"So it looks like about $15.4 trillion in bank assets and liabilities is being backed up by a minuscule $40.2 billion! That's a microscopic 0.0026%. A quarter of 1%! Hahahaha! Fractional reserve banking at its finest! Hahahaha!"

by The Mogambo Guru

Total Fed Credit expanded only $2.0 billion last week, taking the total to $861.6 billion. Not much of an increase, and sure enough, Doug Noland says, "Fed Credit has increased $9.4bn y-t-d and $31.9bn over the past year (3.8%)." Almost nothing, considering their record!

So the money to finance the world's bull markets is coming from someplace else. Hmmm! I wonder where? And I wonder why the people providing the money to keep up the bull markets in stocks, bonds and government are doing it? What is their motivation? And if they are that carefree with their money, can I talk them into giving some to me? Or is there some slimy corruption at the root of it all?

Being naturally paranoid and distrustful, I vote for corruption every time, because the history of the world is clear; the amount of corruption at the end of long booms is always at unbelievable levels. And then Jeremy Grant at the Financial Times hears us talking about corruption and volunteers that, "The number of cases involving manipulation and false price reporting in commodity and commodity futures markets caught by U.S. regulators has reached record levels in the past 12 months. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees such markets, yesterday revealed it had collected a record $540m in civil penalties, restitution and disgorgement (the return of ill-gotten gains made as a result of a fraud) from cases involving fraud, manipulation and other misconduct. It said this was a record." Hahaha! A record! It's just history repeating itself, as corruption is at the maximum!

The good news is that when the regulators get around to looking at the staggering manipulation in the gold and silver markets, they could probably balance the federal budget for years to come if they forced the manipulators to "disgorge" their "ill-gotten gains" as a result of the price-manipulating frauds they committed for the last few decades!

My face breaks into a beaming smile and I rub my gnarly hands together in wicked, ghoulish glee when I extrapolate from this tthat when the regulators get around to looking at the sleazy, shadowy, scuмbag guys who own the Federal Reserve and force them to "disgorge" their "ill-gotten gains" for the entire 94 years since the despicable Federal Reserve was created by a few loathsome Senators late at night on a deserted Christmas Eve in 1913, and then unanimously passed by them, and the resultant un-Constitutional fraud of a fiat currency has been upheld by every stinking traitorous Supreme Court ever since, and how all of that means that we should rise up as one and descend like a plague upon Washington, D.C. ("Mogambo and a small mob of drunken, obscenity-spewing mental defectives drive to the nation's capitol and make a nuisance of themselves!"), overrunning the Supreme Court, immediately putting all ultimate judicial power in the Capable Hands Of The Mogambo (CHOTM) for about, oh, I'd say about ten minutes ought to be enough to order the arrest of all current and the former Supreme Court Justices, living or dead, since 1913, for the crime of treason against the United States of America, in that they colluded to ignore the stark Constitutional requirement that money must be only of silver and gold, but it isn't, and now we are paying the inevitable economic penalty for it, and I positively break into an Evil Mogambo Cackle (EMC) at the now-very-real possibility of having the miscreants brought before me, in absentia if necessary or even expeditious, crying and sniveling, whereupon I give them a quickie kangaroo trial before I pronounce the seemingly-foreordained guilty verdict and order an appropriate, thus excessive, sentence.

Next, I will order the arrest of all living and former members of Congress (except Ron Paul) on the same charges, but with harsher sentences because they deserve it so richly, because they acted so irresponsibly, and so, so willingly stupid, and have them "disgorge" their ill-gotten gains, too.

Obviously, the Financial Times correspondent is horrified by the extremes of Savage Mogambo Revenge (SMR), and perhaps tries to calm me down by imploring me to realize that "the System is working" by saying, mysteriously, "The disclosures are a sign that unprecedented volumes in commodity markets are giving rise to a corresponding increase in enforcement actions."

Huh? So we still have the same number of crimes per unit of volume in the commodity markets? Criminal activity is in a constant ratio with volume of transactions? What in the hell kind of lackluster "law enforcement" and "regulation" do you call THAT crap? Jeez!

In spite of that, and many more instances of American stupidity, I have now officially stopped standing at the street corner and yelling, "We Americans are the biggest bunch of godforsaken monetary and fiscal idiots in the history of godforsaken monetary and fiscal idiots, and yeah, I'm talking to you, you moron!" at motorists who foolishly stop at the stoplight.

So why this sudden change of heart? Is there some evidence of Americans showing some smarts?

The answer is, surprisingly, yes! (And please take note of all the surprises), as from AP we surprisingly learn that "Long-shot Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul raised a surprising $5 million during the past three months." And this is certainly surprising, in that, "Paul barely registers in polls of Republican voters, a sign of low name recognition nationally."

