There are times in life when one witnesses something so outside the scope of normal experience, that at first you don’t see it. Captain Cook’s diaries tell us that upon first seeing his ships offshore in Australia, the aborigines expressed “neither surprise nor concern.” Cook notes that it was not until he and his men approached the shore in smaller, more familiar vessels that the villagers reacted, arming themselves as “the sight of men in small boats was comprehensible to them: it meant invasion.” Well, I had a similar experience during yesterday’s bond auction. Before going into the details, we...
