12/14/18

My dear Friend and President, DJT,

I have had more coffee than usual so I am pumped up! I am also excited about my daughter's return from college! It's going to be a great day.
Kudos to you for hosting Governor elect . I don't have to tell you about his vocal criticism of you or about your law suit against his family in 1993. Then there's the fact that he's a Democrat and opposes you on almost every issue - immigration, abortion, health care... No one would fault you for excluding him from the WH. Yet, you invited him to sit with you. That's a good thing.
It seems that it was a cordial meeting. I'm glad that he and Gretchen Whitmer were able to alert you to the carp invasion that could destroy the Great Lakes fishery. The Army Corps of Engineers has some work to do and they need some encouragement from you to ignore those barge companies and get busy on fixing the Brandon Road navigation lock to exclude those nasty disrupters.

Did you and J.B. compare notes on the challenge of keeping your finances hidden from public view? I was surprised to learn that he has even more money than you do. I am starting to wonder if the USA is heading in the direction of being an aristocracy where rich folk run everything, never pay taxes and pass on their wealth to their heirs. I encourage you to consider what JB's uncle wrote, "Our generation and our forebears were raised with the concept that we not spend more than we, as individuals, earned or contributed to the Family and society." Rich folk in that generation "detested conspicuous consumption and feared the effect of too much wealth on individuals and on society (Andrews, 2003)." I think they were worried about a revolution. You might want to keep that in mind. Poor folk in the US might get some ideas from those yellow vests in France and start stirring up trouble if the economy goes South. You might want to pay some extra taxes this year to keep the peace.

Best,