Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
It’s two weeks since 56 people died in terrorist bombings in London.
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Hey, I’m sure they do Patrick – who, once they know you, could ever forget you? This poem still gets me every time – even after all these years…
A truly beautiful and evocative poem – and nicely timed, to boot.
Falling back to the earlier theme about Brit Hume and the perversity of the markets at moments like this, I couldn’t help noticing that the US Dollar yesterday had its worst single day against the Japanese Yen since 12/06/2002, the day Paul O’Neill resigned as Secretary of the Treasury; and that even Sterling – after a brief dip – ended up making significant gains against the Dollar. The fact that the second series of Tube attacks fizzled and failed to cause mass casualties (thank goodness!) seemed to liberate traders to be just as selfish and vicious as they possibly could in their little microcosmic world of high finance. Was there ever a more apropos moment to remember Marx’s famous observation that history always repeats itself: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce?
I mean that remark, of course, not as a commentary on the grotesque terrorism itself, but on the subsequent self-centered and panicked reactions market participants displayed following the two events. It ain’t pretty.
Oops, I just finally got around to reading today’s Washington Post and see the Chinese made their long-awaited announcement about floating the Renimbi late (their time) yesterday, which throws the old monkey wrench in my theory about London events being the only major news shock moving the Forex markets. It’s a good thing I’m only commenting on a blog, and not selling financial advice. “War is Peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
;b
Haha. Yeah, that was rather big news yesterday, or even Thursday I should say. I wasn’t going to really say much because I wasn’t sure of which way the markets would react, because at the time when I was reading the news the announcement had only been about an hour old and so those who know more about this than I hadn’t put
pen to paperfinger to key. I don’t really know why it’s bad for the Dollar other than perhaps showing a lack of confidence in the USD; I’d thought the Fed had wanted the currency pegging to be removed because it artificially propped up Chinese exports. By the way, I love how they not only call it the yuan but also the renminbi: that kept me confused for about five minutes the first time I heard the name renminbi. Then I screwed my head back on and found some understanding.Anyway, that’s just my lack of economic clear-headedness showing.
I don’t think today’s going to be another clear day of markets though; more events in London, attacks in Egypt giving uncertainty in the Middle East, airlines merging, Microsoft giving unclear results, peak energy demands in California and Algerians kidnapped. Another day, yet more news.
Yes, you’re right about the Fed’s public face having always been officially opposed to the peg. Under the surface, though – and in the ruminations of quite a few currency market watchers – seems to be a bottomless panic that China will stop propping up the Dollar through massive Treasury bond purchases (or even start dumping its already extensive holdings), which could lead to a general Asian (read: Japanese)stampede out of US government assets and really crash the Dollar.
One prominent investment analyst published some interesting ruminations on the China peg just today.
Yeah, I know The Economist has been warning of just that for a long time. I can’t find a link to their thoughts, but it’s always a bit of a worry when one country has such a massive influence over another’s economy.