Jonathan Swift on the Financial Crisis

Posted on July 14, 2009 by Joshua Glazov
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I now often hear sentiments of discontent and alienation.  You may not agree. But I haven't yet heard anyone express it as colorfully as Jonathan Swift almost 300 years ago:

By this means the wealth of a nation, that used to be reckoned by the value of land, is now computed by the rise and fall of stocks: and although the foundation of credit be still the same, and upon a bottom that can never be shaken, and although all interest be duly paid by the public, yet, through the contrivance and cunning of stock-jobbers, there has been brought in such a complication of knavery and cozenage, such a mystery of iniquity, and such an unintelligible jargon of terms to involve it in, as were never known in any other age or country in the world.

                                                                          -- Jonathan Swift
                                                                             The Examiner
                                                                             No. XIII, Thursday, November 2, 1710


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