Sometimes, when things seem to have gotten their worst, I morosely think that things could not get any worse, and pretty soon I am thinking to myself "What in the hell are you thinking? Of course it will get worse! It will get worse because the stupid government is deficit-spending trillions of dollars, the Federal Reserve is creating massively more money to accommodate it, and, nightmarishly worse, the same, sad, stupid, suicidal scenario is being played out around the Whole Freaking World (WFW), all of which means that inflation in consumer prices will soar and - at best! - things will get worse! Hahaha!"

Then I feel both better and more depressed when I hear the wisdom and mellifluous sound of my voice saying such words, although the bartender notices me slurring my words and wants me to pay up and get out, which I do, but not before I drink a lot of coffee so that I can at least stagger out of this stinking, low-class, rat-hole of a bar with my head held high, instead of being dragged out unconscious and left in the alley out back.

Pretty soon, as I trudge to the street, I realize that such fiscal and monetary insanity means it is all going to come down to an "it's them or me" showdown, an inflection point in life where I finally get to say, "Now who's the idiot for buying armaments to protect his gold, silver and oil, you moron? Huh? Who's the moron now? Maybe another burst of good ol' doctor .50-caliber here to 'take out' what's left of your lawnmower, while desperate, starving looters are ransacking your house, will sharpen your thinking!" Rat-a-tat-a-tat! Hahaha!

Okay, okay, okay! I'm sorry. I was warned to not listen to voices in my head and let it slip into my writing, but the voices are also known to have said that getting married was a good idea, and that having children was a good idea, which made working at a job I hated (and I hated them all!) a good idea, too, but they were all, unfortunately, bad ideas, especially the part where I, in desperation and alcohol-fueled bravado, told my stupid bosses that they ought to show some leadership and come up with some way to make me happy to come to work, instead of me always hating to come in here and listen to their whining voices all day long, nodding my head at their stupid ideas about how to increase my productivity and bristling at their criticisms about my poor work habits and lack of performance, like I am the only lackluster employee in the whole place or something.

Unfortunately, as I said, it was all a series of bad ideas, and I was bored and irritated all day, every day of my life, at home and at work, everybody yammering, yammering, yammering about my lack of responsibility or my poor parenting skills, depending on the situation, until that happy day when I learned of Austrian economics, whereupon I ceased being bored and irritated and became, instead, panic stricken and irritated, which I became because of what I learned, mostly about what happens when a government borrows itself into bankruptcy, which is mostly enslaving its people with starvation-level inflation in prices as a result of huge expansions of the money supply to accommodate massive-and-massively-growing government deficit-spending and the inevitable economic collapse due to such fiscal and monetary madness, a dim-witted, low-IQ ugliness made multiply more ugly by the use of an expanding fiat currency to extend the boom to unbelievable lengths before the inevitable bust arrives, which then unleashes a crushing, choking cataract of catastrophic collapses, which is not to mention unimaginable misery and suffering for almost everyone concerned, and for a Long, Long Time (LLT).

So, I was really hitting rock-bottom, emotion-wise, when Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Jerry R., in the nick of time, sent a humorous email containing an "author unknown" witticism that read "Let me get this straight. We're going to be gifted with a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president who also hasn't read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke. What the hell could possibly go wrong?" Hahahaha!

Still laughing, I raised my hand to interject my own thoughts, but everybody in the office started laughing at me, saying, "It's just a joke on your computer, you idiot! You can't ask it questions by raising your stupid hand!"

Of course, I instantly replied, "Oh, have your laugh, you unbelievers! I bravely bear the sting of your ignorant taunts as a shining badge of honor for myself, and as a token of the pity I have for you because you are so stupid that I laugh - Hahahaha! - at you and your shame!"

Well, everybody laughed, but beware; beneath the joke's breezy and sarcastic jocularity lurks a Really Ugly Part (RUP), as that is where we learn that many, many, many trillions of dollars - huge, staggering percentages of GDP! - are going to be created and used to show us exactly what can go wrong, which will hopefully be highly instructional to all our descendants about just how stupid a nation can be, as if they didn't already know that from seeing the mess we have made of it so far! Hahaha!

But this is not about how Congress is a bunch of corrupt, fiscal morons who get bad advice from bad economists and other corrupt, mentally-defective forces, or how we are going to be destroyed as a result of the Federal Reserve creating so much money and credit to pay for the bonds that the government will be forced to issue to pay for it all, but that, even in the economic gloom all around us, where snarling unseen forces lurk while gathering strength to pounce upon us and render our money to confetti, we can still find something to laugh about. Ah! The American spirit lives!

And, I am quick to remind you, it is also very gloom-dispelling, and immensely comforting, to own gold, silver and oil to take advantage of their historically-proved protection against the inflationary disaster that awaits us as a result of the massive amounts of money that will need to be created by the Federal Reserve so that someone can borrow the money to buy the glut of new Treasury bonds, year after year, which is not to mention the huge amounts of money to be created by all the foreign governments to fund their own monstrous deficit-spending.

And although owning gold, silver and oil is truly comforting, it is not very funny or laugh-provoking per se, but more in the gleeful vein, as you discover when you realize, with glee, "Whee! This investing stuff is easy!"