The problem with China's Wealth Management Products, or WMPs, is not new: we have covered this pillar of China's shadow banking system on various occasions over the past three years, usually just before and after the time of the latest spectacular WMP fund blow up, which promptly becomes headline news and then fades again until the next such collapse.
Denny Burk is having a melancholy Memorial Day. After reading the Gettysburg Address, he reflected:
I read this speech with heaviness of heart this year. It seems like the nation that Lincoln describes is slipping away. It seems less a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” than it is a people of the government, by the government, for the government. As the people decrease, the state increases. And the people have decreased in virtue, historical awareness, and commitment to ordered liberty “under God.”
Having pledged to end the wars of his predecessor, President Obama came into office almost eight years ago as an anti-war candidate but instead has now been at war longer than any other American president. Mr. Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, has made endless promises of "bring the troops home" or "no boots on the ground" but will have a longer tour of duty as a wartime president than Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon or his hero Abraham Lincoln.
As the barbeque-bonanza and shopping-fest, that Memorial Day has become for many, takes shape, we thought a little reflection was necessary on the deeper meaning behind this important celebration honoring those who fell in the armed services of America during its wars.
Memorial Day Quotes
“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
— John F. Kennedy
“I have long believed that sacrifice is the pinnacle of patriotism.”
— Bob Riley
Submitted by Erico Matias Tavares via Sinclair & Co.,
Americans will be celebrating Memorial Day this weekend, to honor those who fought and died for the values they have traditionally cherished the most as a nation: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.