For all those who adore Joanna Trollope’s cool, honest writing style comes the fifth novel in the hugely popular “Caper Court” series. Leo Davies QC – charismatic, attractive and sexually ambiguous – inspires powerful feelings. Feelings that sometimes border on obsession.
There are two restaurants here within walking distance from the RV Park where I was hoping to have breakfast while on my morning walks. I stopped at the first one on Friday and they open very early and are open six days during the week. That would be perfect except they have a policy of no dogs allowed in the restaurant OR on the outside patio so I won’t be going there. On Saturday I stopped by the second one and they are open 5 days during the week but don’t seem to want any breakfast trade because the open at 9:00 am, won’t be going there either.
I know I’ll be going to RV City for the window channel installation and probably two trips to Wilcox for groceries so I’ll be getting breakfast on those days someplace other than near this RV Park.
…[Trump is] trying to do two things at the same time and they clash. The first thing he’s trying to do is to slow down and, in his fantasy, reverse the decline of the Empire. He declaims against the Forever Wars. Let’s be clear. The United States lost the war in Vietnam, it’s the Communist Party of Vietnam that runs that country. They were the adversary. It lost the war in Afghanistan. The adversary there was the Taliban and they run that country now. They wanted to dramatically change the organization of Iraq.
They failed at doing that. And they are now failing in the War in Ukraine, if it was a war to prevent Russia from taking over large parts of eastern Ukraine. Okay, it’s crystal clear what’s going on here, we’re losing repeatedly over a 35-year period or longer. Also, I think the rise of China is now unmistakable, and the relative shrinkage of the United States that goes with it is likewise no longer hidden or no longer possible [to hide]. So he’s trying to slow them down with the sanctions, with the tariffs, with all of that.
But here’s the second thing he’s trying to do, very typical of declining empires and it typically makes the decline worse. When empires decline, the people who are rich and powerful inside those empires naturally use their positions of wealth and power to try to hold on to the luxuries, to the wealth and power, that they have been able to accumulate in the empire.
This means that the costs, the experience of the decline, is offloaded from the rich and powerful onto everybody else. Mr. Trump is trying to do, and is required to do, both of these things: 1. slow or reverse the empire’s decline, and whether or not he’s successful there, 2. make sure that the people at the top hold on to theirs. If the 10% richest people own 80% of the stock market, then his policy has to be focused on the stock market to keep them happy, even if that requires doing things that are not good for a declining empire. — Richard Wolff @ When Tariffs Replace Strategy