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Richard Daughty (aka the acerbic “Mogambo Guru”) 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.

Oct 4, 2008

Fed up with Fed credit By The Mogambo Guru.

The national debt, more correctly known as Treasury Gross Public Debt, shot up US$141 billion last week! Yikes! Don’t multiply $141 billion by 52 weeks because you will plotz at the answer, and we are so freaking doomed that I cannot chug raw tequila fast enough to dull the rising feeling of doom or the rising taste of vomit tinged with blood.
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As of yesterday, the U.S. commercial paper market has failed. You won’t read or hear much about this, because so few people understand financial markets, but you will see its effects in your life, and they are going to be dramatic, and probably come at you like a runaway train.

Commercial paper is the means by which companies raise working capital to produce the goods and services you use every day. Last week, $95 billion less commercial paper was sold. Instead, the money went into US Treasuries. In the past three weeks, the commercial paper market has contracted by $200 billion. Bond experts are calling the contraction “astounding,” and it is not clear that the bailout will help recharge this crucially important market.
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The Mozart Effect may not work, but the power of art to heal emotional wounds is well known, but could contemplating a beautiful painting have the same effect on physical pain? If so, this is the BEST KIND of placebo!

Italian researcher Marina de Tommaso asked 12 men and women to pick the paintings they considered the ugliest and the most beautiful, then to think about them while their hand was zapped by a laser (an effect like snapping a rubber band at your hand). They experienced less pain while contemplating the beautiful art.

New Scientist quotes de Tommaso as saying, “Hospitals have been designed to be functional, but we think that their aesthetic aspects should be taken into account too.”
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Take this test and find out! – Despite the recession, some people are still shopping till they drop?whether they can afford it or not. Are you one of them?

The test below revealed that 9% of (mostly women) professors?out of a total of over 500?could be classified as compulsive shoppers. This is higher than the rate of 15 years ago, which is estimated to be between 2 and 8%–or even a more recent estimate of 6%.
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