09/22/09 Tampa Bay, Florida
In case you were wondering, there is no way to stop spending a debt-based currency once you start, which handily explains why Doug Noland, in his Credit Bubble Bulletin, asks “what about an exit strategy? Well, I see a ‘No Exit’ sign. These distortions have been going on for too many years and become too systemic. Indeed, government interventions are at the core of systemic fragilities that ensure Washington will continue to meddle.”
And that explains why Bloomberg reports, “Economic policy makers are signaling they plan to leave emergency stimulus in place even as the global economy pulls out of recession, delivering what Credit Suisse Group AG and Bank of America Corp. call a ‘sweet spot’ for financial markets.”
Well, being a guy who almost never turns down a chance to be scornful and gratuitously rude in response to ridiculous things being said by people who are supposed to know better than to sound so abysmally stupid, let me interpret that for you.
By “sweet spot” they mean a spot where Ben Bernanke and the other central bankers produce excess money and credit by pulling it right out of their nasty butts, and as for how “sweet” it is, look around you! Doesn’t it resemble a world going down the (in keeping with the “butt” theme) toilet? How sweet is that? Hahaha!
And now, although I groan aloud at the idea and my disgusting way with metaphors that seem to center around excretory functions lately, the central banks are promising more of the same, only much more of the same, and probably much, MUCH more of the same, but the same, nonetheless, only, like I said, much, much more, like in “so freaking much money that the whole financial landscape is changed into something weird where the laws of economics don’t even work anymore”, which was hitherto thought impossible but which is, obviously, not.
This confusing, disorienting “weirdness” is why I was happy to get an email from Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) David R., as it came just in time to indicate that, yes, things are weird! Thanks!
And, as a bonus, I see that I could use the email as a handy rebuttal to, as far as I could tell, everybody’s opinion that the only people who read my stupid Mogambo Guru newsletter are mental defectives and weirdo crackpots, with assorted gold bugs and gun nuts, and creepy guys who like looking at long-legged women dressed in short skirts and high heels.
Anyway, you can sense his high-powered intelligence when he asks, “Will this current experiment in fiscal insanity require a few hundreds of quadrillions MORE violations of the (economic) Rule Of Law before it all collapses into an economic black swan singularity? Is this where Hawking meets Von Mises??” which he closed with the rare “double question mark” as punctuation.
I was especially appreciative of this choice of punctuation, as it says, “Not only am I a smart guy who reads, or has read, the Mogambo Guru newsletters either once or perhaps many, many times and fully enjoyed them all, each more than the last, perhaps because the newsletter deserves to win a Pulitzer Prize or some other distinguished award that has a large cash component, but I also have an IQ so high that I can utilize various punctuation options in clever and highly emphatic ways, as befits my high intelligence, which you would not ordinarily know about me because people know that I read the Mogambo Guru newsletter, and those people are, (so I hear) mental defectives and weirdo crackpots, which I am not.”
I mention this only because Trichet, the head of the European Central Bank, said that he was willing to continually and always create more and more money, and that “it would be premature to declare the crisis over”, and decided that the European Central Bank should hold its benchmark rate at a record low of a measly 1%, which may have been what caused Bloomberg to decide to add the cryptic “to keep handing as much cash as banks want for up to a year at that rate”!
And on this side of the Atlantic, it gets weird that Bloomberg reported Fed Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher as saying, “We are likely to see a prolonged period of sluggish economic performance”, which is odd, because I don’t remember the mission of the Federal Reserve, a private bank owned by who-knows-who, being able to achieve “prolonged periods of sluggish economic performance.”
The Fed was, as I recall, charged with maintaining a “stable currency”, which they have manifestly failed to do, seeing that the dollar has lost 96% of its value since 1913, which is now officially “enough of all of it that it can be considered to be all”, a lesson in “rounding off” that I learned after I took a lousy $20 from my wife’s purse when she wasn’t looking, and when I came back, there she was, bad mood and all, holding her stupid purse like I needed some kind of audio-visual materials to refresh my memory or something. So, to keep it from being a total loss, I gave her what I had left: 80 cents.
