Michael Callis

To the editor:The study of history is useful for lessons learned, so we can grace the good ones and not repeat the bad ones.Capt. John Mason wrote A Brief Discourse on the Discovery of New-Found-Land in 1620, around the time he settled two plantations on the seacoast of what is now New Hampshire. Masons small publication contains weather data, on the length of growing seasons in the New World compared to the growing season of Europe and the British Islands. Capt. Mason suggests that the ice breaking off of Greenland cools the winds that blow to New-Found-land and shorten the season. Conversely he argues, areas of population and farming in and around Europe, warms the climate and extends the growing season. Little did he know how profound his observations would be four hundred years later.The foundation of medicine began with the discovery that disease can be caused by foreign agents and tobacco smoke and chimney soot were the prime examples. The knight and poet William Vaughan warned the king repeatedly that tobacco was bad for the heart and lungs. Sir William Vaughan wrote The Golden Fleece in 1626, and includes Capt. Mason. It was printed for the namesake of a steward, sent to the New-Found-land and New England seacoast plantations, settled by Mason and Vaughan. At first read, it is a fairy tale of the Rosie Cross Knights, but on further study, an apology to the new King Charles I, for their presumptuous reformation concerning the advancement of learning. The sub-rosa order influenced the Royal Society for science at its inception in the 1660s,with the restoration of a new King Charles. The first King Charles lost his head in 1649, for making bad decisions. New Hampshire was not founded as a Puritan city on a hill. It was more an Anglo Catholic Parnassus; a tribute to the B.C. Greek philosophers of learning. It may seem like dusty old writing but their concerns seem relevant. Like the following quote from one of the Greek wise men in the Golden Fleece concerning the economic crisis of 1626.To this furtherance of money I would have those Brokers and extorting Jackes receive corporal punishment, who shall by indirect tricks and monthly bills exact upon pawns more interest, than ever the Jew of Malta took of his deadly enemies. (from Jew of Malta by Marlowe circa 1590)This quote is relevant to the current economic crisis. In 1999 a law was lifted to reduce risk. By 2002, a document was spreading fueled by brokers receiving a bigger commission. It allowed the buyer to forego a true income statement. The bubble in real estate can be correlated to the number of times this document was printed and signed.If it is true that an FBI report in 2004 warned that the lax lending standards of the mortgage industry would lead to economic crisis, it would be consistent with the administrations reactions to the warnings about Bin Laden and Katrina. Sometimes no action is a bad decision. Mr. Greenspan warned investors about risk. The clever brokers bought a greedy amount of Insurance so they could profit if mortgages failed and continued creating mortgages. In 2008, it froze the banks and insurance companies, which are now on life support.If this sounds critical of the outgoing president, it is in the context of lessons learned.