MOGAMBO GURU: 'Something's Going On"

[Tace]

The MOGAMBO GURU -- Richard Daughty

The angriest guy in economics

email: [e-mail]

--Chuck Butler, president of the Everbank and author of the of the Daily Pfennig column, says, "Looking at the spreads in the forward market, one has to conclude something's going on." And I am here to tell you that no more scary words were ever spoken, as I have seen too, too many movies where the cowboys are sneaking up to take a look at the Indian encampment, and there they all were, decked out in war paint, dancing and whooping it up around their campfire with drums going "boomity boom boom." After watching for a few moments, one cowboy leans over and whispers to the other one, "Something's going on." Now, I am not sure if Mr. Butler is referring to Indians on the warpath coming to shoot and scalp us and we will have to somehow rescue the beautiful schoolmarm. But the lesson is clear.

The funny thing is that in the same movie when our heroes are trapped in the abandoned mine, and they are watching a fuse burning that is approaching the keg of gunpowder, none of them ever says "Something's going on." They always yell like crazy and everybody starts high-tailing it out of that damned mine! In the movie, the hero and his friends always make it out of danger just in time before it explodes, and then they turn the tables on the bad guys and everybody lives happily ever after. In real life, it "don't work that way."

What is going on may be hinted at by the affable Bill Bonner, whom I assume is affable, although I am not sure. I AM sure, however, that he is succinct, as all our phone calls always end the same way. Ring. Ring. Someone says "Hello?" and I recognize his voice. I say "Hello Bill, this is…" and then there is a click on the phone and the line goes dead, and I can hear those CIA guys who are tapping my phone line giggling and laughing at me. But while he is not answering or slamming down phones, he has the time to write, "As for stocks, the bear market that began in January 2000 seems to have resumed. This, too, comes as a shock to many people, who were pretty sure that they couldn't lose money in stocks -- at least, not over the long run. But the short-run losses that most investors have suffered are getting longer and longer. It's a rare investor who's made any money at all for the last seven or eight years." Eight years? Eight freaking years in a row? This is the wisdom of "investing for the long haul"? Hahahaha! Another Big Wall Street Lie (ABWSL) exposed! Hahahaha!

And the number of people who have made any money in the last few weeks and months are very few, too, reports Eric J. Fry in his Rude Awakening column in at the Daily Reckoning site. "The S&P 500 tumbled below both its 50-day and 200-day moving average on very heavy volume, although this high-profile benchmark did mange yesterday to claw its way back above the 200-day moving average. Unfortunately, the Nasdaq still languishes well below both its 50- and 200-day averages."

But even after eight years of taking loss after loss, people keep on pouring perfectly good money into the stock market. Why? One of the reasons may be illustrated by the following interesting experiment which I lifted wholesale from someplace or somebody, I can't remember which:

http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=613

[dweller]

1. ...ear...

" --According to Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labour in
the American Black Market, by Eric Schlosser, "Marijuana,
pornography and illegal labour have created a hidden market in the
United States which now accounts for as much as 10% of the
American economy, according to a study. As a cash crop, marijuana
is believed to have outstripped maize, and hardcore porn revenue is
equal to Hollywood's domestic box office takings."

This interesting factoid has inspired me to draft the Mogambo Pot
And Porn Act (MPAPA), which I urge Congress to adopt, where I
note that if marijuana is this popular when it costs so much AND you
can go to prison for lengthy terms for smoking it, then the market for
legalized-and-taxed pot must be freaking enormous! And the Porn
part of the Act is to give acting jobs and camera-crew jobs and
lighting jobs to the idiots graduating from high school today, and
don't get me started on the astonishing dumbing-down of school
curricula. The MPAPA works like this: If you can get the nation's
senior citizens to start legally smoking it, inhaling and puffing away
until they zone-out and perhaps even get so wasted that they think
that the music of the Grateful Dead sounds good, then you can
balance the nation's budget deficit with the taxes from legalized pot,
and screw the old-timers out of their Social Security benefits since
they are too stoned to notice. And we investors, for our part, can
make a fortune by investing in companies that produce munchies,
especially the yummy kinds that you can eat by just opening the
package, gobbling it down and then lying there on the couch with
your mouth full of food and you languidly say "I am sooOOOoo
wasted, dude!" I call it my Mogambo Plan To Save America And
Give Everybody A Good Buzz (MPTSAAGEAGB), because we are
going to need a lot of soporifics and diversionary entertainment
(known as the Roman expedient of "bread and circuses") when this
stupid debt bubble, and this stupid stock market bubble, and this
stupid bond market bubble, and this stupid housing bubble, and this
stupid Big-Government bubble finally burst. Which they will.
Because they must. "


:smoke:

dp

[screembloodymurder]

2. Best economic newsletter I've ever read.

Ceteris paribus, nothing but the hilarious truth. Hahahaha!!

[Rapier2]

3. notes

Always funny. At heart he is a reactionary. Wait till you hear him talk about Roosevelt, SS, The New Deal, etc. etc.

At least he maintains a total contempt for all politicians. My compaint is that TOTAL contempt for all politicians is nilism.

In the American tradition partial contempt and constant scepticism of all politicians is the rule, or should be. Partisanship seems inevitable, total blind partisanship is disaster. As we are seeing.

Anyway, after figuring in that mistaken total contempt, read the Mogambo Guru and enjoy.

We are so fu*#!^ and he spells out the many ways.