The AutoPilot

To those who have not drifted lazily along a glistening mud-bank, sprawled across the flat-bottom keel of a Jon-boat beneath a magnificent canopy of reaching Cypress boughs, illuminated by the fiery oranges and blinding-whites of fractals of shattered light piercing through long-needled Pines, the value of the Louisiana bayou cannot be explained in articulable terms. Likewise, the magnitude of its contribution to the health and prosperity of the state and its inhabitants cannot be measured in dollars or in miles, for neither abstraction can readily accommodate the scale necessary to describe the bountiful abundance which has, so silently, and for so long, sheltered and nourished and sustained its inhabitants.

According to the Library of Congress, “the history of the New York Stock Exchange begins with the signing of the Buttonwood agreement by twenty-four New York Stock holders and Merchants on May 17, 1792.”1 Presently, and consistently throughout the nation's history, that city remains one of the world's most potent economic powerhouses. Arguably, this success is largely to be attributed, in some fair measure, to the success of the Exchange. What is perhaps less known is that throughout much of American History Louisiana was New York's most persistent competitor for national economic dominance. Specifically, the city of New Orleans, for all its diversity and charm, was the most able rival, and the longest standing. At the time of this writing, however, the economic disparity between the two cities is striking. The population of the city of New York is twice that of the state of Louisiana, which itself holds, in total, more than ten times the present population of New Orleans.…