This NYTimes article by Jamelle Bouie, The Tariff Saga Is About One Thing does a great job of surmising who Trump is: a mad President who has a compulsion to “win”, at least as far as he understands winning to mean.
This is a gift link, so you will be able to read the whole thing, but some excellent quotes include:
For as much as the president’s apologists would like us to believe otherwise, Trump’s tariffs are not a policy as we traditionally understand it. What they are is an instantiation of his psyche: a concrete expression of his zero-sum worldview.
The fundamental truth of Donald Trump is that he apparently cannot conceive of any relationship between individuals, peoples or states as anything other than a status game, a competition for dominance.
This simple fact of the president’s psychology does more to explain his antipathy to international trade and enthusiasm for tariffs and other trade barriers than any theorizing about his intentions or overall vision. It certainly is not as if he has a considered view of the global economy. It is not even clear that Trump knows what a tariff is.
Trump’s desire to dominate others is the driving psychological force of his administration.
The sooner we are rid of this monstrous person%2C the better the entire world will be.
But it’s going to take a long time to reverse the damage; if it even can be. I just hope this isn’t the direction of new world orders.
In a normal world I’d say there would be no way the US president would manipulate global markets for their own gain. But this is no normal world. This is greed and self-interest above all else.
Tapestry or Reeder? I can’t decide!
I’ve been trialling the new Reeder app gain, and this time I like it. I think after trying Tapestry, I’m more on board with what it is trying to achieve. Traditional RSS is a hard habit to break though; I’ve been on board since Bloglines days (pre Google Reader).
All these people suddenly showing interest in that boring “Stocks” app on iOS. It’s never had so much exposure.
since it’s become such a central issue in this election, let’s dissect Dutton’s magic question. For a start, it’s completely self-centred. Focus on what’s happened to you and your family and forget about what’s happened to anyone else.
I enjoy Gittins’ writing on Australian economics and politics. He breaks things down using straight-forward language.
His point here sums up right-wing politics. It’s selfish. Forget about everything else. Just make sure you get yours now at any cost.
I’ve listened to this podcast forever, so to be on it myself with the opportunity to talk about my favourite and most used software of all time—OmniFocus—was so much fun.
All details of the episode are available on the episode page. The show is also available in your podcast player of choice, or watch on YouTube.
My night cat. 😻
Q: What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do?
A: Parenting a kid with autism.
~fin~
🧩
I’ve subscribed to Kagi as my default search engine. Been trialling it for a few months. I like it, and I want to get away from big tech wherever I can. Nice to avoid Google’s crappy results and ads.
It’s fun to click the button that delivers a random post from my own blog. I have a considerable number of posts over many years and it’s fun to see what pops up and what memories each post triggers.
Finished reading: How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg 📚A sensible, easy read about what makes big projects work. Focused mainly on capital investments but most of the lessons are applicable to soft projects as well, I think. Shame about the poorly-ageing Elon Musk cases tidy towards the end.
