Trader Dan's Market Views: 08/17/12

"When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe." … Frederic Bastiat

Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. So it always has been. So it always will be. And America has no special immunity to becoming an enemy of its own founding beliefs about human freedom, human dignity, the limited power of the state, and the sovereignty of God. – Archbishop Chaput

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Friday, August 17, 2012

Ancient Rome had Nothing on Modern Day America

Historians have chronicled the decline of the Roman Empire detailing in great extent the internal rot and moral decadence that helped speed its eventual fall. The lack of ethics and virtue was bemoaned even in those days by some of its leading philosophers/statemen.

I find it therefore rather disconcerting to see the the eerie parallels between the symptoms of rot and decay prevalent in Rome before it fell and the current US financial system, which has become a cesspool/stinking outhouse in terms of any vestige of decency and integrity.

Witness the case of one Jon Corzine, which if there was any semblance of justice and virtue left in the current administration's Justice department, would have swiftly be sent to prison where he could play "drop the bar of soap" with his fellow inmates.

With that in mind, take a look at the following article and see if you can constrain your feeling of righteous revulsion.

Guilty As Sin And Free As A Bird – Corzine Edition

He Simply Doesn’t Know Where The Money Is, But He’s Bored And Feels Like Starting A Hedge Fund

Hey, I’ve got good news and bad news this fine and wonderful morning. The good news is that there may well be a new investment opportunity for those of us eager to improve our financial means. The bad news is that it consists of a hedge fund run by none other than Jon “I simply do not know where the money is” Corzine.

http://www.redstate.com/repair_man_jack/2012/08/17/guilty-as-sin-and-free-as-a-bird-%e2%80%93-corzine-edition/