I have long maintained that there is, actually, nothing new under the economic
sun for (checking my watch for the precisely correct time) the last few
thousand years or so, and if you look deep into my Serious Mogambo Eyes (SME),
you will see, as the acronym suggests, total sincerity when I tell you that
there have always been the usual few things; income, taxes, spending, saving,
borrowing and debt, and something along the lines of interest, which is not to
forget, of course, money itself.
Everything else financial is, as far as I can tell without doing any research
whatsoever or actually thinking about it, just some combination of a couple, or
a few, or many, or all of these seven things, usually presented with some fancy
new name that implies, as always, “Invest your money with me! You can’t lose!”
Of course, True Mogambo Historians (TMH) know, or would know
if there were any TMH, that I stopped talking about this stuff soon after I
discovered that nobody cares, it makes no difference one way or the other about
anything, and nobody will argue with me about it because my whole debating
style seems to have fallen into the predictable rut of relentlessly tracing all
problems back to the foul Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve
1987-2006, who is directly responsible for creating all the Unbelievably Much
Money (UMM) that financed the now-busting booms in stocks, and the now-busting
booms in bonds, and the now-busting booms in houses, and the now-busting booms
in collectibles, and the (unfortunately) continuing booms in growth of
government, the continuing booms in government-provided services, the
continuing boom in accumulating debt, and the horrifying continuing booms in
astounding, terrifying, suicidal amounts of deficit-spending, making Alan
Greenspan solely, and directly, responsible for the inevitable catastrophic,
ruinous busts.
Of course, by this time you are saying, "Bah! The same old Tired Mogambo Tirade
(TMT)!" thus - thus! - declaring by your own words that it is imperative that
we drag Greenspan's lying, filthy butt out of whatever fetid sewer he is
cowering and deliver a punishment of such inhumane, prolonged cruelty that it
makes an indelible-and-timeless example of him, so much so that even Hannibal
Lector will cry out in pity, "No more!" so that current and future Federal
Reserve morons may be instructed, and perhaps other central banks around the
world, who are every bit as loathsome as the Federal Reserve, if not more,
would be, too.
Usually, mouths drop open in horror when I say this kind of vicious,
bloodthirsty thing and pretty soon some quack doctor is "adjusting" my
medication regimen, but in my own defense, as a cost-benefit ratio, it is
logically imperative that we torture the hell out of Greenspan because the pain
suffered by this one man would be insignificant to the immense joyful benefit
that would accrue to billions and billions and billions of people due to the
immense economic pleasures of having a stable money supply, zero inflation, and
where the economy grows blissfully without the use of more money because the
costs of producing goods and services gently fall due to productivity
increases, which automatically produces a higher standard of living to
everyone, especially to the poor.
And isn’t "helping the poor" what all governments always want to do?
Unfortunately, you know by the way my lips curl into a cruel grimace that
something nasty and cynical is coming, and you were right, in that the tragic,
pathetic plight of the truly poor - thanks to the Federal Reserve creating more
and more money - is to suffer a constantly lower and lower standard of living,
meaning that, every day of their poor, miserable lives, they get literally
poorer and poorer.
This happens because the buying power of the precious little bit of money that
the poor can muster is constantly falling because so much new money is being
created to "help the poor" by the government spending more money (created by
the Federal Reserve), and all of this new money makes prices for everything
constantly go up for everyone, even the poor people who are getting the new
government money, who will (theoretically) remain at a mere standstill by
offsetting the higher prices with their higher government transfer payments,
but which makes the huge remaining population poorer, dragging down the middle
class towards poverty and tragically further impoverishing the
uncompensated-poor! Gaaahhh!
This is the real tragedy of the Whole Stinking Mess (WSM), which is just
another euphemism for The Evil Federal Government (TEFG), which is just another
acronym for The Idiotic Democratic Party (TIDP), which is the political party
of laughable morons who actually think that the purity of their big-hearted
compassion, their dreams of "economic justice" and all of the rest of their
best intentions will cause the Iron Laws Of Economics (ILOE) to make an
exemption in their case. Hahahaha! Democrats! Ya gotta laugh! And I do!
The funnier-yet-sadder thing is that now, after seeing how well this stupid
government-giveaway crap works in elections, the Republicans have been doing it
for decades, too! Hahaha! Morons all! Hahaha!
Happily, the Tea Party has sprung from the ashes of such an intellectual swamp,
who I thought would be most sympathetic to my plan to, you know, never again
allow banks to create extra money to finance weird, government-centric
distortions in the economy and inflation in prices, by viciously persecuting
Alan Greenspan as a, you know, warning.
And, as an afterthought, maybe display his bleached bones outside of the
Federal Reserve in Washington, DC as a "visual aid"! Hahaha!
Well, I am still waiting for their reply to my request for an endorsement, and
in the meantime I tried to interest the folks at Prudentbear.com into backing
my candidacy for Emperor of the United States, which would give me the Raw,
Unchained Power (RUP) to order the Federal Reserve to not increase the money
supply.
I am sorry to say that Prudentbear.com is ignoring my Mogambo Plan Of Vengeance
(MPOV) and my candidacy for Emperor, but had, instead, on their site, a quote
of John Kenneth Galbraith's from his book A Short History of Financial Euphoria,
which validates, I think, my assertion that "there is nothing new under the
economic sun."
Mr Galbraith said, "Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation.
What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small
variation on an established design ... The world of finance hails the invention
of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version."
Naturally, I was going to enthusiastically say, "I agree! I don't understand
why anyone would want a more unstable wheel, either! I mean, there you are,
going down the interstate, the radio blaring and it's a beautiful day, but your
wheel is bouncing up and down and in and out, and the whole car is jumping up
and down, and it is hard to steer at today's highway speeds, but I figure he is
saying to forget about buying unstable wheels, but to buy gold, silver and oil,
and actually investing your money in them with a sense of dread and panic as
your guiding hand."
If not, at least we both agree on the "nothing new under the economic sun"
thing, although I notice that I, who advocates buying gold, silver and oil, am
alive to write about it, whereas Mr Galbraith (1908-2006), who perhaps did not,
is dead.
Ponder and be instructed.
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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Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
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