Every one has heard of the Taj Mahaal, the world’s monument of love. It was built by Khurram, the ruler of Delhi who proclaimed himself (ridiculously) as Shah Jahan, the Shah (ruler) of the World. He was also a lover of poetry & fine arts. And he brought into his court a great Sanskrut scholar & poet named Jagan-Naath, recognized as the last truly great scholar-poet of Sanskrut literature. He so towered above all others that Khurram gave him the title Pandit-Raaj or the King of Pandits.
His scholarly treatise, the Ras-Ganga-Dhar is still studied & taught in major universities around the world, including Columbia University. This Blog is itself named after Rasiks, the aficionados of Ras, the essence of poetry & life.
A poetic work of his is Bhaamini-Vilaas, a collection of verses, written after the early death of his wife Bhaa-mini. It is composed in different styles named Vilaas, a word rich in meaning & connotation. Thus, the name Bhaamini-Vilaas is often translated as the poetic sport/pleasures of a beautiful woman (Bhaamini).
One of the poetic styles of his, Anya-Ukti, is unique to Jagan-Naath Pandit. Ukti simply means comment and Anya means to another. It is a style that addresses its true object by seeming to address another completely different object. We grew up reciting these immortal verses and find their application to events & occurrences today. One is aptly relevant to President Trump and the saga of Mueller’s Russia Probe that seems to have ended this weekend.
That Anyokti (Anya-Ukti) is about the poet’s address to a goldsmith of his time. In those days, the goldsmith purified gold by inserting it in a small coal-fired furnace that was kept hot by blowing into it. The verse describes what the gold might say to the goldsmith:
रे हेमकार परदु:ख विचार मूढ – Oh Goldsmith, you impervious of pain of others!
किम् माम् क्षिपसि वार शतानि वन्हॊ – Why do you thrust me again & again into fire?
संदिप्यते मयि सुवर्ण गुणातिरेको – It merely makes my golden luster even more brilliant
लाभं परम् तव मुखे खलु भस्मपातः – But all you get is a face splattered with coal & ashes
All through history, great & talented people have been virulently criticized by others who misunderstand or simply hate them. The above Anyokti is addressed to those haters.
We see the wisdom of the above Anyokti in the Obama & Trump Presidencies. As we wrote in our article We The People … on November 12, 2016, four days after the election:
- “Nothing is more dangerous for a new President than adulation. When Presidents hears nothing but praise, they tend to make mistakes that begin to rob them of their momentum & political capital. In contrast, intensely verbose opposition forces Presidents to play a cool & quiet game.”
Remember the giddy, almost intoxicating inauguration of President Obama?
- “One of the biggest traps for President Obama was the universal adulation, actually glorification, he received as he took office. His inauguration may actually have been the peak of the Obama Presidency.”
In contrast, President Trump has been subjected to intense, virulent & almost hateful attacks since his election. The attacks by Comey, the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller by Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein were a mutiny by an entrenched deep state bureaucracy amplified by the mainstream media.
And what seems to be the end result? No indictments, NONE. And while this legal entrapment circus was going on, President Trump delivered the Tax Reform Act; he has virtually destroyed the Obama-era image of China as the next world power rising above an America in decline.
Any one who thinks the American people don’t get this are deluding themselves. This insane hunt by Special Counsel Mueller, the Democrats & the media can only provide President Trump a great issue the rest of the year and into the 2020 election.
President Trump won another huge victory this past week that very few are talking about. Remember his tweets against Fed Chairman Powell exhorting him to not raise interest rates in Q4 2018. Chairman Powell dismissed these tweets. He & his team of hundreds of Ph.D. economists probably ridiculed President Trump privately. Previous Fed Chair Janet Yellen said publicly that President Trump is ignorant about macro economics.
What was the result? December 2018 became the worst December in post WWII history for the stock market. The sell-off was so brutal & so debilitating that even Fed Chairman Powell virtually said “mea culpa” in the first week of January. But even then he did not recognize that the carnage in the stock market was weakening the US economy.
Now look what did he do this past week. Fed Chairman Powell virtually surrendered in his published statement & in his presser. He announced that there will be NO MORE rate cuts in 2019 & only 1 more in 2020. His Fed downgraded the US economy’s growth & Powell appeared humbled, almost scared.
And this is Fed Chairman Powell who made confident & strong comments about the US Economy to 60 Minutes only two weeks ago on March 10, 2019. What changed in two weeks in the US economy? Nothing except the arrogance of Powell towards President Trump turned into humility towards markets. Guess who called it – President Trump in his tweet on December 24, 2018:
- “The only problem our economy has is the Fed. They don’t have a feel for the Market, they don’t understand necessary Trade Wars or Strong Dollars or even Democrat Shutdowns over Borders. The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch – he can’t putt!”
Folks, this is far worse for America than the Mueller probe. That probe stayed in the mainstream media & did not have much impact on the US economy. In contrast, Fed Chairman’s Powell arrogantly ignorant disdain for President Trump’s advice has caused significant damage to the US economy. So much damage that we might face a recession next year or even possibly late this year.
If that happens, the track record is clear. A deep slowdown or recession would be totally the fault of the Federal Reserve and its Chairman Powell. They have been already proven wrong, awfully wrong and President Trump has been proven right.
And just like Special Counsel Mueller can be attributed to a tyranny of an unelected powerful elite, the Fed & its Chairman represent the Tyranny of the Unelected. Is this likely to be an issue in the 2020 election with Democrats singing the virtue of Ph.D. laden Fed & the President calling for fresh talent & regulation of the Fed? If so, the first shot in this fight was fired by President Trump this week by appointing Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal as a Fed Governor.
Getting back to Jagan-Naath Pandit, Special Counsel Mueller & Fed Chairman Powell both subjected President Trump to intense heat & fire in 2018. The result was that President Trump came out more bright & lustrous while eggs & coal have splattered the faces of Mueller & Powell.
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