in the 75 days of the phony war (and the longterm plan)

awesome! roger barnes tells us more about retrofitting his house in a small french fishing village. (he's going to be heating it with a wood burner so horsemouth doubts how ecological it will now truly be but horsemouth was interested to see his air-source heat pump water cylinder for supplying the hot water). 

other than this we have an entirely written in the morning blogpost. 

horsemouth is up. he has his coffee. he has fed the chickens. he has been out to the garage to get a bottle of milk. 

how did trump win? 

well (for a start) five million more americans voted for him than kamala. kamala looked to horsemouth like a perfectly good candidate who ran a  perfectly good campaign (in the limited time she had available). it didn't touch the economic pain of much of the country in a cost of living crisis because that's not her experience.

horsemouth is amused to find himself a defend the status quo person (rather than a fuck shit up person). if the rich get what they want out of trump (tax cuts) this will drive inflationary pressures and make the american poor even poorer (ho hum). 

we are in the 75 days of the phony war - before trump's bullshit really starts. 

is horsemouth now a doomster?

well there is the question of how the world fails as it falls back from a globalised capitalism - if indeed there are trade wars, if indeed it does this. more protectionism doesn't mean that capitalism is less of a global system (well it does but perhaps not in a historically productive way that leads anywhere). free trade is an ideology of a capitalism that never actually existed

ultimately horsemouth expects the destabilisation caused by the climate crisis to be decisive. in kubler-ross speak net zero and decarbonisation are bargaining- you cannot alter the underlying situation but you can make yourself feel better about it by talking a good talk. society will rebalance at a lower level of consumption for vast numbers of people (this is how decarbonisation will actually be achieved).

he expects global trade to die back and such production as there is to be onshored but he expects the market-place to remain global and platform-mediated. the super-rich will remain super rich. 

today (in 1870) edmond de goncourt goes to call on victor hugo. goncourt questions him on what he now makes of paris having returned to it,

'yes I like paris as it is today... now it's a quagmire, a ruin, it appeals to me... it's beautiful, it's grandiose!'

hugo comments on the new boulevards (and on the german armies occupying northern france); 

'... the empire did nothing to provide a defence against foreigners; everything it did was designed to provide a defence against the population.' 

horsemouth is hoping to get the net zero and decarbonisation of the communal endeavour going again (he knows there is a contradiction here - but what can one do).