Mar

12

Thoughts from Steve Leslie

March 12, 2007 |

Comments about the Uber bear and the groundswell surrounding the impending, inevitable, implosion of the subprime market, which will lead to a recession of diluvial proportions, remind me of several things.

One is that everyone no matter who they are face difficulties in life. It is one of the great illusions that is promulgated especially by publicists and spin-meisters that their clients somehow soar above this and thus live idyllic lives.

Whether it is that Brad and Jennifer have a wonderful marriage when it is suddenly revealed that in fact they are in the midst of a very acrimonious divorce and the stunning actor suddenly and without malice aforethought quickly assumes residence with the collagen lipped adopt-the-world Angelina.

Alternately, that the two presidents for one theme that was so soundly pounded by the oval office inner circle as being wonderful for the country, is followed by a vast right wing conspiracy which is followed by a very revealing Starr report on infidelity and romping in the Map Room.

The world is full of canard, misrepresentation, misdirection, and sleight-of hand, carefully designed to mislead and confuse an eager yet gullible and naive public. Those at the forefront who wish to obfuscate rather than educate, and to further their own agenda rather than yours carefully craft this methodology.

That such a collective consciousness can buy into the old tried and true maxims, however incorrect, time and time again, and who forget that in the words of P.T. Barnum, "There is a sucker born every minute," and, "A fool and his money should have never gotten together in the first place." Also, "If after 20 minutes at a poker table you can't identify the pigeon, it is because it is probably you." And that is why you were invited to the party in the first place.

That in the end the cards are stacked against you so why bother in the first place.

That shadenfreude is ubiquitous and worth what you pay for it.

These are the things I think about.

Yet I am also reminded when I hear of those who constantly denigrate the opportunities in the greatest of all countries in the world, and for that matter in the history of mankind, that opportunities abound everywhere and that one can also rise above the maelstrom of despair and struggle and survive and fight and can achieve great things if they keep their shoulder to the wheel. That if it were done before it can be done again. That it is not different this time because people are not different.

Finally, I ponder the words of perhaps the greatest president this country has ever had the pleasure of having been led by and one of the greatest men and leaders in the history of modern civilization:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt "Citizenship in a Republic," Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910


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