Ready to Roll

A huge statue of a boy, half of whose face appeared as though it had been blown away, looked on as we ate our dinner.

We were staying at the Chateau de la Gaude, after a wedding in Aix-en-Provence. This was our second hotel near the city. The first was elaborately decorated, with so many patterns and colors — in the wallpaper, rugs, curtains, bric-a-brac, chandeliers and furniture — that we could hardly sleep. But it was gracious and comfortable, in an old Aix kind of way.

The second hotel was more modern. Sleek. Chic. With some of the worst art we have ever seen. In our room, for example, were two watercolors. They appeared to depict a woman’s face in poses of either extreme depression or domestic abuse, maybe both.

The worst, though, was the sculpture in the garden.

“Children should be protected from that kind of thing,” said Elizabeth. It was grotesque and hideous — a woman, naked and deformed, whose head was hollowed out, as if by worms.

Taken together, the art seemed to signal a kind of corruption of the body…and perhaps, more importantly, the spirit.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg:

Gold Punches Through $3,500 to Hit Record High on Rate-Cut Bets

The precious metal has gained more than 30% this year, making it one of the best-performing major commodities.

What is gold trying to tell us?

Perhaps it implies a corruption of a different sort…of our financial system.

It’s tempting to think that our heavy allocations in gold have brought us 30% more wealth this year. But, for us, gold is not an investment. It is a way of avoiding investments.

It is ‘money;’ we measure our wealth in gold, not dollars. And if we had ten ounces of gold at the beginning of the year, we still have just ten ounces of gold…waiting for an opportunity to invest when the time is right.

But if the higher gold price is not telling us that we’re richer, what is it telling us? Maybe it has something to do with the reverie we began yesterday.

Empires, like people, become more fragile when they get old. They sit, as if atop a great mountain, ready to roll down in any direction.

They try to hold on by erecting trade barriers, switching to Big Man government and paying the firepower industry to protect them. But one way or another, they’ve got to climb down that mountain.

Which is why, historically, Donald Trump was probably a better bet than Kamala Harris. An empire typically goes out in a blaze of military jackassery and financial chicanery. Harris would have continued wrecking the empire’s finances, more or less at the same pace as Trump. Democrats as well as Republicans are eager to spend money they don’t have. Neither seems particularly concerned about corrupting the system with fake dollars or of running out of other peoples’ money.

But Ms. Harris might have been less bold in the use of the military.

The US firepower industry is far ahead of other nations. As with the Romans in the fifth century and the French under Napoleon, it will probably take a combination of foreigners to bring it down. The Trump team seems to be helping that coalition to take shape. Bloomberg:

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have long showcased their bromance…now they’re embracing a powerful new friend: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi turned to Eurasia’s huge countries after the Trump administration applied 50% tariffs to imports from India.

Trump’s foreign policy strategists seem eager to stir up trouble on our southern flank, too. What other purpose could be served by sending US gunboats to Venezuela?

At the wedding, we met a man who worked for the French aviation company, Dassault. The company makes the famous fighter jet, the Rafale.

“The orders are coming so fast, we can’t keep up with them,” he said.

Stay tuned.