The Thin Mogambo
"But the reality is that that this magnificent 600% return was over the last seven years, and the Lipper Mutual Fund Performance Index now has gold-oriented funds being up 23% this year alone!"
by The Mogambo Guru Mish Shedlock at WhiskeyandGunpowder.com says, "If you asked people to list their best investments since 2000, what percentage of them do you think would say gold or silver?" The answer is, Mr. Shedlock thinks, "not many," and "in fact, not only would gold or silver probably not enter the conversation, chances are most people wouldn't be able to name a single gold or silver mining company." And why is this? He thinks, "That's because even though gold has almost tripled and miners have risen over 600% since 2000, most people haven't yet realized that precious metals have been outperforming the general market since then by leaps and bounds." 600%! Wow! But the reality is that that this magnificent 600% return was over the last seven years, and the Lipper Mutual Fund Performance Index now has gold-oriented funds being up 23% this year alone! Wow! This brings up Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Chuck W., who admits to doing a little "noir" reading, which is French for "black", as in "looking on the serious, dark and gloomy side, wanting to scream and scream and scream, terrified by the fear of the calamity that you see all around you, and sure enough, as any film noir movie soon demonstrates, things soon get really bad, the lighting gets weird, and Bad Things Happen (BTH). Then, in act two, it gets weirder and weirder." In that regard, he writes that in Chapter 20 of The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, "set in December 1932," we find this highly, highly illuminating exchange: Quinn: What do you do with all your money? Nick Charles: Me and the French hoard gold. Quinn: It's fellows like you who put the country on the bum. Nick Charles: And it's fellows like me that don't go on the bum with it. Hahaha! Perfect! Not only funny, but classically profound in a cinematic way. If Dashiell Hammett were alive today, I would be on the phone in a jiffy to tell him that no matter how good a writer he is, no matter how successful he is, I will find a way to criticize something. In this case, I am not happy with the Nick Charles rejoinder there at the end. If Mr. Hammett were alive, then we would have had THIS illuminating telephone exchange: Mogambo: Hello? Dashiell? This is The Mogambo! Dashiell Hammett: Who? Mogambo: Mogambo! Remember that time I tried to borrow twenty bucks from you and you said no, and we ended up getting into an argument about your social responsibilities to bail out greedy losers like me and I spit on your shoes? Dashiell Hammett: What? Who? Mogambo: Well, I just called to say that I finished reading your book, The Thin Man, and I would like to say that it's pretty good! But remember that conversation you have in chapter 20 - the place where Quinn says, "It's fellows like you who put the country on the bum"? Well, you have Nick Charles saying something insipid, namely, "And it's fellows like me that don't go on the bum with it." I am outraged at both your success and your ignorance of economics! You sloppy fiction writers get to just make it up as you go along, don't you? You can arbitrarily change the whole universe to fit your equations! Dashiell Hammet: What are you talking about? Mogambo: You should have had Nick Charles answer, "No I am not the cause of the country going down the economic crapper, you halfwit lowlife piece of dog crap! Instead, it's you and your stupid, ignorant and corrupt friends that have so freakishly and persistently elected corrupt morons to Congress (except Ron Paul), because then Congress allows the Federal Reserve to create all that excess money and credit (monetary inflation) to fund Congress' ruinous deficit-spending activities, which they borrow because they are too gutless to just raise taxes to get the money since it would immediately demonstrate to the people that the Congress (except Ron Paul) is destroying the country with inflation in prices that will surely accompany this inflation in the money supply, and I say 'surely' because that is what has happened in all the other seven jillion kazillion times it has happened in the history of the world!" Dashiell Hammett: What? Who is this? Mogambo: What I am trying to say, is that you should have had Nick Charles reply, "It not me that who has put the country on the bum, you moron halfwit loser! It's you and your creepy friends! It's just fellows like me that don't go on the bum with it." Dashiell Hammet: That is the most… I could tell that he was impressed with my economic sense! Then, almost like a classic scene in any film noir movie, in mid-sentence, the phone line went mysteriously dead! As dead as he is! I stood there, stunned at this sudden turn of events, the phone hanging from my leaden fingers, until I was snapped out of my reverie by JMR Chuck summarizing the current situation as "We are all freaking doomed, and you can't get much more 'noir' than that", which is not only stylistically clever and witty, but a reason to be jealous of him and his literary talents, too, as if I did not have enough trouble being envious of this Hammett guy! 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. | 