So, surprisingly, "Since he entered the campaign, he has operated with little media attention, getting the spotlight only during debates", which surprisingly proves that the media are co-conspirator idiots who can't recognize real quality in candidates, and which is surprisingly proved by the admission that people can sure as hell know quality when they see it, as "that has been enough to attract an avid Internet following."

Wow! In short, the people who actually know Ron Paul and his platform are so thrilled by him that they are giving the big money to him! So much so, in fact, that surprisingly, "Paul, a Texas congressman who once ran for president as a Libertarian, also will report having $5.3 million cash on hand. The amount places Paul well ahead of all but the Republican front-runners in the race"! Fantastic! There is real hope for America!

In fact, Ron Paul is so popular that "His fundraising for the quarter almost matches what Sen. John McCain is expected to report. His total is half the amount that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is reported to have raised." Hooray! Hooray for Ron Paul and the people who are supporting him!

So I decide to celebrate Ron Paul winning the Presidency, and the fact that this shows real intelligence in Americans, with a good old-fashioned, "Lost Weekend", booze-guzzling party. But just as I knocked a few drinks back in one long pull on the bottle, just when I think people are getting smarter, here comes Frederic Mishkin, who is one of the new guys at the Federal Reserve who apparently have to say stupid things as part of the secret Federal Reserve initiation process (probably getting their brains knocked out by spanking, and then chanting "Thank you sir! May I have another?" a la Animal House).

For example, unbelievably, Mr. Mishkin is reported to have remarked that, "Gold is not a particularly reliable indicator of inflation," which he thinks somehow handily dispenses with that particular piece of evidence, especially since gold is roaring along at over 30% a year and thus has been acting like price inflation is roaring at over 10% a year (just like John Williams at ShadowStats.com calculates), which I am sure is probably true because the M3 money supply (monetary inflation) has been growing at about 15% a year, and price inflation is caused by monetary inflation, and in roughly the same degree. It's that simple!

So even as I am feeling the initial effects of greedily chugging down some powerful alcoholic beverages start to kick in, Mr. Mishkin is rendered comically beyond laughable when he says that not only has inflation in prices come DOWN, but that, "Inflation has come down in the old-fashioned way. Tighter monetary policy and a commitment to price stability by central banks throughout the world have led to lower inflation and an anchoring of inflation expectations." Hahahaha!

And did he say, "tighter monetary policy"? Hahahaha! All rates of interest are less than half of the 10% rate of price inflation (when calculated the traditional way, which the government does not do anymore, but John Williams at ShadowStats.com does). Hell, a 30-year bond yields less than 5%! 5% when inflation in prices is running at 10%, even when the dollar was not falling in value, driving up the price of imports! And now? Who the hell knows?

And did he say, "tighter monetary policy"? Hahahaha! The Congress just raised the limit on the National Debt by almost $900 billion, which is almost a trillion dollars, as made necessary when the Congress has already used the last twelve months to deficit-spend almost $500 billion more than they collected, all made possible by the Congress using the last six short years to increase the debt by a staggering $3.2 trillion, all financed by the Federal Reserve creating the money out of thin air so that it could be borrowed and used to buy the government debt, thus relieving the government from having to raise that much in taxes or borrowing that much in savings!

If you look at my face, you will notice that I am having a hard time not breaking into a big, loud belly laugh of Maximum Mogambo Mirth (MMM) as I say, "And I am supposed to believe that the Fed will NOT create the money and credit to allow the government to borrow all of this $900 billion more, and then even more when that runs out in about two years (extrapolating the long-term trend)? Hahahaha!"

And did he say "tighter monetary policy"? Hahahaha! Required Reserves in American banks are, in total, still only a lousy, insignificant, almost nothing, squat-like, stinking $40.2 billion, which is about the same low, low, low amount that it has been since 2000, while deposits and loans grew like a cancer to trillions of dollars, and now Required Reserves as percentage of anything new in the banks is certainly the lowest in the history of banking, because there is nothing less than zero! Hahahaha!

So, for how much assets and debt is this piddly $40.2 billion counted as its "reserves"? Doug Noland, in his Credit Bubble Bulletin at PrudentBear.com, reports that bank credit alone is $8.923 trillion. And how fast is bank credit growing? "Bank Credit," says Mr. Noland, "is now up $280bn over the past ten weeks, with a $627bn, or 10.1% annualized, y-t-d gain", while "Loans & Leases surged $25.9bn to a record $6.574 TN (10-wk gain of $249bn)."

So it looks like about $15.4 trillion in bank assets and liabilities is being backed up by a minuscule $40.2 billion! That's a microscopic 0.0026%. A quarter of 1%! Hahahaha! Fractional reserve banking at its finest! Hahahaha!

And all of this is Mr. Mishkin's "tighter monetary policy"? Hahahaha! I'm laughing my Stupid Mogambo Butt (SMB) off here! Hahahaha!