Submission 10
By:  JMR Ann H.

“US adds 209K jobs in July, unemployment rate rises to 6.2%”. Junior Mogambo Rangers (JMR) everywhere must climb into their bunkers. Surely this is the sign we have all been waiting for. Where do these factoids come from, and why aren’t they paired with the 204,304 applications for disability in June? Or with the record high number of Americans over 16 who aren’t participating in the work force (92,120,000)? If you do the math, I’m told (since I won’t actually “do math” myself) then the net increase in jobs is only 4696, which is a helluva lot less that 209K! Besides that, these numbers are all pure fiction – made up by Pointy-Headed Federal Workers (PHFW) who call managers and toss dice in their offices to create the total façade of having “researched” the employment rate, when in fact, they spend more time watching porn and using on-line calculators to estimate the size of their own federal pension plans when they retire. In June, according to BLS (which must stand for Bull something…) “the labor force participation rate for December, April, May and now June has been 62.8 percent.  The last time the labor force participation rate was this low was in 1978, when Jimmy Carter was president.” Surely we should be shouting in the streets “Hurrah-Hurrah”! Because if this recovery is going to be as good as the Jimmy Carter years, then we are all freaking doomed!

I peak out from under my Reinforced Mogambo Crèche (RMC) and notice that I have two or more 16+ year olds in my own house, who do not participate in the work force. “Get your lazy butts out of the house and find a job!” I shout at them in my best Mogambo voice. I can tell immediately that my plan is working, because they slam the door in my face and turn up the TV – no doubt to be able to properly hear the infomercial about starting your own real estate business. They will make millions selling houses to each other for bigger and bigger prices… Yes, this could be good … I picture myself basking in the proceeds of my suddenly-wealthy-beyond-all-my-dreams-even-though-I-dream-big-teenager’s real estate business profits, in one of those 78 foot yachts, sipping a cold beer, and dangling my feet in the lovely turquoise ocean as it gently sweeps along the bow, rocking me to sleep while my Pasty White Mogambo Skin (PWMS) soaks up the intense tropical sun, burning to a sickening red, all the while saying “I told you so.” This is the Golden Mogambo Retirement (GMR) that I have been waiting for. “What a miracle”, I say to myself. After all, not only have I been screaming at the top of my lungs to buy gold, silver and oil, and to protect yourself from the coming economic doom, but I have also been totally unemployed, procreating my own Generation Z spawn,  and living as an inert carbon blob! Now, I find, Generation Z is not only going to bail out the Too-Big-to-Fail Wall Street Banks (TBTFWSB), but is also going to fund a retirement for me and all the JMRs who were too lazy or too stupid to save for their own retirement!  Never mind that the evil TBTFWSBs and the FED have worked tirelessly to rob the JMRs of their savings through the magic of inflation. Never mind that the FED policy of near zero interest rates, means that seniors can’t protect their savings and earn enough interest to buy cat food (let alone support the lifestyle I intend to become accustomed to!) We will all be rescued by that slovenly group of skill-less teenagers in my living room, who have yet to show any aptitude at all for creating enough wealth to pay their own cellphone bills, let alone pick up the tab of IOUSA! How is this going to work, I ask you? We are all Freaking Doomed, I answer!

So get your Mogambo Survival Kits (MSK), which should include at least 10 cases of cold beer and an ample supply of junk silver to buy those Taco Bell goodies you’re going to need, and head for the bunkers! I am losing my Newly-Won Mogambo Patience (NWMP) with the complete lack of attention to my astute and sometimes pointed ravings, and with the media supporting the FED and their unconstitutional, meddling policy of printing tons and tons of fiat currency, drowning us all in a cesspool of inflated debt that we and our miserable skill-less spawn can never pay off! As I wipe the spittle from my keyboard, I reflect that I have been doling out my sage advice to you for years now, but will you listen? Now is the time. Get into the bunkers with your gold! What doesn’t fit you can send to me at once by stashing it into a plain brown sack and mailing to MOGAMBO GURU, PO BOX 1234, IDIOT WAY, FL 33608. Hahahaha!

 

Submission 11
By:  JMR Pete C.

Swan Lurk

I get a little annoyed at people constantly telling me to ‘Get out more’. (‘Where?’ ‘Anywhere but here!’). But just in case there could be something in this ‘get out more’ stuff, I did! With, I am sorry to say, disastrous results!

 In order to distract myself from worrying, worrying, worrying about the coming financial apocalypse caused by the looming and inevitable collapse of government (‘short change!’) currencies, I took a trip to my local park. And that’s when trouble came gliding into view (TCGIV)!  

 The swan!