“But,” I explained, “you got back 80 cents, which is only a loss of 96% of the original $20, which is the same loss that the Federal Reserve has given us in the purchasing power of the dollar, but you don’t make a big fuss with the Federal Reserve! You won’t even sign the hate mail that I write for you to send to them, with your signature and your fingerprints on the paper, wherein you protest their glaring incompetence and their neo-Keynesian econometric stupidities!”
Well, let me tell you that I never, ever heard the end of the story about that damned $20. Never! But I noticed, and constantly protested, that nothing is ever, ever said of the 80 cents I gave her back. Nothing!
And why is that? Because it proves that, as far as she is concerned, I have lost “all” of the money, which she demonstrated by throwing the handful of change right at my head from point-blank range. One of the quarters hit my forehead with a “thunk!” where it left a red mark and a little lump, and when I cried out in my pain and mortal anguish, she laughed and said, “Good!” which shows you the kind of crap that I put up with around here all the time.
So there are several lessons here. One is that even a girl can throw a quarter hard enough to hurt the hell out of your forehead if she is standing close enough and is angry enough, and another lesson is to not spend the money you take from your wife’s purse for a few days to see if she notices it missing, and if she does, then you can seize the purse, saying, “Let me look in there!” and surreptitiously put the money back in the purse while rifling around in there so that you can “find” it and, holding it aloft, triumphantly say, “Hey!”
The biggest lesson is that the Federal Reserve is still destroying the dollar by creating so many more dollars so that the government can borrow them and spend them, which means that you should be buying gold, silver and oil in a Freaking Mogambo Panic (FMP), using the dwindling purchasing power your dollars.
And if you don’t, then you can take comfort in that you are in the majority of investors that must lose so that the minority of investors, who do, can make the money which makes it all so easy that you find yourself saying, “Whee! This investing stuff is easy!”
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It’s no mystery who the private individuals are that own the Federal Reserve. That information is readily available to anyone motivated enough to do a Google search and they are not interested in maintaining the stability of the currency at all. Their only purpose in life is to loot as much of this nation’s wealth as possible before the inevitable collapse comes.
So you pointed out that the dollar has depreciated by an annualized rate of 3.4%. That is hardly big news. Isn’t that called inflation?
That’s the point, Manohar.
Without the Fed, there isn’t inflation, other than increase in gold/silver entering the system… and that’s generally less than the yearly increase in goods & services coming in, so there’s mild deflation.
Which allows folks to retire quite well by just keeping coins in a jar and letting them increase in value.
Haven’t heard from you in awhile o great mogambo. whazzamatta, get thrown in jail for wife beating?
Mogambo where are you? You are my favorite author and I miss you when I cant read you every day.
OK, maybe Mogambo hit a nerve with the Feds, or maybe he is unable to free himself from the Mogambo bunker.
Most likely, however, he did what I would have done: sell all the gold and invest in something that is on sale now (cheap housing, oil, etc.)
Perhaps the all powerful “Grazzkk”, ruler of this quadrant of the universe, decided to beam Mogambo aboard the mother ship and send him back to his home world where gold and silver are used as money.
Either that, or Mogambo has decided to take a break from publishing The Mogambo Guru Newsletter for a while and take inventory of all of his gold, silver and oil.
If you are reading this Mogambo, please post something, anything, to let us know all is well with you.
All Hail Mogambo!!!!!!!!!!
this guy is great when i find a article by the guru i place the lap top in front of my catatonic father inlaw, and he starts to make gurgling sounds finishing off with werolfffffffffff.this is all we can get out of him.oh and the squirming and yelping when you wheel him past the gun cabinet or his safe my wife says theres nothing of any vallue in there just big metal paper weights. anyway thanks for the write ups mate keeps my wife happy seeing her father happy i think mark
I hope he is only on vacation and not dead (too many yummy tacos together with his all time companion Jim Beam). I would really remember the old Ebenezer Scrooge.
Come back, Your Highness Mogambo (YHM), our lives have lost all their meanings since you’ve been gone!
