I am 80 years old.
Some of my little fiends say there is no Santa Claus Rally.
My kids say, "If you see it on J.J.'s Risky Business blog, it's so."
Please tell me the truth: Is there a Santa Claus Rally?
Virginia O'Morgan (nee O'Stanley)
11 Wall Street
New York, NY 10005
11 Wall Street
New York, NY 10005
Virginia, your little fiends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be adults' or childrens', are little. In this great universe of ours, a human is a mere insect, an ant, in one's intellect, as compared with the boundless world all about us, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus Rally. It exists as certainly as love and generosity and the morning line at Aqueduct exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus Rally! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no capital gains, no dividends to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which Warren Buffett fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in the Santa Claus Rally! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your kids to hire equity analysts to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch the Santa Claus Rally, but even if you did not see the Santa Claus Rally coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees the Santa Claus Rally, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus Rally. The most real things in the world are those that neither investors nor traders can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart a baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest human, nor even the united strength of all the strongest humans that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, a healthy debt-to-equity ratio, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world, there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus Rally! Thank Be'al! It lives, and it lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, it will continue to make glad the hearts of investors and traders in the 'hood.
With apologies to The New York Sun -- not the comparatively recently departed newspaper using the name but the eponymous original (in more ways than one) -- which reportedly published an early draft of this piece on 21 September 1897
Happy Holidays From the Home Office
Of Occupy Hell's Kitchen
To the Home Office
Of Your Own Completely Fictional -- or Nonfictional -- Occupy Movement!
Of Occupy Hell's Kitchen
To the Home Office
Of Your Own Completely Fictional -- or Nonfictional -- Occupy Movement!
