Behold the impressive golden frieze to the right. It's in a hallway at Harvard Business School. Even though it's from 1834, it has a message written just for today's crisis: it's titled "Credit: Man's Confidence in Man". Under a picture of two men shaking hands, you can read this quotation from Daniel Webster, from a speech he gave in the U.S. Senate, on March 18, 1834:
"Commercial credit is the creation of modern times and belongs in its highest perfection only to the most enlightened and best governed nations. Credit is the vital air of the system of modern commerce. It has done more -- a thousand times more -- to enrich nations than all the mines of the world."
I stumbled on this frieze just after giving a talk at Harvard Business School. I did an Internet search to find out more, and I discovered that this frieze has copies in some interesting places. A copy that used to be above the front entrance to 99 Church Street, no doubt seen by thousands more people than the one I saw at Harvard, is now in the new offices of Moody's Corporation at 7 World Trade Center (click here for a photo).
Do you agree? Are we at risk of gasping for air? And what should the government do to make sure there is plenty of this "vital air" to keep us all breathing?
