I was really ready for a laugh when I read the Bloomberg article, "Derivatives
Industry Gets Second Look From Congress".
To start off the festivities, it opens with a photo of Christopher Dodd, the
self-important arrogant loudmouth from Connecticut who chairs the House banking
committee and, as a long-time member of Congress, is directly responsible for
the economic catastrophe befalling us and the world, a sorry fact that I hope
is a complete and utter embarrassment to the voters of Connecticut.
But the article was not about Dodd or how something is obviously wrong with
this guy, and naturally it did not mention the fact that if I thought, for even
a minute, that I could get away with it, I would
go to Washington, DC, walk into this guy's office, grab him by the lapels of
his coat and slap, slap, slap the hell out of his smarmy face until whatever in
the hell is wrong with him has been knocked out of his stupid leftist,
economically illiterate head.
Instead, we read that now that his incompetence is evident, "Congress will take
a second shot at the derivatives industry after its decision nine years ago to
forgo regulations led to a $592 trillion market that brought some financial
firms to their knees."
Then, to show you that Mr Dodd, the bank or the Federal Reserve don't have an
exclusive on economic illiteracy, the article quoted Mark Halverson, "a staff
director for Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin", as saying that
"One of the key underlying problems in the whole lead-up to the meltdown was
too much leverage, too little capital or too little collateral." Hmmm!
Well, while he is exactly right that there was too much leverage, where the
buyers of these toxic assets were putting up a few cents in chump change and
borrowing the rest, he apparently doesn't know what leverage is, even though I
just explained it, which shows how much people pay attention to me around here.
Morons.
The fact is that Mr Halverson is being merely redundant when he says there was
too little capital, as distinct from leverage, but I got a Real Hot Mogambo
News Flash (RHMNF) for this Halverson fella about "too little collateral", as
there was lots of collateral, dude! All the collateral you want! More than you
could ever want!
You want more collateral? Hell, give me a couple of minutes and I can whip a
lot of IOUs and vague promises into a package and give you all the freaking
collateral you want! I'll give it a fancy title, too, like "Collateralized Debt
And Vague Promises Obligation". Too little collateral, you say? Hahaha!
Then, just when I thought it could not get funnier, I got to a funnier part
where, as part of the overhaul of the entire economic and financial system of
America, the Obama administration has a proposal that would "require
standardized over-the-counter derivatives contracts to be guaranteed by a
clearinghouse". Hahahaha!
And if the clearinghouse decided it could not, or would not, pay? Hahaha! Hell,
we got that system now! Hahaha!
The scary part was that the Obama administration is revealed as clueless, too,
and Bloomberg remarked that the White House "said in its regulatory proposal
that while derivatives didn't cause the financial meltdown, they 'became a
major source of contagion through the financial sector during the crisis',
instead of dispersing risk as intended." Hahaha! Wrong!
I was just getting ready to fire off a lot of scathing emails about such a
ridiculous stupidity, when I realized that here was the perfect solution to my
problems at work!
No, not my main problem of calling employees and customers "morons" for not
buying gold, silver and oil when their own stupid government is ruining the
dollar right in front of their eyes by allowing the Federal Reserve to create
such excesses of new money and credit so that the government can borrow the
money and spend it, now that people are not borrowing and spending money with
their customary elan because they are broke and unemployed.
Nor was it a solution to any of my many, many other personal problems which
are, I might add, all the result of other people acting like they have a lot of
brain damage. Wasn't it Sartre who said, "Hell is other people"?
Instead, this could be the solution to the problem of how I am probably going
to get fired because I have alienated the customers and made enemies of the
employees, which was not part of my Fabulous Mogambo Plan (FMP), which was to
take the customer's orders, demand a big deposit, and then just say, "Screw
'em!" whereupon the sales department would always be bringing in new customers,
whereupon I would take a little of that new deposit money and settle
out-of-court with the irate customers for pennies on the dollar. A real
moneymaker of a plan!
So, obviously, the financial problems of the company are not my fault. The
sales department fell down on the job, ruining everything.
As I watch her face turn red with anger, I remember that I am just hoping to
stall for time, as it will not be long before gold, silver and oil shoot
upwards in price and I, who have these things, will have enough money to buy
the damned company and fire them all, including my boss and her "Get out of my
office or I'm calling security!" crap!
Actually, I am thinking, "Whee! This investing stuff is easy!"
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.)
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