Gld hitting new records but no Mogambo in sight? Must be in his bunker huddling with his stash, but really, you’d think he’d at least come out long enough to write one or two paragraphs to gloat and remind us we’re all freaking doomed!
Dear DR:
Please provide Mr. MogamboGuru’s Costa Rican email address.
Mogambo Withdrawal Symptoms are intensifying.
Thank you.
VO IST DER GURU
Ist der Guru krank?
Or has he been fired from yet another once promising job?
I sent the Mogambo an e-mail and this is his response:
Dear Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Howard,
Thanks for the compliment! I appreciate it very much!
The problem is that, because of following my own advice all these years to buy gold, silver and oil, I can easily retire and have the same net income as I make from working!
So now Agora Publishing has to think of something that will keep me working, and they are taking their sweet time about it!
-Mogambo
I think the mogambo letters were a lot more entertaning and worthwile to read when they were only released once a week. check them out, they’re fantastic.
We miss U, mogambo. Come back just once in a while, we need some “i told u so” and some “it’s getting worse, run for the hills”
We miss you. please hurry back
please come back soon!
we miss you man…
you were the only link to financial sanity some of us had!
Devastation. Scathing commentary, soon? I need it. Thx. xo
Now that Mogambo is not contributing, my withdrawal symptoms include profuse swearing and spooking the secretaries in the offices I frequent and the need for devestatingly bad dietary supplements to my pizzas and beer plus the need to place a motion detector on the fridge in my office in which I keep my beer and some green thing that I can’t identify plus surveilance devices so nobody steals my stuff and … well, as for the bar I frequent, they are all looking at me strangely, eyes shifting about and talking about me and why I am so sullen and quiet and moody and ok ok you get the picture. And all because Mogambo isn’t venting for me vicariously. I guess this is my way of saying please come back soon Mogambo, your community needs you!
That’s no way for a Mogombo to retire!!! There has to be at least one, over-the-top outrageous, in your face, I told you so, nana, nana, boo, boo go rot in poverty you schmucks send off coming, right?
Jahfre Fire Eater
Another certified Junior Mogambo Ranger here and I miss the old galoot! I can’t believe he didn’t say anthing about taking some time off – or worse yet, retiring – on his last post!
See how serious I am? There’s 2- count ‘em – 2 exclamation points in the above paragraph! And now a third! A fourth! (This could keep going on for a while…)
Oh Mighty Mogambo – we miss you!!!!!
Was it something we said?
We are freakin doomed without you Mogambo…I hope your gold profits are putting you in your happy place(YHP).
Ben and I made sure he was freaking doomed!!!
Whee! This retribution stuff is easy!
now Bonner is AWOL
Given Gold’s recent performance, perhaps there is a negative correlation between Mogambo Outbursts of Excoriation (MOE) and the price of Gold; does anyone have a Bollinger Band plot of exclamation points over time lying around?
Maybe Mogambo will still pen a weekly or bi-monthly article from his retirement cabana next to the Caribbean Sea to help us maintain our sanity.
Gold, silver, and oil is good as long as others have the means to keep purchasing them, but the Magambo’s insights and outbursts are irreplaceable.
Please don’t leave to our own demise….
What happened to articles by The Mogambo? The last article was from September 22, 2009!! It is now November 14th!!!
Mogambo where are you?? Gaaahhhhhhhh !! We’re freaking doomed without some sanity from the financial world. And that only sanity was from your newsletters. Now all is gone….I will miss you Mogambo , get well soon, or get your addition to the bunker completed so we can hear the truth once more. God bless the Mogambo (GBM)
Take a look at Dr. Copper over at Kitco.com; it seems to me that the Mogambo has acquired a new identity. Shssh!
