MOGAMBO GURU: 'Don't be a chump. Do it!'

[Tace]

Richard Daughty, the angriest guy in economics
email: [e-mail]

In case you didn't see the news item and accompanying photo in your local newspaper, my mouth was hanging open in stunned disbelief and my eyes had this glassy, distant look as the police were jamming me into the backseat of a police squad car. The reason for their rudeness was that things are getting so weird in the world of economics that The Mogambo had one of his "spells" of Mogambo outrage (SOMO), and there was an unfortunate "incident," and the police thought that maybe some mental-health professionals could help me, but I'm screaming at them, "They are destroying your money, you idiot fascist bastards! And you think that some head-shrinking quack is going to change THAT inescapable fact, you dimwit Gestapo morons?"

I am not sure what it was, specifically, that set me off, but for one thing, the trade deficit goes up to a new record, yet the stock market goes up! Weird! How about that the Federal Reserve raises the Fed Funds rate by the 13th consecutive quarter-point, and yet the stock market goes up! Weird AND weird! Hell, even more bizarrely, the bond market goes up, too! Weird weird WEIRD! Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the dollar is rolling over while interest rates are being raised by the central bank, and yet some knucklehead foreign bozos are increasing their demand for U.S. bonds, thus driving price up and the imputed yield down? And then they get hit with an additional whack from the fall in the value of the dollar? And yet they keep on buying U.S. debt? This is now totally beyond weird! This is spooky!

And how about the 2-year T-note yielding a quarter-point above Fed Funds rate? This is insane! The 10-year T-bond is yielding almost the same? This is insane, too! The yield on the 10-year bond is less than the freaking Discount Rate, which is the rate the banks themselves pay to borrow money from the Fed! I shake my head in disbelief, and my ears comically go flappa-flapp-flappa as they slap against my head.

These are the kinds of crazy things that makes a guy go, "I gotta get gold and get away from this insanity! And get away from my wife and kids, too, now that I think about it!" And then as you are packing your bags you get rattled further when you see that the action in gold is getting really weird, too! And the lease rates for gold! Maybe it's just me, but the way I figure it is that since I am the suspicious and distrustful type, which comes at the end of a long life (which is, in itself, just a long series of being screwed over by hucksters, crooks and liars), my sensitive Mogambo weirdness sense (SMWS) is highly attuned to things that are the least bit weird, and right now loud alarm bells from the Mogambo Weird-O-Meter (MWOM) are clanging and clanging and clanging.

more

http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=1918

[NVMojo]

1. oh yes, buy more gold! I don't mind living near the very gold mines

ripping up public lands and making a profit! Keep it up, yeah, uh-huh!

[lyonn]

2. Who is this guy?

For sure he is funny. Don't know a thing about the market but it makes some sense to me what he says. Real Estate and land has always seemed safer. Even when prices go down, if you haven't paid too much, you have better security than stocks.

[dcfirefighter]

4. Externalities of buying land as an investment

Buying and holding land as an investment has some pretty bad externalities: it jacks the price of land up, pushes home prices out of reach of low (& now middle) income families, and pushes places of business out reach of marginal employers (increasing unemployment and depressing wages).

When the value of land is high, as it is now, due to the speculative efforts of many people flush with low interest rate loans, the value can disappear with the onset of high interest rates and the general lack of credit due to decreased employment.

I think he has a point in recommending investing in 'real' property (most of which was considered 'Land' by the classical economists) such as oil, gold, and silver. I'd include a few further afield: companies with significant water rights, land in non-speculative areas, real capital: power plants, railways, grain mills, etc.

[screembloodymurder]

3. He's funny, but I wish he'd broaden his advice.

I'd like to know how to protect my family w/o burying gold in my back yard. How about telling us how to invest in foriegn currencies. Or how to set up a Canadian bank account. The truth is the Guru has a one track mind.

[nick303]

5. The guy is funny but not that insightful

PS I don't recommend speculating in foreign currencies unless you really have a reason to own that specific currency.

No matter what you can't predict what will happen next. If you had bought euros or yen at the beginning of this year you would have been smacked pretty hard. The Canadian dollar has appreciated, but who can say whether you would have chosen that one, or if it will continue on its current trajectory?