Stamps issuers join inflation farce
By The Mogambo Guru
Allison Bybee wrote a report for CBS12.com - a television news show - that had
the headline "Food Stamp Applications On The Rise". Well, I can hardly remember
a time when food stamps applications were NOT on the rise, Allison!
So I wasn't paying any real attention, and I was idly looking at her name,
Allison Bybee, and I thought it had such a nice, almost musical, quality to it,
when it occurred to me that instead of me doing any real work around here,
maybe she would like a little positive feedback, and I could let her know how
much her name, and her article, touched me, and how I am better person for it,
and blah, blah, blah.
So I started off an email, "Dear Ms Allison Bybee, I like your
name. I like your article. Please send me photographs of yourself naked. Thank
you."
While waiting for her to get back to me, I decided to use the time
productively, and read her article in case she wants to, you know, talk about
it. It seems that Florida's Department of Children and Families (DCF), a huge,
sprawling bureaucracy, reports that "in the last two months alone, food stamp
applications are up 30%".
What? My eyes bugged from my head at that horrific news! DCF can not have
possibly budgeted enough money to anticipate a 30% increase in an expensive
benefit that ranges "anywhere from US$10 a month to several hundred dollars,
depending on your situation", by which I take it to mean "up to $3,600 a year
per recipient for years and years to come". And now demand for this huge
expense is exploding by 30% in a year!
She says, "High prices, poor economy, rough times pushing families over the
edge" is bad news, which fits perfectly with a quote from Cherri Sheffer,
somehow affiliated with DCF, who says, "We are seeing a lot more people who
never applied in the past. That's a significant change; you have people who
have significantly lost income."
Naturally, my First Mogambo Instinct (FMI) is to get these people on the damned
phone so I could gently inform them that they are both a couple of idiots if
they think that the loss of nominal money balances for a few people is bad and
then completely ignore the terrifying fact that the buying power of the dollar
has fallen by almost half in just the past five years! They didn't lose just
income; they lost buying power!
This means that even if these poor people DID have some money, things would
STILL cost twice as much as they did five years ago! And it's getting worse
Every Freaking Day (EFD)!
And the reason that the buying power of the dollar is dropping EFD is because
the damnable Federal Reserve is creating more and more money and credit every
freaking day, which makes you want to scream and vomit in fear at the inflation
in prices that is guaranteed to follow such inflation in the money supply.
For example, currency in circulation, which is actual cash money created out of
real paper and ink or various metals, rose over $6.3 billion last week alone!
Six billion bucks! In one week! That's almost $20 for every man, woman and
child in America! In one week!
Of course, I am sure that most of this is to supply cash to the various
corruptions in the CIA, Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and so on, which inflates
the US money supply but isn't (theoretically) spent in the USA! That would be
the worst of all worlds; inflation in the money supply leading to inflation in
prices, but without ever getting the money to pay for any domestic consumption
at the old prices! Hahaha! We're not only freaking doomed, but stupid, too!
I don't think I am exaggerating one tiny bit when I say, "This is insane! And
such insane monetary policy can come from asylums for the blubberingly,
irrationally insane or the Federal Reserve, however redundant that seems to
be!"
I mean, pursuing a monetary policy that results in a 30% annual rise in
applications for food stamps is, to coin a phrase, freaking insaaaaAAAAaaane!
And it is made worse - much worse! - by a federal government that is borrowing
like there is no tomorrow so that it can spend like there is no tomorrow, (on
things like food stamps! Hahahaha!), because if it doesn't borrow and spend all
that money, there will not BE a tomorrow! How do you like them apples? Hahaha!
This, at once bizarre and terrifying, is the stricture of a debt-based money;
you must have continual, exponential growth in debt forever (as everyone owes
more than they borrowed), or you will have a huge deflation in the money supply
and in asset prices, and the economy will collapse in a big stinking heap
(BSH).
On the other hand, continual, exponential growth in debt means prices that rise
exponentially forever in a massive inflation that ends when the starving masses
revolt! Hahaha!
So count your blessings, ladies, that you only got a 30% rise in food stamp
applications because the crush of applications you will be getting in the
future will make today seem like a day at the beach.
The good news is that the poor may be starving to death on the streets, but
they must still have their Internet accounts, as we learn from the news that
"The government is making it easy to grab an application online." Hahaha!
Thus we see that the poor, like everyone else, have priorities. Too bad they
didn't make it a priority to buy gold all these years, or else they would be
fine, instead of being broke!
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.
Republished with permission from
The Daily Reckoning. Copyright 2008, The Daily Reckoning.
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