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Dollar reached 15-month low, while Dow and Gold sets 52 wk high.. headlines are screaming today !
Why are the markets up ? why is the dollar down ? have things suddenly changed from a year before when all hell seemed to break loose ? is there a new emerging world order ? paradigm shift ? or return of the same old habits ? another bubble ?? ..
The headlines and economic times we live through, make this famous Kipling's poem written almost a century ago, still seem so fresh and so amazingly relevant to today's context more than ever before ..
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
-Rudyard Kipling
Short note : Kipling wrote this in 1919, by which time he had lost his dearly loved son in World War 1, and a precious daughter some years earlier. He was a drained man and England, with which he identified intensely, was a drained nation as well. The reference to "Gods of Copybook Headings" comes from the copy books, that were commonly used in schools in the past (guess no longer !) to practice better handwriting by writing over and over same things by copying from a heading at the top of each page. Most of these headings are famous proverbs, quotes, sayings..very similar to the wisdom presented in this poem.
Related links :
The demise of the dollar - the Oct'09 article in UK's Independent that caused the stir !
The diminishing dollar - similar title, but the Economist says it’s unlikely to turn into a dangerous collapse
US Dollar’s Demise Greatly Exaggerated ... Denial or acceptance
