04/18/11 Tampa, Florida – “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
The Mogambo Guru
Richard Daughty (Mogambo Guru) is general partner and COO for Smith Consultant Group, serving the financial and medical communities, and the writer/publisher of the Mogambo Guru economic newsletter, an avocational exercise to better heap disrespect on those who desperately deserve it. The Mogambo Guru is quoted frequently in Barron's, The Daily Reckoning , and other fine publications. For podcasts featuring the Mogambo, click here.
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When the 333th president opens for contest, MG is assured of my vote. “333″ means “lively, lively, lively”. The “333″ president will never die and so does the accompanying economy.
In western numerology the number 4 is the number of business, lying and war. It was symbolic of Hermes the Thief. In the Bible it is the number of separation from Satan (40 this and 400 that). Incidentally, if you begin a project on the number four (fourth try, etc.) , you will very hard to beat. Chinese do not like the sound of 4 in their language, Instead they prefer the number 8 (lucky for them), which in the west symbolizes high aspiration, death and rebirth and absolute power, i.e., dictatorship.
O Mogambo: When calculated using GAAP the US government debt is actually about $200 Trillion. Now that is an unlucky number and it means death too! Amazing.
Where is the Wise And Fabulous Mogambo? Over a week with no column!
@ Daniel
Three things come to mind about where the guru is. First, I hope this one is it. He is on vacation spending some of his gold and silver. A horrible thought to be sure but better than the other two. Second, someone got sick of him and he is standing in some unemployment line. The third is only marginally better then the second. He is hospitalized. I say only marginally better because that would anticipate his return. Let’s hope it is the vacation scenario, so he comes back well rested and ready to enlighten.
I’ve noticed that The Mogambo Guru is mia again, what gives?
I’d like to assume he’s once again resting in his bunker with gold, guns and girls again(GGAGA).
This site is reporting his retirement. Not sure how true it is. If it is true, a good-bye would have been nice.Good luck Mogambo
http://www.mogamboguru.com
Hey did you folks fire the Mogambo Guru? Youve been running the same story on his column for 3 weeks now. I relly enjoy the part where he calls the Federal reserve satanic and evil, because well, ITS TRUE. Come back Mogambo come back I need your humor it makes me laugh.
Osama: GONE – Mogambo: GONE
Connection, anyone?
Either that or the Mogambo foresaw the correction, sold high, and is too busy trying to re-buy during the fire sale to write columns. On the bright side, I can once again leisurely sip my coffee without having to worry about laughing so hard it comes out my nose and all over my keyboard…
Mogambo, Mogambo! Where for art thou Mysterious Mogambo??? We didn’t mean to treat you bad, but we did it anyway. Now you’ve left us far behind it seems. Your wisdom will forever live on. O.W.M.(O Wise Mogambo). Bring back Mogambo to me! A.S.A.P. Gotta go. Silver prices are down. Gold too. Playing “Hot Potato” with Federal Reserve notes for fun & profit!!!
Retired? That sucks. I wish he could cut back to once a week columns or something.
Thanks Mogambo for helping to convert me into a gold bug. I don’t know why I never looked more closely at those suspicious green papers in my wallet.
So freakin’ pissed (SFP) that you’ve retired.
Guess he missed the G. North article that said, Never retire.
In China, you may see the 4th floor missing while in an elevator – 4 is Ssu, meaning death.
The MGG went mia 16-18 months ago – I think he’s stocking up his bunker in Paraguay next to GW’s ranch.
Not to worry, there are a number of MGGIT (Mogambo Gurus in Training) that someone will carry the flag forward – we all get it, if you’ve read the Sardonics of Mogambo for any time – buy gold, buy silver, get prepared, and when the time comes, seek the Master in Tibet, in Paraguay, in Tahiti.
Long live the Mogambo Guru – see you in Tibet.
Also, thanks for the warnings in 2007 and before – it was your writings that brought me to the light of impending inflation coming, which then sent me to my local coin dealer and I first bought Kruegerands at $740 each, and then drove me into near-bankruptcy buying silver at $10 and $12 per ounce.
Wheee – this investing stuff is easy.
Thanks Richard. Wishing the wind at your back in all your travels.
I will have made 4 foreign trips in ’11 for pleasure before the year ends. I started collecting gold coins right after 9/11 and when I started reading MG I started accelerating my collecting frequency. I always propose a toast to MG whenever I first arrive at a new location. Thanks Mogambo Guru.
Just ask any nurse at the local hospital. People die in 3′s. Don’t come crying to me about your money either, Mr. Mogambo.
I believe the Great Magombo has retreated into his great bunker with his pizza and beer and I hope he has taken his wife and kids. I know he has taken his precious metals with him. Oh Great Magombo the end is near!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for all your wisdom over the years. I hope all of you have your precious metals, beer and pizza! See you on the other side. Good Luck.
Once a soldier always a soldier! Beloved hobbies never die! However, leisure in between is very appropriate indeed.
Happy “Do As You Desire” (retirement)
Mogambo him say “Having wonderful time! Think of you often! And wish you were here.”
And you would be, too, if you had been buying gold and silver for as long as I have!
But keep it up, and one day you will! Whee! This investing stuff is easy!
I picture the Mogambo on a private beach somewhere being served frozen Daiquiris and waited on hand and foot by people who were too stupid to buy gold even when the Federal Reserve was debasing the dollar every day for years right in front of their eyes, and Congress was promising entitlements worth six times the value of the entire freaking planet, and the Mogambo was screaming through a megaphone that they should buy gold before it is too late, yet they continued flipping houses, reading SmartMoney magazine, and “investing” in their pathetic 401k’s “for the long run”. Hahahahaha.
Richard Daughty (Mogambo Guru)thanks for the laughs over the years.
Thanks to everyone for everything! I am humbled by your praises, and am delighted that so many took my advice to buy gold and silver, and then profited handsomely from it!
So let me speak for both those people and myself in thanking the execrable Alan Greenspan and the loathsome Ben Bernanke for making it possible — nay, inescapable! — for gold and silver to go up in price so incredibly much that retirement, once just a drab dream, became such a glittering reality for so many.
With neo-Keynesian econometric boneheads still at the monetary helm, what can one do except buy gold and silver and say “Whee! This investing stuff is easy!”?
-Mogambo
Oh Dearest Mogambo please don’t let it be so! We need you, please please come home we can’t handle the idiocy of the government without your wisdom and your mean and nasty comments on the un-worthiness of fools in high places!
Come back come back please come back. Surely you can’t be happy in your bunker with just guns, beers, pizzas and hot chicks for company (whilst listening to the wife and kids hammering on the door) … can you?
Mogambo, you are unique! Please, Dear Mighty Mogambo, don’t let us now. Come back, we need you. We need your fun to keep up with this dark times.
Un gran abrazo desde Argentina.
Oh, Great and Powerful Mogambo,
Gold is little changed in the year since we have last heard your wise and sage words.
I ponder Dear Mogambo, what is the end game?
It has been over a year and my plan to silence Mogambo has worked perfectly. Now, silencing Ron Paul is a little bit harder. If he shows me a silver coin just one more time, then I’ll have to confiscate them all.