Enlightening and humorous insights into the world’s economy by David Hague and  Gustavo Laframboise-Pierre, the Director of Statistical Creation at the European Central Bank. (About David Hauge)

1. Gustavo speaks! Confessions of a Central Banker
   • Today I will be sharing with you, my most recent interview with Gustavo Laframboise-Pierre, the Director of Statistical Creation at the European Central Bank [ECB]. For those of you who have not yet become familiar with Gustavo I should explain that my relationship with Gustavo began in New York City, in his former life, when he was my principal bookie. His fortunes changed dramatically when a senior member of the ECB, while on a junket to the ‘City that Never Sleeps’ [New York, for my less traveled readers] made a fantastically large and incorrect bet on the outcome of the 2010 World Cup. The only way the debt could be settled was for the senior member of the ECB to offer Gustavo an extremely high paying sinecure at the ECB. Gustavo found himself, almost overnight, living the good life in Europe as the Director of Statistical Creation at the ECB. His notional job was to make up statistics that would support whatever policies the ECB and other central bankers around the world were instituting at that moment in time.  Gustavo’s experience as a bookie made him eminently qualified for this job. His rather elastic moral fiber allowed him not only do the job well, it allowed him to excel at his new profession.
2. An Interview with a Central Banker: ‘To Infinity and Beyond’
   • Dear reader, I recently conducted the most important interview of my nascent journalistic career. The information I uncovered in my interview will, I suspect rival Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate revelations. My interview with Gustavo Laframboise–Pierre, newly promoted Director of Statistical Creation, at the European Central Bank [ECB] will surely earn me a Pulitzer Prize.  I will share the information I gleaned in this interview. I caution you, dear reader that the topics discussed in the interview will challenge the very core of your understanding of economics and the role of government. As well, it will clarify in your mind, the likely resolution to the world’s debt crisis.
3. Wall Street is the key to World Peace and a Reduction in Defense Spending
   • I was in New York recently to spend some time worrying about the global economy and to enjoy the ‘City That Never Sleeps’. Sure enough, New York’s sobriquet proved accurate. It was 3 a.m. and I could not sleep. I did what any visitor to New York would do in this situation. I called the concierge and asked if he knew where I could find an all night poker game. [Truthfully as I was paying $40 a night for my room the concierge was really a security guard/janitor.] He was no help. I then reached out to my former bookie, Gustavo Laframboise-Pierre, who currently works for the European Central Bank. I was relieved when he texted me back immediately with an address and a password for a 7/24 poker game. Before you could say ‘New York Minute’ a cab delivered me to the sub-basement of a parking garage in a rather sketchy part of town.
4. Shocking revelation regarding Moscow G-20 summit
   • As I sat down yesterday trying to think of a topic for my next commentary I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from Gustavo. “David,” he said, his words  somewhat slurred from the effects  of an overindulgence of Cristal Brut 1990   champagne [$17,000 per bottle] part of the traditional ‘Breakfast of Champions’ enjoyed by Central Bankers around the world at their daily breakfast meetings where they grapple with the world’s economic challenges such as poverty, unemployment, famine, wealth distribution and austerity. “I am going to make you famous; I know how desperately you want to win a Pulitzer Prize for your economic commentary. Here is your big chance. I am going to share with you the conclusions and economics plans that will be announced at the end of the summit.
5. Global Economy Sails into the Bermuda Triangle.
   • Dear reader, Paul Getty once famously said that ‘a billion dollars isn’t worth what it used to be’. Clearly one could now say that ‘a trillion dollars isn’t worth what it used to be’. We have become numb to the ever larger numbers that are used by politician and economists to describe our current circumstances. It made me wonder what comes after a trillion. My initial thought was a bazillion or gazillion. Much to my surprise several friends were able to correctly identify that after a trillion, the next number is a quadrillion. Give yourself a pat on the back if you were able to correctly identify this number.
6. @Davos, LOL, I Just Read an Economics Textbook!
   • Dear reader, I am on assignment at the World Economic Forum   in Davos, Switzerland. Unfortunately my previous commentaries   irked the organizers so profoundly that I was not allowed the intimate access usually accorded friendly members of the media. No matter, I am staying at a pleasant bed and breakfast about an hour and half outside of Davos which for you geography buffs, means that I am actually staying in Lucerne .
7. How my time in jail helped me understand the Global Economy
   • Dear reader, I must apologize for the dearth of my commentaries that are my attempt to help us interpret the complex global economic issues that bedevil our return to a normal, stable sustainable, sensible, state of global economic tranquility. My recent incarceration [more on that later] has made access to a computer somewhat problematic.
8. NSA inks landmark deal to share information with Central Banks
   • Dear reader, put away your charts and graphs. Forget about fundamental and technical analysis. Ignore financial statements and trends.  The extraordinary agreement to share information between the National Security Agency [NSA], a host of European, Russian, Canadian and Chinese spy agencies and the world’s Central Banks will ensure that the only relevant force in Global Stock markets will be the trading activity of the world’s Central Banks. Thanks to the data gathering of the NSA and its subsidiary spy agencies around the world, the Central Banks will be privy to the most confidential conversations and communications from the boardroom, the bedroom and the trading floor. Central Banks will now be able to trade with inside information that could only be dreamed about in years gone by.
9. Sex, Drugs and Derivatives
   • Dear reader, I recently returned from two weeks of ‘high level’ meetings with a group of Bankers [this is code for two weeks of subsidized debauchery with bankers] in Rome. As I sat at my desk, I was hoping to motivate myself to pursue a more chaste and pure existence. Unfortunately the Polar Vortex experienced by North America drained me of my good intentions. The bone chilling cold once again had me reaching for my trusty bottle of Jack Daniels for warmth and inspiration. My time in Rome had not been completely ‘wasted’, so to speak. I had secured a contract from the European Central Bank [ECB] to research the topic of Derivatives. I was to present my findings at the upcoming World Economic Forum  in Davos later this month.
10. You have got to be joking! Bitcoin? My report from the World Economic Forum
    • Dear reader, I must apologize for my tardiness in filing my report on last month’s World Economic Forum   [WEF] in Davos. This annual gathering of the world’s best and brightest, society’s rich and famous, the powerful and the political, the lobbyists as well as many economists, groupies, and assorted riff raff [Yours truly would fall into the last category.] is, perhaps, the most important harbinger of the prospects for the global economy in 2014.  My reasons for being so late in filing my report will soon become apparent. I arrived in Davos, more excited than I had ever been in my career. A coterie of powerful bankers had retained me to make a keynote speech at the conference on the topic of Derivatives. They had agreed to cover my expenses and pay me handsomely for the opportunity to hear my thoughts on the subject.
11. Gold Price to Plunge: My Remarkable Visit to Fort Knox
    • Dear reader, my apologies for the stunning revelation regarding the upcoming cataclysmic drop in the value of gold. I realize that my fellow gold bugs will be reaching for some form of chemical assistance to help them regain their composure after contemplating the implications of the title of my commentary. Gold bugs, I am sure, will scour my words to find evidence in my analysis that my statement is entirely incorrect.
12. Truth: The First Casualty of Economics, Banking and the Ukraine
    • Dear reader, I opened my eyes and stared at the hard packed dirt that substitutes for grass in Paris’s famed Tuileries Garden. I struggled to raise my head and peer over the lip of the Grand Bassin Octagonal. My eyes were greeted with the majestic view of the Louvre, basking in the warm early morning glow of the unseasonably hot sunshine that had Parisians reaching for their sunscreen in the middle of March. I struggled to overcome the explosions occurring inside my head, the result of the three bottles of Andezon, Cotes-du-Rhone Syrah [an impertinent, cheeky and inexpensive red wine] I had consumed after last night’s International Economic Symposium held at the uber-swank Hotel George V Paris.
13. @Jackson Hole: Be Very Afraid, Bankers are channeling their inner Rothschild
    • Dear reader, there is a melancholy overtaking economic commentators such as myself. The kindred spirits amongst the economic intelligentsia who stridently, constantly, warn of the dangers the actions of our central banks, are now overwhelmed by the futility of our attempts to bring this issue to Main Street’s consciousness.  [Dear reader, please stifle your guffaws at my hubris that allows me to include myself as a member of the world’s economic intelligentsia. Debatably, my curriculum vitae as an economist is quite thin. It requires many redactions, falsehoods and exaggerations prior to being sent to a prospective employer, {along with a fervent prayer that the employer does not check my police record, references, academic credentials or my credit bureau}]. However, my intimate knowledge of the outrageous inner workings of our Central Banks gives me insights heretofore unavailable even to the most celebrated, revered and feted economists. I will explain how I came to be amongst the celebrated elite at the Economic Symposium held at the Jackson Lake Lodge last week end.
14. Funny munKNEE: What the World’s Central Bankers Are Really Up To
    • This article relates to a recent dinner I had with an European Central Bank [ECB] “executive” during which it was expressed/revealed (some might say, confirmed) that there is an on-going global conspiracy by Central Bankers to overthrow democracy and take over the world so to speak in what many refer to as a New World Order.
15. ‘Money, Money, it’s a Rich Man’s World’ – An Amusing Look At Central Bankers
    • Dear reader, I was afforded a most extraordinary experience recently that has given me unique insight into our global financial and political systems. I intend to share my experience with you. However, I caution you, that the information I gleaned from this experience will be disturbing. What you are about to read will forever change your view of banking, politics, economics and money. Read on, if you dare.

