A failed bond auction in Germany cast a pall over the holiday markets in the US.
Stocks went out on their lows in thin trading.
"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States, 1928