Notice the conspiracy on Mogambo’s absence? Not a word anywhere. Not even the other DR good guys we so depend upon. Nada, zilch, zip. Pretty cool when you think about it. A conspiracy of silence within our own ranks? Can this be? Gotta be some irony hidden in there somewhere. Maybe this is proof of a more insidious plot and the staff at DR is really in on the deal? What, like are we to start seeing one or two of their names on the payroll of the Fed? Mogambo posing with the likes of his latest paramour, Alan Greenspan, and extolling the merits of worldwide fiat currencies and central manipulators? Could it be, all this time, it was the “great” Mogambo behind that curtain pulling all those levers and speaking through megaphones, Toto? We may not be in Kansas but can we be this freaking doomed? Co-belligerents all! Things are bad… but this bad? We should start redirecting our withdrawal angst towards the other usual suspects and demand they fess up or acknowledge they are part of the world-wide conspiracy to defraud even the contrarians they pretend to represent. How cool is this? Better get out your drills and take a few core samples of that bullion we’ve been hoarding; could be filled with Tungsten, you know… Whee, this conspiracy fraud is easy! – Riviera Chas
Psst – he’s working undercover for Hugo now.
We have enough – he has given us wisdom. Maybe he deserves to rest – we’re freaking doomed – unless we have gold and oil. All of that he gave us, for nothing. I suggest you Google Goood Bye to Dubai. Now this is, what we are now seeing, is an “event”. You’re welcome Mogambo, (are you listening???) – just trying in a small way, to help. I guess I will go to – just google that – minus the and … and God Bless.
the site
mogamboguru.com
exists but is either dormant or
‘under construction’;
it may belong to someone else.
Your printing money argument is fatuous, in my opinion. If it were true, inflation would rise strongly, but it hasn’t. In fact, inflation is well below limits considered to be dangerous.
Dear Mogambo,
please come back.
Maybe if we offer him some bullion…
In case you were wondering, O Great Mogambo (which sounds like “The Great Gonzo” who is probably holed up in his muppet bunker as well, though I digress), why we are basket cases without your divine wisdom and omnipotent internet presence, allow me to expound on the profound deprivation which we, your loyal Jr Mogambo Rangers, find ourselves in sans you.
For you see that we, your loyal followers, read the papers every day – well, those that are still in business – and we know that you know that we are surrounded by freaking doom. Not just your average freaking doom, but freaking doom to the freaking power of ten.
In the morning, the wife breaks through our carefully crafted bunker doors to ask for more money to spend on more goods from China that mysteriously seem to have gone up more in price lately, and this forces us to dive into our gold coin stash and convert real money into worthless Federal Reserve Notes that she exchanges for plastic purple unicorns and lollipops for the kids.
In the afternoon, the kids say, “Daddy, we know you love the Mogambo Guru more than you love us, since you are always reading his dribbles and drabbles of writing that just seems to go on and on, and not in any eloquent sort of way but almost like a disfunctional version of Julius Caesar, whose writings have tortured young lads for eons with paragraphs that endlessly wrap, and which also happen to use lots of ablative absolutes which he probably hated so much after using thousands of them in the first few books of his commentaries that he probably decided he would kill more Gauls just to stop thinking about them!” All of which having been said, “So, daddy,” they continue, “We beg of you to please stop lamenting the loss of your favorite icon and future global emperor, that Mogambo s.o.b., and please give mommy more money so she can buy us those purple unicorns and lollipops!”
In the evening, we turn on the television, aka the doometometer ™, so that we can watch all about the Uniformly Stupid Government Progams Slowly Turning This Country Into Socialist Hell (USGPSTTCISH) followed by that Glenn Beck guy (TGBG) whose propensity for turrets can only be matched by his love of a little red phone on his desk that the White House never seems to call.
When the day is done, we are left crying and balling, the tears dripping to the floor so much that we have to grab a mop and clean up the bunker before some poor schlob slips and falls and then sues us out of our ever-dwindling pile of gold and silver that we have dutifully bought under your hypnotic suggestions. Not to even mention the wife and the kids who will all divorce us if we can’t buy them those purple unicorns and lollipops!
And as we’re crying and balling on the floor of our soaked bunkers with our mop in our left hand, grasping the last of the gold coins in our right, we look up to the sky and beseech the heavens that one day Our Savior The Mogambo Guru (OSTMG) will return on his spaceship and deliver us from the everpresent doom in which we now find ourselves.
