Friday, November 20, 2009

Gold-Bug

GOLD-BUG, n. In political matters, a miscreant who has the wickedness to know that legislation cannot maintain a permanent relation between the values of two metals, even by the luminous device pf binding them together in the same coins. A miller who grinds the faces of the poor and takes the whole grist for toll. A hideous monster that disturbs the Bulletin's repose by sitting astride Deacon Fitch's stomach, picking the bones of "the debtor class" and blaspheming the dollar of our fathers.

2009 Update: A politician whose crusade for purity leads him at last to the dollar, who reads Austrian treatises in the original Texan and who turns to smelted stone for wisdom and temperance.

17 comments:

weirsdo said...

We have a hive of them here at the Von Mises Institute.
I'm first!

Nessa said...

Gold-Bug: Right now, the H1N1.

Flash 55 - Favors

Tom & Icy said...

Turning Metal Music into Classical?

TLP said...

I used to be a gold-bug. Now I like silver jewelry better...goes better with white hair.

Jim said...

Gold bug: I am thinking of a nice pretty ladybug brooch with diamond eyes and ruby spots.

Ladybug Brooch Shopping
..

the amoeba said...

And neither Bierce nor Deacon Fitch had ever heard of the credit card ...

The term 'gold-bug' is a misnomer, for the creature is of bird form - a raven, to be precise, that lines its nest with the shiny objects in which it puts its faith. The tribe recites to its chicks, with awe and horror, the tale of one who trusted instead in the reports of currency traders. It lost everything in a market crash and went mad, projecting its despair into the hearts and minds of humankind, leading to a lasting enmity between the two species.

the amoeba said...

Yep. That's another TRUE® story.

Anonymous said...

had the gold bug once
really just needed
a damn job
got it after months
of daily visitation
5000 feet down
a homestake shaft
building a dam

Bless Bless




W/V-spedin,,still kills
many a year,,car and vein

Anonymous said...

Gold-Bug: 535 of them should heed the advice

quilly said...

I wish I'd gotten here before Nessa. That's what I wanted to say.

k. riggs gardner said...

No worries, Quilly. You still win a finishing metal for due diligence.

(Hello Ariel or Cooper! We await with baited breath grand entrances and pithy comments).

Ariel the Thief said...

Hey, Karen, my comment was to be "every cloud has a gold-bug", but then I just didn't post it because it didn't seem pithy enough. What d'ya think?

k. riggs gardner said...

Hello Ariel. This is not my blog and I'm not Comments Moderator.

Ambrose should decide on appropriate commentary.

Doug The Una said...

You are, Weirsdo. I didn't realize the Mises Institute was at Veryred. But, yep, that's the nest.

Sure, Actonbell, and please bring us along when you go somewhere intemperate. (I was kind of thinking you'd be the one to bring up Poe's excellent story, though.)

Good point, Nessa.

Or visa-versa, Icy.

And sass, I think, TLP.

I'm sure it will look glamorous on you, Jim.

Gosh, Amoeba. You gut us so close to this TRUE(r) story, too.

Share more of that story, Bear.

Thom, they won't hear it from you, I don't think.

Well, then, Quilly, you're brilliant second.

That's something, isn't it, Karen?

I think that's pretty good, Ariel.

What are you talking about, Karen? A minute ago you were handing out medals.

k. riggs gardner said...

Here's yet another TRUE story ~ A really, really long time ago, a relatively new aquaintence, Doug Pascover, had written in an
e-mail correspondence: You must have read The Gold Bug (or something to that effect). Annoyed I had never heard of it, I promptly Googled it and read the first two or three paragraphs, as I was in the middle of doing something else. I replied that I had lived in Charleston and had never once met William Legrand.

At this particular moment, I'm about half-way thru the story. Jup is still at the end of the seventh limb of the tulip tree. Unfortunately for him, he'll have to stay there because I'm in the middle of doing something else right now.

Jim said...

The gold bug here would be for Mrs. Jim. I don't wear brooches.
.. :-)

Doug The Una said...

Karen, I hope he brought string.

Sure, buddy. Whatever you say.