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The Mogambo Guru

The Mogambo Guru

Richard Daughty (Mogambo Guru) is general partner and COO for Smith Consultant Group, serving the financial and medical communities, and the writer/publisher of the Mogambo…

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Remembering Richebacher

"Dr. Kurt Richebächer, a legendary luminary in the Austrian school of economics vein, has, I am very sorry to say, died. I will miss him, although I never met him, but I have always been very impressed with him, and what he thought, and what he wrote."

Dr. Kurt Richebächer, a legendary luminary in the Austrian school of economics vein, has, I am very sorry to say, died. I will miss him, although I never met him, but I have always been very impressed with him, and what he thought, and what he wrote.

In my own way, I am proud to think that we were somewhat simpatico as regards our economic thinking, a point that I mentioned several times in this very newsletter. And that is why I am sure that if you had asked him about his opinion of The Mogambo, he would have said, "Who? Never heard of him."

But Dr. Richebächer HAS heard of Wilfred Hahn, of Hahn Investment Stewards, who wrote the essay titled "A Tribute: Dr. Kurt Richebächer." From their intimate association, he writes, "In recent years, Dr. Richebächer became ever more despondent about the runaway financial inflation he was seeing in America...and nascently, also around the globe. He was sometimes apoplectic, disbelieving that such recklessness was possible."

I leapt to my feet to exclaim "And me, too! I got the same impression! In fact, I missed the entire housing boom because I could not believe that banks could get permission to make housing loans at such outrageous multiples of income to unemployable dirtbags like me and my stupid friends! In fact, I thought it was insane to even suspect that a gigantic government regulating empire, that sees its role in life as trying to control and regulate every tiny aspect of the society and economy, would even allow the banks to lend such huge amounts to buy a house at such outrageous multiples of gross incomes! And at prices that were obviously much higher than historical trend, too! In light of the obvious facts, who could have predicted a boom in housing? It's insane!"

I could tell that Mr. Hahn was not too fond of either my unsolicited comments or the idea of Dr. Richebächer being tainted by mere association with me and my stupid opinion about anything. Apparently, Mr. Hahn is a very good judge of character, and correctly deduces that any reference to mathematics must surely be confusing to a halfwit like me, and says that Dr. Richebächer would "often mention how few financial economists were left on Wall Street and its sister centers around the globe who knew anything about theory and causality. Without such understanding, he regarded the quantitatively-driven research of Wall Street as so much voodoo."

Hahaha! Me, too! In fact, it prompts me to merrily sing "You say 'voodoo', I say 'doo-doo', you ask 'who do?', and I say 'you do', and then you say 'I do?' and I say 'you do, doo-doo'" which always cracks me up because it reminds me of the Bob Newhart show when he and Howard and Mr. Carlin were all drunk and tried to order Chinese food over the phone, and Bob hilariously said he wanted some "Moo Goo Goo" instead of Moo Goo Gai Pan! Hahaha!

I bring this up because when I call the Chinese restaurants around here, they act like they never even heard of Moo Goo Goo! What a ripoff! Naturally, I reply "Never heard of Moo Goo Goo? You never heard of Bob Newhart either, you stupid Chinese morons?", and then they get angry, like their laughable cultural ignorance is my fault or something!

Anyway, this was supposed to be a nice tribute to the late Dr. Kurt Richebächer, and how he was charming, intelligent, educated, and exactly right about how the economic stupidities of central banking and fiat currencies are going to destroy us all, but I ended up only highlighting how I was not any of those things, then degenerating to Chinese restaurants lying about their menus, and how I heroically managed to balance the scales with raw, gnawing envy of Dr. Richebächer and his success, and with enough firepower to confront the lies of surly Chinese cooks.

And I like to think that he knew that, in his own way. I'll miss him.

And this brings up Michael Nystrom at BullnotBull.com, who rubs my face in the fact that he moves in circles where he would routinely run into fabulous people, on a professional and social level, like Dr. Richebächer, and now Ron Paul, who is a Presidential candidate and the only person running for the office who is as trustworthy or as qualified to be President of the United States.

Except for, of course, The Mogambo, who would be an excellent President and a better emperor, ruling over you with an iron fist and a cruel streak a mile wide, and believe me when I tell you I have given them both considerable thought.

But this is not about the megalomaniacal political ambitions of a vicious wannabe tyrant strutting around wearing a bling-bling crown of gold and a cape of some color that brings out my Twinkling Blue Mogambo Eyes (TBME), but about how in the course of the conversation between Mr. Nystrom and Rep. Ron Paul, Mr. Paul let it slip that he saw Mr. Nystrom's name mentioned in a Mogambo Guru newsletter, too, and now both of them are soiled and sullied by having their names appear in my stupid newsletter.

I secretly laugh that they think that I am new to this "tainted by association" thing, like neither my kids nor my wife have ever come home, plopped down on the sofa in disgust and whined to me, "Nobody likes me because you are so hateful and horrible!" Hahaha! Hell, by this time I am so used to it, that it seems like mother's milk to me! Hahaha! Chumps!

Thus, I breezily interpret the fact that Ron Paul has read the MoGu as some good news for a change. For one thing, now he can't say "Mogambo? Never even heard of him!" when I subpoena him to appear at my trial ("United States, et. al., vs. Mogambo Guru, alone and unloved") where I will conclusively prove my hypothesis that "The Federal Reserve is a lunatic asylum of idiot savants who are determined to completely control the economy by constantly expanding the money supply by constantly creating excess money and credit, and then explaining away the resultant ruinous inflation in prices by extrapolating a zillion constants and variables expanding to infinity according to the fixed rules of their incomprehensible equations, all dependent upon a strict calculation of probability using the bell curve, and thus it is resolved that The Mogambo was well within his Constitutional rights to modify their precious little equations with what he calls the Mogambo Louisville Slugger Factor (MLSF), where a rogue force appears out of nowhere with a baseball bat and renders a little Talebian Black Swan reality upon their precious little orderly world by destroying their stupid little bell-curve computer models, whack, whack, whack until I am exhausted and out of breath, but a stirring performance nonetheless, which ought to win him a Nobel Prize for economics, or the big prize on 'America's Funniest Home Videos.' Or both. Preferably both."

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