Mr. President, Fix This Power Grid...

"The trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they're too damn greedy."

Herbert Hoover

Mr. President, fix this power grid, and bring it up to modern uniform standards of resiliency and excellence.

Put forward a coherent national energy policy that is robust enough to withstand natural disasters, the demands of changing sources, the requirements of clean air and water, and the manipulation of financial institutions who use their money power to prey on the natural resources and foodstuffs, taking the profits for themselves and charging their losses to the public through the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, turning every attempt at reform into a new con game for the one percent.

That would be a genuine renewal of the Declaration of Independence.

More than 1 million in U.S. still without power five days after storm

(Reuters) - More than 1 million homes and businesses in a swath from Indiana to Virginia remained without power early on Wednesday, five days after deadly storms tore through the region. The outage meant no July 4 holiday for thousands of utility workers who scrambled to restore power across the region. Much of the afflicted areas faced yet another day of scorching heat, with the National Weather Service forecasting temperatures from 90 Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) to more than 100 F (37.7 C) from the Midwest to the Atlantic Coast. .

The Defense of Fort McHenry

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
’Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ’In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Francis Scott Key, 1814

Rhyme of History: The Banks, the City, and England

"From the time I took office as chancellor of the exchequer I began to learn that the state held in the face of the Bank and the City an essentially false position as to finance.

When those relations began, the state was justly in ill odour as a fraudulent bankrupt who was ready on occasion to add force to fraud. After the revolution it adopted better methods though often for unwise purposes, and in order to induce monied men to be lenders it came forward under the countenance of the Bank as its sponsor.

Hence a position of subserviency which, as the idea of public faith grew up and gradually attained to solidity, it became the interest of the Bank and the City to prolong.

This was done by amicable and accommodating measures towards the government, whose position was thus cushioned and made easy in order that it might be willing to give it a continued acquiescence. The hinge of the whole situation was this: the government itself was not to be a substantive power in matters of finance, but was to leave the money power supreme and unquestioned.

In the conditions of that situation I was reluctant to acquiesce, and I began to fight against it by financial self—assertion from the first, though it was only by the establishment of the Post Office Savings Banks and their great progressive development that the finance minister has been provided with an instrument sufficiently powerful to make him independent of the Bank and the City power when he has occasion for sums in seven figures.

I was tenaciously opposed by the governor and deputy—governor of the Bank, who had seats in parliament, and I had the City for an antagonist on almost every occasion."

William Ewart Gladstone

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts

"We view gold as a currency, not a commodity. Its importance as a currency will continue to increase as the major central banks around the world continue to print money."

John Paulson, Business Week, June 28, 2012

The world will have to carry on while the Masters of the Universe go to the beaches for a holiday.

See you Wednesday evening.