August 18, 2014
By:
The Mogambo Guru
I was not at my personal best that morning, I admit it, but neither was
the rest of the family, and making Freudian slips, while still
early-morning groggy, are easy to do.
As I was to learn, everyone is all upset that I accidentally called
the kids “stupid Earthling carbon units” instead of referring to them as
“my wonderful, darling children,” which I admit I reflexively did NOT do
because they are neither wonderful nor darling, but are instead some kind
of mutant dollar-gobbling machines.
The issue was about, again, getting braces for one of the kid’s teeth, I
don’t remember which one.
Naturally, as the caring, loving father, I patiently tried to explain that
the mutant neo-Keynesian econometric lunatic Janet Yellen was at the helm
of the evil Federal Reserve doing the same monstrous
“money-and-thus-debt-creating” monetary expansionism crap that causes
inflation in the prices of things you need and deflation in the prices of
things you don’t, and gold goes up in price because it is the ultimate
money which everyone will be turning to as all the other fiat-monies fail,
slowly, terrifyingly, one after another, in the economic mayhem when
insane levels of lunatic leverage are unwound.
I actually remember cleverly summing up by saying “And therefore, we
should put all our cash into gold, silver and oil! We should NOT, on the
other hand, be foolishly wasting resources by getting braces for
somebody’s teeth! Let the
teeth grow in naturally, all crookedy and snaggly, and thus we will reap a
veritable cornucopia of benefits! She will not be popular, based on her
repellent looks, so we as parents won’t have to worry that she will get
pregnant! Or have her stupid friends stealing food from our refrigerator,
saving us money! And she will, out of bored necessity, busy herself
educating herself in rigorous academics, excelling in sports, or doing
something that can snag a nice college scholarship.”
Not content at that, I regret that I went on “Or at least get off her fat
butt, go out and get a job and pay for the damned braces herself, if it is
so damned important to her, because, in case you people ain’t heard, I
Ain’t Made Of Money (IAMOM)!”
The way their eyes were wide and staring, and their mouths were hanging
open in stunned stupefaction, replete with glistening drool dribbling down
their stupid chins, was my first clue that I was not succeeding in
presenting my Mogambo Ironclad Economic Reasoning For Survival (MIERFS).
So, to remedy the situation, I helpfully continued “Don’t you see? The
dollar is losing its buying power at accelerating rates, on its way to
zero buying power, because the horrid Fed (and the other central banks of
the world) continues to print So Freaking Much (SFM) money and credit, so
that the bloated, bankrupt government can borrow it and cram it into the
bloated, bankrupt economy. That causes gold, silver and oil to go up
mightily in price! It’s guaranteed! It’s guaranteed because history shows
they always do!”
I was instantly hurt and irritated that they did not leap to their feet,
applauding in joy at my brilliant idea. That’s when I said “Don’t you see
that I am talking about, you stupid Earthling carbon units?
When gold, silver and oil soar in price, that -- that! -- would be
the time to sell a little bit of these wonderful appreciating assets, and
use the pile of cash to have those nasty teeth pulled out and replaced
with the latest and greatest innovations in implanted replacement teeth of
the future, miracles of modern dentistry -- maybe with built-in internet
connectivity! -- giving her a brilliant smile that her own stupid teeth
could never even hope to achieve!”
Instantly, I was beset by the anticipated tide of people leaping to their
feet, alright, only with no applauding, but instead having cereal bowls
and spoons flying willy-nilly, a lot of screaming of really hateful words,
how I was a horrible, horrible man who hates his children, and how they
all wished I was dead, loudly daring each other to kill me (“I dare
you!”), and blah blah blah.
Alas, my brilliant and wonderful Mogambo Ironclad Economic Reasoning For
Survival (MIERFS) idea was for naught. Grasping at straws, I offered a
little “happily ever after” treacle, saying “Thus, she will be an
inspiring story of an Ugly Duckling becoming the Beautiful Swan, a hero to
ugly girls around the world, and her handsome prince will come along, and
she will live happily ever after. In a castle!”
Desperate to seal the deal, I offered another hidden benefit. “And she’ll
never have a cavity, or root canal, or crown, or bridge, or any of that
expensive dental stuff to deal with, or pay for, ever again, either!”
But I see that my words that got me in trouble, which, thankfully, none of
them recorded on their phones, and so it is just their lying words against
mine.
But at least I am not poor Stanley Fisher, the vice-chairman of the
Federal Reserve, who IS on record as saying, according to the Financial
Times, “The challenge for policy makers was separating the cyclical from
the structural, the temporary from the permanent.” What? Hahaha!
Apparently, the structural part of the economy can exist independently of
the cyclical, cyclical things don’t need the structural things, while
cyclical things cannot become structural, and structural things cannot
become cyclical! Hahahaha!
The monetary policy of the United States is in the hands of these kinds of
people? Yikes!
And don’t get me started on the insanity of hypothesizing something
“permanent” in the economy, as nothing is permanent anywhere I look, but
instead always in a state of decline. And so I would certainly rudely
blurt out “Drop dead, ya lowlife moron!”, the words dripping with all the
scorn and contempt I could dredge up.
The part that almost made me pee in my pants was when he said “The
difficulty in disentangling demand and supply factors makes the job of the
monetary policy maker especially hard since it complicates the assessment
of the amount of slack, or under-utilised (sic) productive capacity, in
the economy.” Hahahahahahahahahha!
I laugh uproariously! This
Authentic Fed Gibberish (AFG)!
“Disentangling demand and supply factors”! Again, Hahahahahahaha! A new
interpretation of Say’s Law? Hahahaha! As Bugs Bunny would say “What a
maroon!”
Perhaps this ridiculous nonsense was merely a ruse to distract us from
asking how “tapering” of Quantitative Easing led the evil Federal Reserve
to increase Total Credit by a hefty $11.5 billion in One Freaking Week
(OFW) last week, and bought up a goodly $8.7 billion in U.S. government
securities, too, some or all of which may explain why the Monetary Base
jumped up a massive $84 billion in that selfsame One Freaking Week (OFW)
last week!
You can tell by the suddenly-serious look on my terrified face and my
cold, steely gaze that when the vice-chairman of the foul Federal Reserve
is saying things like that, and the Fed itself is creating cash and credit
like that, and the population, and the politicians, and all our vaunted
intellectuals of the United States are accepting things like that, then we
are surely, surely doomed.
And if THAT if is not enough to make even the dullest Earthling carbon
unit unhesitatingly want to go all-in, buying gold, silver and oil with a
terrified, frenzied abandon, forsaking all else, then all the braces and
the straightest teeth in the world will not be enough to pay for that
dreadful mistake.
It all seems so, so easy to me.
So easy, in fact, that I gleefully exclaim “Whee! This investing
stuff is easy!”