O Great Mogambo Guru
Ye who glow in shining gold
And shine wide from heaven
To the doom below
We pray to you, our savior be.
Fly down in your spaceship
And set us free!
MOGAMBO!
MOGAMBO, COME BACK!
MOGAMBO! MOGAMBO!
Bye, Mogambo.
the saturday night live of financial management. thanks for all your insights!!!
tempo dulu said
Your printing money argument is fatuous, in my opinion. If it were true, inflation would rise strongly, but it hasn’t. In fact, inflation is well below limits considered to be dangerous.
Tempo: Inflation depends both on how much money there is in circulation, and how fast people are spending it (called “monetary velocity”). You multiply the two together to get the real monetary picture, and an increase in one (money supply) can be compensated by a decrease in the other (velocity).
In a recession, people hang on to their dollars for dear life, so velocity drops way down, and can negate a large growth in the money supply.
But velocity can turn around overnight, and it always picks up when people start to suspect inflation kicking in (you spend your money quickly before prices can rise).
In a real hyperinflation (Weimar Germany or Zimbabwe) people literally spent their money as fast as they could. Zimbabwe’s 231 million percent inflation rate works out to about 5 1/2 percent a day, so something that costs a buck today would be about $1.05 tomorrow. Scary.
Oh mighty mogambo (OMG)Citi Group got a 30 billion tax break and sold common stock to pay back the tarp funds which lowered the value of the stocks the tax payers owned!!! take all of your bank because the banks are using it to continue our ruin!!!!! We are doomed. Oh magamo where are you!!!! Gold is down from $1240 to $1100 and the dollar is up against the weakened Euro and silver is still low at $17…buy!!!!!! And take your money away from the banksters!!!!!
Americans are also now realizing they can walk away from their debts, both credit card and mortgage….and start a new life elsewhere in the galaxy of capitalism…without the heavily dependent consumer raking up escalating debt, the system we espouse is truly defunct.
The capital flow world has to conjure up a new reason for “consumers” to consume idiotically…..for they now see that too many useless “things” transform into a useless life.
And, that spells doom for the capitalists.
And, a small warning to those who believe that the end game is gold; you can’t put gold between two pieces of bread to eat!
Dear Mr. Daughty:
Please come back and write you columns. I miss them very much!
To all Junior Mogambo Rangers,
Please register to petition for a return of our Mighty Mogambo Guru at the web-site:
BringbacktheMogambo.com
you can find him here.. http://radio.goldseek.com/
Correct link is
http://www.bringbackmogambo.com/
“Zimbabwe’s 231 million percent inflation rate works out to about 5 1/2 percent a day, so something that costs a buck today would be about $1.05 tomorrow. Scary.”
Actually, 231 million per cent inflation (calculated annually)
divided by 365 days in a year equals 6328.7671 per cent a DAY- now That is scary.
“Americans are also now realizing they can walk away from their debts, both credit card and mortgage…”
Except in those US States that have recourse laws, meaning the borrower will be on the hook for the mortgage even if they walk, and Chapter 11 bankruptcy is Much tougher to get, due to the change in the bankruptcy laws. The walkaways are not painless or without risk in spite of what some may think.
“…those who believe that the end game is gold; you can’t put gold between two pieces of bread to eat!”
You can’t drink crude oil either but that doesn’t mean crude will ever be worthless.
Besides, gold’s job is to act as a wealth preserver, enabling the holder of gold to preserve their wealth AND buy the last ticket out of hyper-inflation land to much more economically stable lands, and there still are some in this world in spite of the global meltdown.
Looks like I overlooked comounded interest, but at a rate of 5% A DAY, a one dollar item would cost $4.87 after 1 month, $23.71 after 2 months, and $13,322.47 in 6 months. Try buying groceries under hyperinflation, see how much you can buy (if anyone is willing to take your paper fiat money)
Also to consider, as the cost of goods go up during hyperinflation, a worker’s paycheck does not!