Charles Crowson

In a play that is well acted and directed, the audience sees through the lighting, costumes, set design, stage directions and the person of the actor, however famous, to see a true or accurate representation of the playwright’s work. This is what is meant by a good production. The same is true of music. What grates the listener’s ear is the mistakes of the unpractised or unskilled musician in butchering a well-known piece.

“God is dead; but given the ways of men, perhaps for millennia to come there will be caves in which His shadow will be shown. And we – we still have to subdue His shadow!”1 In the days following last week’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, commentators on Wall Street have, like the bond market itself, struggled not just with the policy stance of the new Fed Chairman, Kevin Warsh, but also with his style.

After losing the Franco-Prussian war, France was forced to pay the victorious Prussians the staggering sum of 5 billion francs, which roughly equated to 25% of French GDP in 1871. The 1,450 tonnes of gold transferred to Prussia was reminted into approximately 1.4 billion thalers, a figure far greater than the estimated 340 million thalers the war had actually cost the Prussians.