 She (the swan) was pretty enough as swans go, and, as you would expect, unless you’ve been reading too much ‘popular economics’, white in colour. Black swans being, in the normal way of things, limited to the backwaters of (a) Australia, and (b), the aforementioned economics,  the well-named ‘dismal science’! In which dismal definition, a ‘black swan’ is a metaphor for ‘things you can’t see coming because you don’t know they even exist’ (TYCSCBYDKTEI)! So – getting back to the white swan – I was somewhat surprised when it started talking to me, and explained that it (she) was no ordinary swan, but was, in reality, a human princess! Some rich, hot, and, as if that wasn’t enough, royal babe who had, because of some evil spell stuff, become transformed into the said swan! Tragic for her, perhaps, but not so tragic for me! Because, having read up on this fairytale stuff, I at once realised that my true and noble love would be enough to break the spell so that she (the swan) could be swiftly restored to her natural, moneybags self (princess!). And things would finally be on the up for yours truly!

 To think is to act! Quickly, I expressed my undying love and told my swan princess that I would return for her after dark, when our tryst could proceed free of prying eyes.

 And it did! The tryst! Proceed! In the dark park! All according to plan!

 Or so I thought!

 I swore the undying love stuff then gave my swan a kiss! Which should, I thought, work the magic! But while I was waiting for her to change back into something a little more princessy and creditworthy, it happened! The disaster!

 Because here she was again! Twice! Here she came, even though I had thought she was already right beside me, gliding smoothly but no doubt paddling furiously underneath, and that’s when I suddenly realised… I HAD BEEN TRYSTING WITH THE WRONG SWAN!!

 Looking more carefully, I now noticed with rising horror that the swan I had taken for my beloved was, in fact, though still beautiful, black! An alternate coloration I had somehow managed to miss in the darkness and in my excitement! A black swan! A TYCSCBYDKTEI! I had been duped! Abused! Hoodwinked! Like a duck to the slaughter!

 Well, ‘feathers flew’!, and my princess was not a happy princess! Apparently the TYCSCBYDKTEI was her evil sister! And I hadn’t noticed the difference! And you know how tetchy sisters get about that! And, guess what, it was all my fault! And now I should ‘get lost’!

 And so my dreams of a life on royal easy street, or ‘golden pond’, as it were, were shattered! Shattered!

 And the point of me telling this story is so that I can warn all thinking entities on planet Earth (ATEOPE) that these black swan TYCSCBYDKTEI  things are real! And sneaky! And that they can, as I have just related, shatter your dreams!

 And there’s worse!

 Now that my mind is no longer befuddled by notions of swan-princess-powered escape from financial serfdom (SPPEFFS), I shake in terror as I perceive that we are standing up to our knees in a whole lake of the things! Black swans aplenty! TYCSCBYDKTEI, frantically paddling closer! A whole thundering herd! Closer! Closer!

 Not only do we have war, and rumours of war, and money-grabbing governments trying to foment wars in order to distract their moron voters from their multiple misdeeds (MGGTTFWIOTDFTMM). Not only do we have the inevitable bankruptcy of the US, the UK, the Eurozone, and Japan (‘the West’), all flapping towards us!

 But – worst of all – the game is up with gold! Because, after at least 20 years (some people say 100 years) of brutally suppressing the gold price (‘the canary in the gold mine’) in order to hoodwink moron voters about the value of government-printed currency (zero! eventually! and, maybe, soon!), and to cover up the mischief of printing far, far more ‘promises to pay’ than can ever be paid, with stacks of bank notes piling up to the moon and back (PUTTMAB) – the game, as I said, is up!

 It turns out that the foul and conniving central banks (FCCBs) have been keeping the gold price artificially low by slyly and evilly selling their gold into the market in a sort of ‘not 100 per cent honest’ way, known as ‘leasing’! This ‘leasing’ in fact means lending it to evil, conspiratorial bullion banks (ECBBs), who then sell it to the highest bidder, while (nudge, wink!) agreeing with the FCCBs that they can get their (people’s) gold back whenever they want it! Which, they both further agree, is never! Hahahaha! The perfect crime (TPC)!

 Meanwhile, the gold (at everyday-lo prices!) is being gobbled up by mysterious and inscrutable (inscrutable to FCCBs, that is!) Eastern types, such as China and Russia, who, coincidentally, are getting snarky about having to support the death throes of the corrupt US empire by buying its worthless dollars every time they want to buy something from somebody else!

 Needless to say, the cretins at the Federal Reserve (‘two words, two lies!’) and their ilk see no problem with this gold ‘leasing’. Let the dumb foreigners get the gold, while we stick to selling our infallible promises!

 The only problem is that not everyone is fooled. Not even other dullard Western central banks! Even some of the sinners repenteth! Such as the Germans, who cheekily asked the Fed to return some of their gold (just some of it!) that they’ve been holding for ‘safekeeping’.

 But the gold ain’t a-comin’!

 The Fed generously agreed to ship back just 300 of Germany’s 1500 tonnes of gold, over (get this) a mere eight years! Eight! (Bearing in mind the Chinese imported 2,000 tonnes of gold last year, that we know about, this shouldn’t be, to use a suitably scathing and fancypants word (SSAFPW), ‘insuperable’!) (And also bearing in mind that if you asked your neighbour to return your lawnmower, and he said he’d bring it back in eight years, you might ask him to think again! Mucho pronto! Somewhat!). But, after the first year, the Germans only got five tonnes back! Five stinking tonnes! Hahahaha! Let that be a lesson to anyone else who wants their gold back!

