Bread and Circuses

Alice,

Your Bloomberg column of a week or so ago is excellent. First, you make an apt comparison between what is being perpetrated on the masses of investors today to what the poet Juvenal unmasked as how the rich in ancient Rome kept their masses appeased but oppessed.

As for today's investor, I think it is not too far off track to define "the masses of investors today" as your average mildly informed middle-class investor who has a stockbroker. Sadly, neither the mildly informed investor nor the stockbroker is likely to read, ponder, and digest your words of wisdom in this column. With apologies to the few good brokers I know out there, most stockbrokers are lazy commission salespeople who combine sloth with ignorance and "I'm-here-to-help-you" dishonesty to fail to preserve their clients' capital and make it grow. (There used to be a book of that title by John Train).

Second, your analogy is instructive to those who read and ponder the full scope of what is going on today. You are spot on. What is going on right now to appease the masses financially is indeed what the Roman emperors did to appease the masses and deflect their attention away from the long-term grinding down of their shortened lives due to increasing misery.

Your best statement in the column as it applies to today is "Reform of U.S. entitlement spending would buy us time, but wouldn’t fix the employment situation." That suggests, accurately, that the problem is quite political but also economic. That does not mean it is systemic or unsolvable.

Third, for all those sharp-penciled Latin scholars out there who read Alice religiously, you should duly note that she got the Latin plural of "circuses" correct. Most people when using that phrase -- one that is indeed an oft-used metaphor for giving a nation's citizens nothing more than superficial and temporary relief to keep them from revolting -- say or write it as "let them have bread and circus!" [incorrect singular use of the Latin word "circenses"]. As Alice correctly pointed out, the Roman poet Juvenal, who created that phrase, used "panem and circenses" -- "bread and circusES," (PLURAL of "circuses"). So Alice got that little bit right too.

My suggestion to all, including myself, is that we re-read this column and ponder its wide ranging implications -- then write our congressmen and protect our portfolios. Alice, it's one of your best. Bloomberg needs to pay you more for stuff this good. I'm no shill for you and, trust me, I will let you know when I disagree. Meanwhile, a great one!
Thanks. - S.