We were hard-pressed to find anyone who actually skis in these designer duds, but someone's buying the stuff: Hilfiger's ski and boardwear line grosses around $25 million per year […]

My point, which has been entirely lost or misplaced, is that no one can predict the future, not even I can, which is why I said: I expected inflation with the post 2008 printing of money. Listening to wild voices in the wilderness made me misprognosticate the state of the economy.

an application for leave (i.e. permission) to intervene

Think of wandering amid sepulchral ruins, of stumbling over the bones of the dead, of encountering what I cannot describe,—the horror of being among those who are neither the living or the dead;—those dark and shadowless things that sport themselves with the reliques of the dead, and feast and love amid corruption,—ghastly, mocking, and terrific.