

-- Posted Friday, 25 April 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com



If you want to see why the damned government is continually raising your taxes, spending more and more money, growing bigger and bigger all the damned time and locking up a full one percent of the population in prison, part of the answer is in the Pinellas Park Beacon newspaper, which reported that federal search warrants were executed at three local pharmacies as part of an investigation into healthcare fraud. So far, so good. The funny part is that "the agencies involved in the investigation are representatives of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, Florida Attorney General's Office - Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, Health and Human Services - OIG, United States Office of Personnel Management - OIG, Drug Enforcement Administration, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, United States Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation." It's like when there is a simple, everyday accident on the road, and suddenly the whole highway is completely shut down because there are police everywhere, police cars all over the place, hazardous materials handling people trundling around in their bulky suits testing for dangerous substances, bomb disposal people trundling around in THEIR bulky suits, SWAT teams taking up positions in the surrounding area, fire trucks, ambulances, police helicopters and even K-9 units swarming all over the highway! I mean, it's amazing how many government employees are seemingly standing around looking for something to do with their latest equipment upgrades, and itching for a chance to put all that expensive training to work, to (I assume) hopefully show how all of those huge departmental expenses are "proving" to be of compelling value during the upcoming city/county/state budget reviews. In fact, this has inspired my latest poem, which doesn't have a title yet, but the opening stanza is: The governments have firepower out the wazoo, Looking for something to do. One of these days, in dozens of ways, They'll be coming after you, too, and you'll be in deep doo-doo. Well, those who have any familiarity with poetry whatsoever recognize right away that I have absolutely no talent, and it is obvious that I spent less than twenty seconds writing it, including thinking up the original idea, writing it, re-writing it, then editing it before giving it that final polish that turns it into a shining gem of literature. With it being so damned easy to write crap like that, the reason that I have not already published an anthology of my Immortal Mogambo Poetry (IMP), of which the above is but a small sample, is that I am not sure that it is exactly true that the levels of governments will always have such firepower. I mean, the whole economy is based on the stupid idea that the government only exists to do more and more things and give money to more and more people, which it has faithfully done for half a century, all built on the nominal gains of all that new Federal Reserve money cascading through the economy like anabolic steroids in otherwise mediocre athletes. But now, with all these losses in every freaking thing, there will (horrors!) necessarily be a sharp reduction in profits, and thus (horrors of horrors!) a sharp reduction in taxes paid on those profits and, thus (horror of horrors of horrors!) a sharp reduction in spending and a downward spiral in the economy, as the government spending IS the economy nowadays! In short, the lifeblood of governments is going to be choked off unless taxes are raised, which would, unfortunately, make everything even worse, all of which means there is no painless way out, and which always reminds me of the phrase "We're freaking doomed!" Alas and alack, it is not just the governments around here that are full of do-gooder spenders, and if you want proof that the International Monetary Fund is a disgusting collection of morons, quacks and politically connected halfwits, too, then page 13 of last Monday's Financial Times newspaper is all you need. To start with, Wolfgang Munchau again makes the point that Milton Friedman was exactly right when he said, "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." By this he means that prices rise in a general inflation after the money is created, and thus if you create too much money, then prices are going to rise too much. The big difference this time is that the inflation monster is now everywhere, not just in stocks, bonds, houses and size of government anymore, but now in consumer staples such as food and energy, where governments everywhere are aghast that, as Mr. Munchau notes, "The global rate of headline inflation is 4.5% and rising." Yikes! I was right: We're freaking doomed! The funny part is right next to Mr. Munchau's column, and actually touching it, is a piece by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund. The laughable screed penned by this nitwit is titled "A Global Approach Is Required To Tackle High Food Prices." If you are like me, you are delighted that now, after all of these many, many dozens of centuries of the world's people having to periodically endure higher food prices because of environmental mishaps or governmental stupidity (or both), now there is a solution to the problem of high food and energy prices! So what is this "global approach" to "tackle high food prices" that is going to be so wonderful? Huh? You wanna know? Huh? Do you? Huh? Hahaha! Well, you're going to love this: The idea is to let the IMF start giving money away to pay the higher prices! The IMF, glorying as ever in its failures, just like the Federal Reserve, now promotes the laughable idea to "tackle" rising food prices by having donor economies give other people money to pay higher food prices! Hahaha! THAT is the "global approach" to "tackle" higher food prices? Hahaha! And if you think that government throwing money at a problem, especially one as big as this, is going to be successful, and that buying gold, silver and oil is therefore unnecessary and old-fashioned, then my lip curls into a sneer and I laugh with Utter Mogambo Disdain (UMD) "Hahahahaha!" at you, and wish only to be there to see the look on your face at the instant that you realize, to your own terrifying horror, how wrong you were! Hell, I'm laughing just thinking about it! Hahahaha! P.S. To get The Daily Reckoning sent directly to your inbox, sign up for our free email newsletter, or if you prefer to use RSS, subscribe to the Daily Reckoning RSS feed. Editor's Note: 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.



The Mogambo Guru is quoted frequently in Barron's, The Daily Reckoning and other fine publications. Click here to visit the Mogambo archive page.

-- Posted Friday, 25 April 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

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