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The Masque of the Red Year

In the New Year now upon us, one hopes that Americans – and nutmeggers especially – will be guardedly optimistic. Ebullience has not served us well in the passing old year.

In his column, “A Year Like No Other,” Victor David Hanson, author of the best account of the Peloponnesian War, “A War Like No Other,” notes:

“What happened in mid-September not only destroyed the classical concept of trust and fair-dealing, but the entire Wall Street premise that those with MBAs from Ivy League business schools, or years of work with the SEC, or long tenure with brokerage houses with 19th-century pedigrees know anything. In other words, goodbye to all those titles and business cards. We are now back to hometown insurance agents and the local tow-truck driver offering just as insightful stock tips.”

Shelly Sindland of Fox News has put together a triptych of what ails us here in the land of Bill Buckley, who left us in the old year quite alone. How he would have loved making sense out of our present turtle soup.

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