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“I hope I am over wary; but if I am not,
there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing
disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to
substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of
Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of
justice...
At the close of that [revolutionary]
struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its
scenes. The consequence was, that of those scenes, in the form of a husband,
a father, a son or brother, a living history was to be found in every
family-- a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own
authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the
midst of the very scenes related-- a history, too, that could be read and
understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned.
But those histories are gone. They can be
read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading
foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of
its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the
all-resistless hurricane has swept over them, and left only, here and there,
a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage; unshading and
unshaded, to murmur in a few gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated
limbs, a few more ruder storms, then to sink, and be no more.
They were the pillars of the temple of
liberty; and now, that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall, unless
we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the
solid quarry of sober reason. Passion has helped us; but can do so no more.
It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned
reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.
Let those materials be moulded into
general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the
constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last; that we remained
free to the last; that we revered his name to the last; that, during his long
sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting
place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our Washington.
Upon these let the proud fabric of
freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the
only greater institution, 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it.'"
Abraham Lincoln, Lyceum
Address, January 27, 1838
Gold and silver did very little today,
despite the brisk sell off in equities. The denizens of the bucket
shops were busy picking pockets in other markets.
The global economy is in a very difficult
circumstance, and the Fed is at the heart of it. I have no sympathy for
them whatsoever, because they have placed themselves there, repeatedly, by
their actions and omissions as manager of the world's reserve currency and
key regulator of one of the world's most influential financial markets.
Will the Fed raise rates as they have now
led the world to expect, or will they do nothing, and essentially cut them by
once again kicking those who believe them in the expectations?
Most Americans do not understand what is
going on in the rest of the world. It is not pretty. Europe is
hanging by a much thinner thread than I think the plutocrats
in Frankfurt and Brussels realize.
The emerging markets are absorbing a
great deal of inflation being generated and exported by the US. It
would be extremely interesting to have access to a reliable estimate of
Eurodollars. I think we are experiencing yet another Eurodollar short
squeeze as the debts contracted for by overseas companies in dollars feel the
stress of a disjointed global financial system.
In a comparative sense, the US is like
Germany, and the rest of the world is intended to be
our Greece, Spain, and Italy.
Asia is struggling for self-sufficiency,
and Russia, Venezuela and other parts of the world are feeling the wrath of
the power mad proponents of the New American Century in multifaceted assaults
on their independence through sanctions, military aggression, and color
revolutions.
It took a little over twenty years for
the unease that Lincoln describes above to explode upon the landscape in a
bloody civil war. It might be worth reading his entire Lyceum speech. It surely does not describe what we might think of as
domestic tranquility and pastoral bliss. The republic endured,
but at a terrible cost.
In our age reason and morality and
honour have fallen to the despicable cheapness of 'greed is
good' and the foul god of the market.
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