The IMF and the ECB on Perfecting Stupidity

This week’s winner of the coveted Mogambo Bluster And Incompetence Award (MBAIA) goes to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.

I will skip the part where I heap disdain on the IMF and say rude things like how I think that the IMF is a worthless bunch of incompetent, self-serving, socialist scumbags.

And I will skip the part where I tried in vain to get in touch with this IMF moron so that I could inform him of his winning the prize, and invite him to fly here, at his expense, to pick it up.

So he won’t be coming, and it is too bad, too, because I already had the trophy, which is a plastic item molded to look like a pile of dog-poop, which I thought was both highly appropriate to the award, and very cheap, too, as I already had some left over from Halloween when I put them on the porch to discourage kids from coming up and knocking on my door.

I figured that this “mine field” would discourage them from bothering me with their lame “Trick or Treat” routine, holding out their sacks for me to fill from my bowl of delicious candy, a cornucopia of yummy chocolates, nuts, nougats, peanut butters and caramels in a kaleidoscope of tempting colors and flavors, and all mine, mine, mine.

Instead, I will get right to the part where I explain why Mr. Strauss-Kahn wins this prize.

According to Bloomberg, Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who will hereinafter be referred to as Incompetent Blustering Bozo (IBB), said that (and I quote) “the European Central Bank is doing its job ‘perfectly’ in handling the region’s debt crisis”! Hahaha!

How could he not win? Hahaha! And now that the sheer incompetence of the ECB has succeeded in destroying the entire economy of Europe with its ridiculous monetary excesses to allow the funding of various socialist bunglings, you probably want to know, as I wanted to know, as all thinking people want to know, “What in the hell is the ECB doing so ‘perfectly’ that another laughable incompetent is compelled to comment upon it?”

Well, it’s funny you should ask, and personally satisfying that you should ask with such a rude and scornful tone to your voice, because the ECB said that the bank would leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged, which is now at approximately zero, and “will delay its withdrawal of emergency liquidity measures to combat ‘acute’ market tensions.”

Hmmm! “Combat acute market tensions.” The phrase kept going over and over in my mind, as I intuitively sensed something potentially useful in that phrase. “Combat acute market tensions.”

Sure enough, the next day – the very next day! – my boss calls me into her office and wants to get all huffy with me, partly about how I am “accosting” my coworkers and telling them that they are “stupid” for not buying gold, silver and oil as protection against the terrible inflation in consumer prices as a result of the Federal Reserve creating so much new money.

Mostly, however, she was “in my face” about how I keep losing money for the company, which I patiently explained was not my fault. It was, I explained, the fault of all my customers, who were all idiots, and all my staff, who were idiots, too, and who were always hatching their little schemes behind my back, undermining my authority and making me look bad as they plot to thwart me at every turn to turn my successes into failures, like I can’t hear their constant secretive whispering, or see their furtive scurrying around, like the treacherous little rats they are.

My boss is not convinced, of course, and so, in a flash of inspiration, I said, “The company must pump more money into my operation to combat acute market tensions, you moron, like the European Central Bank is doing, because the president of the International Monetary Fund said that to do so would be perfect! Perfect!”

Well, it might be “perfect” for the ECB and the IMF, but around here it’s a non-starter, and after a short discussion about who is the REAL moron around here (me), I was pretty discouraged.

On my way back to my crummy little office, I suddenly realized that things were not so bad. I still had a plastic pile of dog poop as an asset, and I had the Federal Reserve creating massive amounts of money, to make the inflation, that will cause my gold, silver and oil to go up, which is another asset, and one that will soon make me rich enough to quit this stinking job and get away from a stupid boss that can’t see a Fabulous Mogambo Plan when she sees one.

And I also remembered that buying gold, silver and oil stocks is so easy, and suddenly the dark clouds of despair were lifted, and I merrily thought to myself, “Whee! This investing stuff is easy!”

The Mogambo Guru
for The Daily Reckoning

The Daily Reckoning