DUBLIN, IRELAND — "The bold encroachers on the deep
Gain'd by degrees huge tracts of land,
Till Neptune, with one gen'ral sweep
Turns all again to barren strand."
"This poem" — ("The Run Upon the Bankers") — "was printed some years ago, and it should seem, by the late failure of two bankers, to be somewhat prophetic," wrote Jonathan Swift in 1720.
The poem is somewhat prophetic again. The Celtic tiger ...
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Comment: #1
Fri Feb 20, 2009 9:02 PM
Ma'am.... Is it at all likely that you know how Mr. Swift was ruined in the great South Sea Bubble.... If you should read his books there is no want of malignancy for the attorneys who can drain every drop of money out of every cause.... The world turns; but fools never learn... There were two famous operas made out of that collapse, I believe... One was Brecht's A Two Penny Opera, from which we get the song Mack the Knife... But that is only a take off from an older English musical, Gay's Beggars Opera.... Do you know how easy and how often one may see the whole of humanity painted as a nest of thieves....Native Capitalism is like a mad dog on a short leash; but World Capitalism is like a monster on a dare...Thanks...Sweeney
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