"Everywhere Rome was failing in her duties as mistress of the civilised world. Her own internal degeneracy was faithfully reflected in the abnegation of her imperial duties.
When in any country the small-farmer class is being squeezed off the land; when its labourers are slaves or serfs; when huge tracts are kept waste to minister to pleasure; when the shibboleth of art is on every man's lips, but ideas of true beauty in very few men's souls.
When the business-sharper is the greatest man in the city, and lords it even in the law courts; when class-magistrates, bidding for high office, deal out justice according to the rank of the criminal; when exchanges are turned into great gambling-houses, and senators and men of title are the chief gamblers; when, in short, 'corruption is universal, when there is increasing audacity, increasing greed, increasing fraud, increasing impurity, and these are fed by increasing indulgence and ostentation.
When a considerable number of trials in the courts of law bring out the fact that the country in general is now regarded as a prey, upon which any number of vultures, scenting it from afar, may safely light and securely gorge themselves; when the foul tribe is amply replenished by its congeners at home, and foreign invaders find any number of men, bearing good names, ready to assist them in robberies far more cruel and sweeping than those of the footpad or burglar' — when such is the tone of society, and such the idols before which it bends, a nation must be fast going down hill.
A more repulsive picture can hardly be imagined. A mob, a moneyed class, and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other, and hated by the rest of the world; Italians bitterly jealous of Romans, and only in better plight than the provinces beyond the sea; more miserable than either, swarms of slaves beginning to brood over revenge as a solace to their sufferings; the land going out of cultivation; native industry swamped by slave-grown imports; the population decreasing; the army degenerating; wars waged as a speculation, but only against the weak; provinces subjected to organized pillage; in the metropolis childish superstition, wholesale luxury, and monstrous vice.
The hour for reform was surely come. Who was to be the man?"
A.H. Beesley, The Gracchi Marius and Sulla, 1921
"Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us."
Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, 2006
The dollar fell off the 99 handle today, and gold and silver and even bitcoin rallied in response.
Oil rallied, and then fell back to unchanged late in the day.
VIX fell sharply on the stock pop, but was unmoved by their later flop.
The financial system has not been a sound evaluation mechanism of risk and allocator of capital for some time now.
Over time this erodes the organic growth in the economy, and leads to serious imbalances in the structure of a society.
This is 'bad news.'
In the very long term the only thing that matters is that we have been chosen and redeemed. I realized that in a profound way not too long ago and I remember my spirit soaring at that realization.
That joy foundered a bit on some trailer tires that resisted many attempts at seating their beads back on their rims, during a hot and bug-lashed, heavily humid afternoon that sends stinging sweat into your eyes in August. Ratchet straps, starter fluid, pounding with a soft mallet, words my crusty marine sergeant father taught me, yada yada.
But eventually they too fell to dogged persistence. Now if only the politicians in Washington could be as malleable in their stubborn resistance to reform.
But you know what I mean. It's easy to get caught up in the little things, the irritations of the moment. But at the end of the day, the field has been won for us. And in that our joy is complete.
"And we have come to know and to trust the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them." 1 John 4:16-17Have a pleasant evening.
