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October 05, 2007

Take My Buying Power...Please
by The Mogambo Guru

"And all of this money was created so that the American government could slide into the stinking swamp of communism, as over one-half (the majority) of Americans get their income from government..."

John Stepek at MoneyWeek.com writes, "As Evans-Pritchard points out, the dollar's collapse is all very well - but which currency is it going to be allowed to collapse against? Most of Asia relies to a significant extent on exports to the US, so they have no desire for a strong currency. In Britain, we have much the same problems as the US, so a jump into sterling from the dollar is a case of frying pans and fires, many would say."

I look up from my notes and I realize that he has not mentioned the fall in the value of the dollar against the yuan (CNY), either, and how the stupid Congress - as un-freaking-believable as it sounds - wants to impose tariff sanctions on Chinese imports to "punish" them for not allowing the dollar to fall in buying power, ignoring the fact that higher prices punishes us, too! Hahaha! It would be more entertaining to burn our money and wear signs around our necks that say, "Take our buying power! We're freaking morons!"

Well, Mr. Stepek doesn't seem to appreciate the significance of the "sign around the neck" imagery, and neither does Samantha Buker writing at Whiskey & Gunpowder, but she says the same thing when she says that the "yuan is undervalued by anywhere from 15% to more than 40%."

I look at Mr. Stepek and he looks at me with a disdainful look that I instantly recognized as, "We both hate you, Mogambo!", then cuts through all of that theoretical "the yuan will rise and cause us lots of inflationary problems" crap by reiterating essentially the same thing by saying, "Indeed, the most recent statistics show that the cost of imports from China in the US have risen in dollar terms for three straight months now. The price of imports in July was up 0.9% on a year ago - the highest ever rise."

And all of this money was created so that the American government could slide into the stinking swamp of communism, as over one-half (the majority) of Americans get their income from government, which (I guess) is the bizarre reason that the majority of people keep electing collectivist commies!

On the other hand, the childish American whine of "take care of me!" will teach us that Winston Churchill was right when he said, "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."

And all of this money will, of course, cause the dollar to fall in value without doing us much good as expoters, as Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) says, "Optimists may draw comfort from the vision of an export-led renewal arising from a more competitive dollar. Yet history is clear: No nation has ever devalued its way into prosperity."

First he says, "So far, the dollar's weakness has not been a big deal", and then he bursts into a bit of mortgage-related wit and says, "That may now be about to change. Relative to the rest of the world, the United States looks painfully subprime. So does its currency." Hahaha! Subprime America! How apropos!

And speaking of currency devaluations, Michael Nystrom at BullandBear.com asks, "Have you noticed? Chairman Ben (not to be confused with that all-powerful chairman from another time and place, Chairman Mao) has recently acquired a new nickname. No longer is he referred to merely as 'Printing Press' or 'Helicopter' Ben, those playful nicknames of yore, which poked fun at his threats to stave off deflation via massive inflation. Those silly nicknames no longer accurately depict the amount of inflation he is prepared to produce, nor the destruction that such inflation will inevitably cause."

As to the moniker "Helicopter Ben", JMR Joe R. calculates that "Bernanke's first problem would be that $38 billion in $100 bills weighs 836,000lbs. The Huey helicopter has a payload capacity of 3,000lbs, so Ben would need 278 Huey helicopters." Oops!

Mr. Nystrom, who isn't worried about 278 stinking helicopters, proceeds onward with, "Ben won't merely be tossing money from helicopters, content to let it flutter to the ground. His new nickname signals that he's deadly serious about his mission and he's pulling out the heavy artillery to prove it. The new nickname references the destruction the Fed's policies will inflict. Say hello to B52 Ben, who stands on the ready to carpet-bomb the world with the catastrophic effects of the inflation bomb."

B52 Ben! Hahaha! Perfect I like that! However, trying in vain to top him, I proffer Brainiac Ben, as his mind is like an old computer proving the old adage, "garbage in, garbage out", as he is proved to be unparalleled at remembering facts and equations, but has absolutely no capacity for critical thought or independent reason, for if did, his mind would have long ago rebelled at the incomprehensible stupidity of his precious little economic theories and his arrogant little econometric idiocies, and he would be an Austrian school economist, like all intelligent and good looking people of the world. But he is not!

Martin Hutchinson, writing "The Gotterdammerung of Central Banking" at PrudentBear.com, is apparently appalled that I would think myself either intelligent or handsome, and merely says, "It is now clear that all the intellectual advances in central banking of the last 300 years have disappeared. Gone with the wind are the concept of 'moral hazard,' the idea that central banks should be independent of political control, the idea that lowering interest rates might cause inflation and the knowledge that widespread deposit guarantees and bank bailouts impose huge long run costs on taxpayers and the economy. In 1720 when the financial world was young and innocent this would have been forgivable; today as then it is likely to bring economic chaos in its wake."

I am getting tired of this reluctance to be mean-spirited, gratuitously malicious or just plain hateful about Alan Greenspan or Ben Bernanke, but before I could leap to my feet and shout, "Alan Greenspan was a vicious monster who has destroyed the dollar and the United States! And Bernanke, too!", Bill Fleckenstein interrupts me to write, in the Contrarian Chronicles, the perfect headline; "Bernanke: The anti-Robin Hood", with the subhead, "By slashing the federal funds rate, the Federal Reserve chief robbed from the country's future to give a gift to Wall Street. And a lot of ordinary Americans will end up getting hurt." Bravo! Perfect!

And you will be seriously hurt unless you bet against such a stupid move on the part of the Fed. By buying gold, silver and oil, you will not be hurt, as their prices will rise to offset the inflation that is killing everyone else, but you will make so much money that you can hurt other people by saying, "Ha! You were stupid and are now poor! I was stupid and am now rich!" The difference is who you are going to pick to believe is correct; all of human history or a couple of dirtbag, lying Fed chairmen, no matter how stupid you are.

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Richard Daughty, the angriest guy in economics
The Mogambo Guru

Richard Daughty is general partner and COO for Smith Consultant Group, serving the financial and medical communities, and the editor of The Mogambo Guru economic newsletter - an avocational exercise to heap disrespect on those who desperately deserve it.

The Mogambo Guru is quoted frequently in Barron's, The Daily Reckoning and other fine publications.

Copyright © 2005-2008 Richard Daughty

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