"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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