 And now - not at all seriously miffed! - the Germans say that they don’t even want the rest of their gold back. Why? Because they’ve worked out that it isn’t there! There ain’t no gold in them thar vaults! It’s gone! Dumped (‘leased’), and gone!

And, getting back to the theme of worse (and worst),  there’s still worse (and worst) to come! Because this gold suppression swanfoolery doesn’t even count as a black swan anymore, because we’ve seen it! The black swans to really worry about are the eponymous TYCSCBYDKTEI – as I, for one, can attest! Have, indeed, already attested! Holding you, with my glittering eye! So, keeping our minds for a moment off the beautiful white swans parading serenely in front of us (government inflation figures falling! Recovery strengthening! Everest found to be made of cream cheese!) we could ponder what might happen when everybody else decides they want their gold back. Or when enough people, or worse still, enough variously terrifying ‘entities’, try to cash in their gold futures, or cover their gold shorts, and discover that there isn’t any gold to be had! Not even a nugget!  

Because the pond life have given away (‘leased’!) your gold!

 At which point, you may be wondering exactly how you can protect yourself from these perfidious, furiously paddling TYCSCBYDKTEI that are even now on their way, and the financial devastation they will surely bring in their beaks. In which case you might consider that if something, like, say, gold (and silver) has (have) been respected as a store (stores) of value for at least 40 (some say 60) centuries, by everyone except LCSDRMPCBCGs, it (they) (gold) (and silver) may have seen quite a few foul (or fowl) things come and go, while remaining itself (themselves), unsullied! And there may still be a few beakloads of the good stuff left for a last few plucky purchasers! Until, suddenly, there aren’t!

And so, if you’re feeling plucky today, and if you sensibly fill your beak, you may just possibly be able to contemplate looking forward to a life that, if not awash with banquets and palaces, may at least offer you some prospect of financial survival. And plenty of tasty snacks and beer! And all with no need to marry some temperamental princess, swan or otherwise! Because when princesses get older they do, of course, turn into frogs!

 

 

Submission 12
By:  JMR Craig S.

 WAFDATEIN

As I hunker in my bunker (sung to the tune “Bungle in the Jungle”), filling my AR magazines to 29 rounds to drive my OCD friends crazy (or should it be “CDO” to be perfectly correct?) pondering the latest financial developments in this crazy, obscene, asinine, ludicrous, punitive and confiscatory world of ours - I’ve come to the conclusion We Are Freakin’ Doomed And The End Is Near (WAFDATEIN).

 Now I wait for my over priced Keurig to brew my Donut Shop blend, I decide to power up my tablet to see if, in fact, the doom has arrived.  I go to usgovernmentdebt.us to peruse the Bogus But Official Data, (BBOD), only to discover that the current gross federal debt is $17,698,273,916,000.  This does not include state and local debt, nor does it include unfunded liabilities, i.e. Social Security or Medicare.  Well, from what I remember from my Economics class, in order to get a true calculation, one must include all necessary data.  Sooooo, I grab my trusty calculator and start insanely adding, subtracting, carrying the one..  Beads of sweat drip onto the table, my eyes squinting trying to transpose the 14 digit numbers, I feel the anger building inside as I draw near to the final calculation of Total US Government Debt for FY 2014 should be, as by my estimate, $21,000,000,000,000!!!  Yes! That’s $21.0 trillion!  And as you can see from my excessive use of punctuation, it is true- WAFDATEIN!

 As I come to from my excessive caffeinated state, I see that my wife and kids have awoke from their nightly slumber and are so affectionately giving me “the look”.  Eyes rolling, sighs and a whole bunch of, “the old man is at it again.”  As they all try to avoid me while at the same time try to suck the old man’s wallet dry of any greenbacks prior to their evacuation, I slam the doors and lock them in, as to warn them that WAFDATEIN!  Again the eyes rolling, “we know dad.. That’s all you say anymore.  You’re just crazy.”  CRAZY!  I know its crazy!  The unconstitutional, horrid, evil, foul, filthy Federal Reserve will accumulate an estimated $21.0 trillion in debt for FY 2014!  An amount so monstrous and suffocating that even Mr. Tulls’ Aqualung will be unable to save us!

 I try to ponder just how big of a number that is and my eyes glaze over like Krispy Kreme donut’s dipped in maple syrup and then roll back into my head and I start choking and sobbing until my family thinks I’m dying so they hit me simultaneously with the Heimlich maneuver and the AED.  I wish it had been an IED instead, but I assure them that it must have been from the double anchovy pizza I had for breakfast.

 The better half and the offspring leave me, The Totally Freaked Out Grumpy Old Man (TTFOGOM) alone and I hunch over my tablet trying to figure out how to buy some more gold, silver and oil as to protect myself from the inevitable onslaught of roaring price inflation and the destruction of fiat currency.  As I know, and as 4,500 years of history has taught me that buying gold, silver and oil will Save My Butt And  Make Me Rich Rich Rich! (SMBAMMRRR) So I joyfully, gleefully boast- Whee, this investing stuff is easy!!