Some Words of Wisdom from History

George Kennan was a smart guy, and he occasionally said very smart things:

In international, as in private, life what counts most is not really what happens to someone but how he bears what happens to him. For this reason almost everything depends from here on out on the manner in which we Americans bear what is unquestionably a major failure and disaster to our national fortunes. If we accept it with candor, with dignity, with a resolve to absorb its lessons and to make it good be redoubled and determined effort ... we need lose neither our self-confidence nor our allies nor our power for bargaining. But if we try to conceal from our own people or from our allies the full measure of our misfortune, or permit ourselves to seek relief in any actions of bluster or petulance or hysteria, we can easily find this crisis resolving into an irreparable deterioration of our world position - and of our confidence in ourselves.

(quoted in The Wise Men, by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas)

Kennan was responding to the entry of the Chinese into the Korean War, but his words bear repeating as the US financial system seems to teeter on the edge of either collapse or nearly complete nationalization. The country has stared down worse crises before, and will stare down worse crises again.