In this case, though, the question seemed apt, though the Halloween setting seemed odd, as the Money supply is undeniably rising rapidly, making Velocity go down, but Prices are obviously rising, making Velocity go up, and Quantity sold is disastrously going down, making Velocity go down.

 

But remember: Velocity is the result of three variables, and velocity could be rising (a supposedly good sign) although Prices were exploding upward (a bad economic sign) and the Money supply was rising (another bad economic sign) if Quantity sold was actually falling (a very bad economic sign).

 

With all due respect to the singer Meatloaf and his immortal song, maybe two out of three ain't bad, but not so when zero out of three is, without a doubt, bad.

 

So I answered, in that strangely cryptic, monotonic, robotic way that visitors from other planets have when addressing Earthling carbon-units, "Velocity has fallen because the ratio of the numerator to the denominator went down. Surrender, Earthlings. Resistance is futile."

 

I expected, if not a suddenly-enlightened crowd cheering and shouting my praises for my illuminating insight in interpreting PQ=MV, at least a brief smattering of polite applause for my pithy profundity.

 

Well, there MAY have been some of that, but it was drowned out by shouts of "You're crazy!" and "Quit trying to look up my wife's skirt!" and "Burn him and take all his candy!"

 

At least, I THINK that is what they were saying, because by that time I have scurried off, safe and sound inside the Fabulous, Fully-Fortified Mogambo Bunker (FFFMB), and all I hear is muffled voices through the thick walls.

 

In the sudden silent solitude, I realized that the kids got the candy treat, referred to in "Trick or Treat,", but their moron parents got the trick, in that I did not get a chance to tell them to frantically buy gold, silver and oil to prevent their looming and dooming calamity. 

 

But, then again, they would not have listened.  They never do.  That's the way it is with most Earthlings.

 

Happy Halloween, doomed carbon units.