Addition Articles By Other Articles To Put A Smile on Your Face

1. The World Is Descending Into An Economic Hell
   • Perhaps you are wondering “Where have you been all this lonely, lonely time, oh, Mighty Magnificent Mogambo (MMM), that you can now announce your triumphant return” to the dispensing of wit and wonder about things such as the titanic seismic economic events concerning fiscal and monetary policy – the monstrous interplay of which I can only vaguely contemplate, but with a shudder.
2. Longing For The Apocalypse? If So, Consider These 2 Timeless Prescription
   • Set in the world of a spoofed prescription drug commercial, this Nature Rx video offers a hearty dose of laughs and the outdoors – two timeless prescriptions for whatever ails you.
3. Some Priceless Employee Performance Evaluation Quips to Use Next Time
   • “Since my last evaluation this employee has hit rock bottom and has started to dig”, “He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.” and 30 other “actual” descriptive employee performance evaluations. Share them at the office to lightened things up.
4. Hilarious! A Stand-up Comedy Routine By a Stand-up Economist
   • There is nothing dry and boring about economic and politics when you have a sense of humor, an understanding of the realities of the situation and are prepared to let it all hang out. Peter Schiff did just that recently in a hilarious stand-up comedy routine at the NY’s Funniest Reporter Show in which he talked about Bernie Madoff (Ponzi 101), Ben Bernanke (QExit) and using the name Peter Stiff.
5. Satire At Its Best: America vs. Canada on Greed & Their Respective Banking Systems
   • In this irreverent clip – satire at its best – Jason Jones from the Daily Show teaches regulation-loving Canadian bankers the advantages of harmless American free-market fun or, more accurately, highlights the differences between the American and Canadian banking systems and their respective perceptions on the meaning of the word “greed”. Enjoy!