The Economist magazine said that in Britain, "The human cost of the recession
is felt most keenly by the unemployed", which makes sense in its own kind of
way, although I am not sure I agree that "That cost, already high and rising,
is steepest of all for young people who cannot find work. They are emerging as
the prime victims of the slump", which makes me laugh in a mean-spirited,
nasty-yet-haughty way because at least these snot-nosed kids can go back home
to good ol' mom and dad, dragging
their half-witted boyfriends and their two mutant little kids along with them.
How about the mom and dad? Are they not victims, too? Are they not also losing
their jobs? Are they not also Up To Their Freaking Ears (UTTFE) in debt?
And what about me? Am I not also a victim, a guy who has to listen to them all
whining and complaining about how I "don't understand" how bad things are, and
how I "can't appreciate" the fullness of their suffering since they got laid
off and now they can't afford to pay their bills?
And don't my feelings get hurt when I am rejected and attacked viciously, like
when relatives get all upset because I laugh in their stupid faces at their
pathetic pleas to loan them "a little more money" until they get "back on their
feet", which makes me laugh all the harder since these morons apparently do not
even remotely comprehend the enormity of the phrase "We're freaking doomed!", a
phrase which means (according to the latest edition of the Mogambo Big Book Of
Economics Stuff [MBBOES]), "You are not going to ever "get back on your feet",
and in fact you are economically and financially on your back in the bottom of
a hole, just waiting for somebody to start shoveling dirt in your face, as
economic death has always befallen every country so stupid as to allow an
unfettered creation of more and more fiat currency, especially a country as
unbelievably stupid as the modern United States in allowing an unelected,
shadowy, un-audited, secretive bunch of international power-broking thieves and
useful idiots who call themselves the Federal Reserve to create so, so, So
Damned Much (SDM) excess money and credit, over such a long period of time,
that it spawned huge inflationary bubbles in stocks, bonds, houses, derivatives
and (most importantly) size of government - federal, state and local
governments collectively spend half of all money spent, half of all Americans
receive a government check every month, one out of every six workers works
directly for a government, which does not even count whole swaths of people who
are not literally government employees, but who receive all (or most) of their
income from taxpayers! - and persistent, simmering inflation in consumer
prices, which is The Thing That Is Most Feared (TTTIMF), because when people
can't afford food and/or energy and they have to listen to their children
crying and watch them dying from exposure and hunger, it's Game Over, Player
One (GOPO)."
And speaking of inflation, the news must be Pretty Damned Bad (PDB), because
inflation in prices was up, despite losses from massive inventory liquidations
at fire-sale prices across the board as retailers and wholesalers scale down in
response to the increasing bankruptcy of heretofore profligate American
consumers and the weird, bloated, cancerous, government-centric economy that
they seem to love.
The Bad, Bad News (BBN) is that in spite of all of this drastic drop in demand
and selling inventories at a loss, the latest annual, unadjusted official
government-approved rate of inflation in consumer prices was up 0.9%! Hahaha!
Prices that you pay never, ever seem to go down, or even stop going up,
although the purpose of the Federal Reserve in giving them such unlimited,
un-auditable power over our money was to get "stable prices"! Hahahaha!
And even the Producer Price Index was up a whopping 1.8% in One Freaking Month
(OFM), too!
And then my sad-sack relatives get even MORE upset when I merely ask them,
again trying to be helpful, "What happened to all the gold and silver that I
kept telling you to buy all these years as a necessary defense against this
Exact Freaking Thing (EFT), ya morons? Weren't you listening when I warned you
about the 100% historical record of the terrifying results of such staggering
distortions of a big-government economy financed by creation of excessive
amounts of money and credit, and how it was Absolutely Freaking Necessary (AFN)
for you to buy gold, silver and oil?"
And speaking of victims, how about all the people who do not have incomes that
increase with inflation? There are so many of these people, and their travails
will be so difficult and heartbreaking, that these are the people who will soon
be the winner of the Biggest Victim In History (BVIH) award, overtaking the
previous record-holder (me!), when I was awarded the prize for being famously
and unjustly accused of "underperformance" and "a perplexing lack of
comprehension of what his actual job entails" whereupon I had to repeat that
whole traumatizing "intern" thing again and go back to parking in the remote
parking lot!
I explained to my boss that it only happened because my best employees keep
whining and complaining and quitting on me, most of them threatening to sue me
and the rest apparently vandalizing my lawn sprinkler, for some weird reason,
instead of just shutting up and doing their stupid jobs, so that I could leave
everything in their capable hands and leave work early a few lousy days per
week so that I could go play some, you know, golf, or go get a few drinks and
hangout with my hoodlum friends, or maybe just go home and watch TV so that I
could get away from that boring, stupid job.
Fortunately, I spent some of that time not working to buy gold, silver and oil,
and now it is just a matter of time before their rises in price release me -
sweet, sweet freedom! - from the bondage of toil and responsibility, and
hopefully before my next annual employee evaluation!
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 2009, The Daily Reckoning.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
