The pills that I thought were tranquilizers turned out to be vitamins, and
although I am on the verge of some kind of mental breakdown because of the
mix-up, I feel great!
Turning to the old tried and true, I soon learned that I had started too late,
and I was not nearly drunk enough to have properly anesthetized my nerves when
I chanced to read Agora Financial’s 5-Minute Forecast report that the latest
numbers from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) "reveal that President
Obama's proposed fiscal 2011 budget would add $9.7 trillion to the national
debt over the next 10 years".
My hands shook and my guts churned at the horrific prospect of adding $9.7
trillion to the money supply, which means (I gulp in
horror at the prospect) inflation in pieces like you never saw! Yikes!
I mean (my voice rising in pitch and volume), the entire gross domestic product
(GDP) of the USA is about $14 trillion, and the government wants to increase,
over 10 years, government spending by 70% of everything that this country
currently makes!
Apparently eager to change the subject since I seem to be getting worked up
about this and could, possibly, probably, almost certainly, damned near
guaranteed, erupt into some loud Mogambo Hysterical Tirade (MHT) and make a
shambles of everything, The 5 says, "Further, the CBO projects the national
debt will be 90% of GDP by the end of this decade”, which I guess they thought
would calm me down or something, but it didn't, which was bad enough to cause
me to have chest pains accompanied by loud howls of pain and outrage in another
tiresome Screaming Mogambo Fit (SMF), but then went on to make it all worse by
saying that debt will equal 90% of GDP, which is "higher than the 83.4%
recorded at the end of fiscal 2009 last fall."
Suddenly, there was an uproar as I jumped to my feet and shouted "What kind of
bizarre crap is that? The national debt is already $12.5 trillion in a $14
trillion economy, and somehow you add $9.7 trillion to $12.5 trillion to get
90% of the economy which means that ... that ... that ..."
Well, I knew what I meant to say, but did not have a calculator handy, and the
security guards had me by the arms and were hustling me out of the room pretty
quick.
I later found out that what I meant to say, but did not have the figures handy,
is that this means that the CBO thinks that, unbelievably, in 10 short years, a
staggering $22 trillion of national debt will be 90% of the economy, which
means that the CBO thinks that the economy in 10 years will be, I gulp to
report, $24 trillion, which is a whopping 71% higher than today! I am stunned!
What can one say but, "We are freaking doomed!"
Perhaps hearing my plaintive voice with its unmistakable undertone of angry
paranoia and wanting me to calm down, The 5 says, "We're 100% certain this
comment will elicit the customary response: 'Look at Japan, its debt is 170% of
GDP ... and it's been running massive deficits for years!'”
I think to myself, "Okay, they just take time to raise the blade of the
guillotine higher and higher, but the end result will be the same, and if
anyone thinks that Japan proves otherwise, then I laugh the Mogambo Laugh Of
Scorn (MLOS) at them and turn around to wave my buttocks in their faces in a
final fillip of disrespect!"
The 5, in what I imagine is said with a deliciously snotty tone, says, "To
which we can only sigh and respond: 'Exactly'."
Well, I can do more than that, because I am, after all, The Loudmouth Mogambo
(TLM)! And I say that if all prices doubled, today, GDP (which measures
spending) would instantly double, too! Hahahaha! Everything costs twice as
much, but the economy looks like it boomed! Hahahaha! Welcome to Inflationary
Hell!
I often marvel that it's a good thing that the poor are usually ignorant or
stupid because if they could, or would, comprehend how this huge explosion of
money is going to make prices rise and make them enormously poorer and more
miserable, worse and worse, and probably for the rest of their lives, they
would go freaking berserk.
As for the middle class, they are supposed to be smart and educated enough to
know this stuff, but they don't, and so they don't understand the sheer
enormity of how much poorer and miserable they will be for decades to come,
either, and they will suffer, too.
Then there are those of us who are buying gold, silver and oil to protect
ourselves against the ruinous, crushing, cataclysmic inflation in prices that
this inflation in the money supply, and debt, will cause, because then, for us,
it all becomes idle dilettantism and pleasure, which is, once you boil it down,
the whole point of investing, isn't it?
And could anything be easier? Whee! This investing stuff is easy!
Richard Daughty is general partner and COO for Smith Consultant Group,
serving the financial and medical communities, and the editor of The Mogambo
Guru economic newsletter - an avocational exercise to heap disrespect on those
who desperately deserve it. (
Republished with permission from
The Daily Reckoning. Copyright 2010, The Daily Reckoning.)
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