I watched FDR's first inaugural address yesterday and gleaned five major themes from his speech:1. Better supervision of banks
2. Reckless speculation with others money
3. A crisis of our own doing
4. Putting people back to work
5. Return to personal responsibility
Sound familiar?
The trite aphorism - those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it - permeated my thoughts all day yesterday.
Well not so much the learning part. You see greed, which drove this crisis from all sides is a powerful motivator that genuflects only to fear. It trumps circumspection all day everyday. So it's no suprise that in the absence of fear (it's not my money) there wasn't anything powerful enough to motivate us to learn. And we didn't.
But it's the consequent of that cliche, the repeat part...that gives me pause. Bear with my abstraction. In 1933 there was no 1935. No 1937. No 1943. That is, there was only an unwritten future. A future that promised better times, jobs and a return to normalcy. A normalcy that wasn't 1935 or '37 or '43.
Well, today there is no 2011, or 2013 or 2020 just a future that promises better times, jobs and a return to normalcy....
FDR's 1933 Inaugural Address
