Best Of

These threads are coming thick and fast. Anyhow, FPT:

Hi pb brains trust - any views on the following:

We (me, wife, three kids 16-11) are hoping to go from Manchester to Austria for a summer holiday. Would you:
- overnight ferry from Hull to Rotterdam then drive with overnight stop in Germany (probably cheapest,can pack as much stuff as we want, but would take up two days travelling there and two days travelling back. If si, where would you stay?
- fly then hire a car (surprisingly expenaive even with Easyjet but only two and a half hours to our destination from Munich)
- train to Brussels then Brussels-Salzburg sleeper (I'd always wanted to travel that way but some reports are discouraging)
- something else?

The sleeper tickets are insanely popular, given such limited supply, and probably sold out as soon as they went on sale, assuming the ones for your travel date already are. So you can probably discount that option.

I’d take the ferry and car option, and you should get an early start off the ferry. If you want to break the back of the driving on the first day, go stay in Tubingen - the hotel schloss at the top of the hill is a great place to stay, and the whole old town is laid out beneath you. Or, to balance the driving between the two days, you could look at Heidelberg, or one of the characterful small towns along the Rhine around Mannheim. If you are driving to Germany, make sure you have your emissions sticker sorted for the vehicle well ahead.

For a party of five, the costs of individual plane or train tickets probably make the car an economic option; the downside is obviously the travel time there and back, which you may or may not see as part of your holiday.

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According to the
@nytimes.com
, Trump's U-turn followed a NATO meeting where top military officers discussed a compromise in which Denmark would give the US sovereignty over small pockets of Greenlandic to build military bases, similar to the British scheme in Cyprus.

That was suggested by Mark Stone of Sky as the likely agreement

BREAKING: Initial details on the Trump-Greenland deal have emerged:

1. Involves "small pockets of land" for the US

2. US involved in Greenland's mineral rights

3. Duration of the deal has an "indefinite" timeframe

4. Designed to block Russian influence in Greenland

5. US "Golden Dome" system will be involved

6. Opens door to US-backed infrastructure investment

Trump is looking to secure land, minerals, and defense in one deal.R


https://x.com/kobeissiletter/status/2014089644288196691?s=61

3-6 don’t mean anything. 3: a deal can be made and therefore unmade, so its timeframe is not eternal. 4 is an intent, not a deal. 5 was always possible within existing treaties allowing US military in Greenland. 6 was always possible.

So, 1 and 2 are what matter. 2 is vague. US companies could always have been involved. Has the US gained any rights they didn’t have before?

If 1 is the sovereign base idea, how much does that matter in practice? The US already controls the Pityfuck base (or whatever its name is). The small number of locals were cleared out years ago.

Most of Trump’s international deals are designed to look good, but involve minimal actual commitments. I presume the same will be true. MAGA-friendly media will sell it to 40% of Americans as a “win”.

Let's hope so.

Rather than mock Trump as TACO or goad him further, I think we'd all prefer if this episode quietly went away and we can all get on with our lives.

That statement is reminiscent of Chamberlain's speech after a visit to Munich. His plan too was "we can all get on with our lives".

I am not sure Trump is being goaded, he was appeased by NATO.

And those of us who are not Trump-aligned weren't laughing at him, we were simply horrified.

Chamberlain knew perfectly well he couldn't trust Hitler. He - possibly wrongly, but reasonably - believed the German war machine was miles ahead of where it was. He hoped to buy himself 18 months to tool Britain up. I think he was something of a hero - he sacrificed his reputation to give the country the best chance in the conflict he probably believed was inevitable.
That's my reading, anyway.

The evidence tends support that.
Chamberlain was intimately involved with rearmament and war planning long before Munich, and was within cabinet one of the strongest advocates for rearmament.

But much of that was secret until well after the war, when he was dead and his reputation as an appeaser indelibly established.

Hi pb brains trust - any views on the following:

We (me, wife, three kids 16-11) are hoping to go from Manchester to Austria for a summer holiday. Would you:
- overnight ferry from Hull to Rotterdam then drive with overnight stop in Germany (probably cheapest,can pack as much stuff as we want, but would take up two days travelling there and two days travelling back. If si, where would you stay?
- fly then hire a car (surprisingly expenaive even with Easyjet but only two and a half hours to our destination from Munich)
- train to Brussels then Brussels-Salzburg sleeper (I'd always wanted to travel that way but some reports are discouraging)
- something else?

Ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam or Train to Amsterdam then Nightjet from Amsterdam to Vienna?

We did the NightJet from Vienna to Amsterdam in November the new trains are great and rather comfortable (i.e. I slept through the night).

That's good to hear. I was thinking train to Brussels via channel tunnel then Nightjet to Salzburg. But I have heard mixed reviews of reliabiity and comfort!

2.5 hours from Rotterdam to Aachen for lunch and the cathedral

2.5 hours to weisbaden for an overnight

2.5 hours to Nuremberg

3 hours to Linz

Looks like Trump has secured Cyprus-style sovereign US bases on Greenland. America will outright own parts of Greenland, but certainly not all

And some rights to Greenland’s mineral wealth

Seems quite a nifty compromise. European face is sort of saved, NATO endures, Trump can claim an extension of American security and enlargement of America itself - without having to pay $790bn. Though he doesn’t get to paint all of “Iceland” with Old Glory

The Art of the Deal, indeed

And everyone thinks he's even more of a twat than before.
He could have had that if he'd asked nicely with a coherent argument.
But he won't. Cos he's Donald Fucking Trump.

Ps.
Has any of this been run by Denmark?
Let alone Greenland?
You used to be quite big on "sovereignty". Getting proper exercised.
Or is this different?

There’s another worry. If it is a sovereign base style agreement, then what if he expects that from us too? Mildenhall? Lakenheath?

Looks like Trump has secured Cyprus-style sovereign US bases on Greenland. America will outright own parts of Greenland, but certainly not all

And some rights to Greenland’s mineral wealth

Seems quite a nifty compromise. European face is sort of saved, NATO endures, Trump can claim an extension of American security and enlargement of America itself - without having to pay $790bn. Though he doesn’t get to paint all of “Iceland” with Old Glory

The Art of the Deal, indeed

And everyone thinks he's even more of a twat than before.
He could have had that if he'd asked nicely with a coherent argument.
But he won't. Cos he's Donald Fucking Trump.

Ps.
Has any of this been run by Denmark?
Let alone Greenland?
You used to be quite big on "sovereignty". Getting proper exercised.
Or is this different?

A really interesting analysis of Carney's speech and on how the hubris of Realpolitik ends:

https://hegemon.substack.com/p/the-strong-will-suffer-what-they

I do remember an article by Mr @Sean_F on exactly this issue on a certain website...

Many thanks. I expanded on my PB article in Militaria. It would be flattering if Mark Carney had read it.

Even the mightiest empires at their zenith cannot operate by force alone. There has to be something in it for their allies to remain as loyal allies. Intelligent mafia bosses understand that those lower down the food chain have to be allowed to wet their beaks. Bosses that get too greedy usually get killed.

American take on the Greenland deal, they’re seeing it as a strategic win.

So the new deal is ...

1) Denmark has to keep paying the population of Greenland $600 million per year.

2) USA gets sovereignty over whichever parts we want for US military bases

3) USA gets mineral rights

4) China and Russia aren't allowed in Greenland

5) Cost $0.00

https://x.com/wallstreetmav/status/2014180931670622617

The small problem is, even if Greenland accepts this proposal, which is not a given, it gives America absolutely nothing they hadn't already got while the process has been strengthening Russia through dividing NATO.

So why would Greenland refuse? To piss Trump off. Because of the way he's treated them.

And that is also why Trump throughout his career has actually been a pretty poor deal maker. He cannot negotiate because he only thinks of what he wants and never understands sometimes everybody can benefit considerably from a little compromise.

It's also why he's been in constant trouble with the law.

His dementia is obviously making things much worse, but even though he's so insane that even @Leon has noticed it having been in denial for five years, he's been showing much of this ineptitude all his life. It's why he was a bad President first time round.

There's deal making and deal making.

The key issue in assessing whether a Deal is a good Deal is whether it is a one off or part of a series.

So a one off deal (such as a real estate deal) can be a rip off with only one winner. This is Trump's background.

Most Deals are part of an evolving commercial relationship, with a long term expectation of further business, and for these to be a success then both parties need to feel that they have a good deal. The best customer is a returning customer because they have made the decision to buy even before stepping over the threshold.

Trumps Deal-making is all short term because he does not plan ahead or think strategically.

It's the same mistake that the "Europe can go whistle" types made here post 2016. And that some politicians make when they promise the Earth without worrying how they will deliver it in the event of victory.