China: Where Money Is Treated Best

“9% Unemployment Rate is a Statistical Lie” is a pretty catchy title, and being the kind of vicious little rat that I am, and who suspects treachery and betrayal at every turn, I naturally take a look at it to confirm my worst suspicions.

The bad news is that it is, indeed, scary stuff! The article is by Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com, who writes that John Williams of ShadowStats.com has calculated that “If unemployment was computed the way BLS did it prior to 1994, the true unemployment rate would be 22.2%.”

And while the prospect of more than a fifth of the workforce being idle is scary enough, inflation in consumer prices is even scarier, particularly to the aforementioned 1-in-5 unemployed. And while Michael Pento at Euro Pacific Capital does not mention the unemployed or their plight as concerns dealing with inflation in prices, he says, “In current economic analysis, inflation is largely in the eye of the beholder, and depending on how you choose to look, very different stories emerge.”

This is where I thought he would mention the unemployed, or the poor, and their harrowing experiences in paying higher prices without any income, but he doesn’t.

He says, instead, that it is all worse than I think, thanks to the way the American government calculates inflation. “In the US,” he says, “food and beverages count for just 16.4% of the CPI calculation. The Chinese apparently believe that the basic necessities of life should count for more, assigning a 33% weight to the nutritional components. These differences in measurement are partially responsible for the divergent inflation climate in both countries, and make most people believe that inflation is fickle and localized.”

It is not, and Mr. Pento agrees, saying, almost poetically, “From my perspective, inflation is a global wave that will ultimately swamp all shores.”

I am sure that Mr. Pento is right because every country on the Face Of The Planet (FOTP) is desperately creating more and more money, and the money will eventually find its way to the place where it is treated best and/or has the best prospects, which is, in this case, Bob.

Oops! I meant “China.” Sorry! Bob is just a guy from my dim, dark past who treated my girlfriend better than I did, and she unexpectedly left me and went running off with him, sort of like how money goes to where it gets treated best, too, so you can see how I could get confused, and angry, and vow to track them both down to make them pay a terrible price for their treachery, a vow you’d almost forgotten about until just now.

And speaking of China, Terry Lawrence, newsletter writer, reminds us that Obama is our 44th president, and that in the Cantonese dialect, the number 4 sounds like the word for “death.”

Naturally, I look askance at people fearing the number 4, as they should instead fear the number 13, and especially Friday the 13th, like everybody else, and if not that, then at least fear the government creating so much excess money because it means so much inflation in the prices of food and energy that people will actually die!

In contrast, I never heard of anybody being killed by the number 4, unless it was because a metal numeral affixed to the side of a building suddenly broke free, falling down and down, gathering speed as gravity sucked it in towards the center of the earth until it hit somebody on the head who was walking by on the sidewalk below, not suspecting anything, killing them on the spot, blood everywhere, and it was, spookily, the number 4! Believe it or not!

Apparently, nobody appreciated my interruption, or how this shocking tale of superstitious strangeness that I just made up is just one of the many, many mysteries of the universe, including how “In the Cantonese dialect, 44 is double death.”

Again, I interrupt to note that this “double death” is already known by anybody who has two children! Hahaha!

Well, nobody laughed at my little joke, and so to add a little pizzazz, I decided to proceed Las Vegas style! I say, “And any long-shot Louie at a craps table on the glittering Vegas strip trying to impress a couple of beautiful showgirls with long, shapely legs down to here by ‘making 8 the hard way’ faces the Russian-roulette of death in the 1-in-36 odds of making two 4s, while risking the death of 1-in-6 odds of making craps, only to win a lousy 10-to-1 bet if he makes it! But even then, it is better than the odds of the Federal Reserve creating inflation in the money supply without creating inflation in prices, where the odds are literally infinity-to-zero!

“And even then, the odds of avoiding disaster are better than having kids and expecting not to be driven completely out of your freaking mind! Hahaha!”

Again, nobody laughed. I agree that this wasn’t my best material, but in my petulant mood, I unfairly decided to punish them all by not telling them to buy gold and silver as a defense against the horrific inflation that is guaranteed by the Federal Reserve creating So Freaking Much Money (SFFM).

That way, it will be me that has the last laugh! Me! Hahahaha! Me! Hahaha!

Suddenly, I realize, “Whee! This investing and revenge thing is easy!”

The Mogambo Guru
for The Daily Reckoning