Waterstones

Our shops are fading. Even those that have been with us for many years. Understanding this would probably require many degrees, a thesis and even a hypothesis or two. However there seems to be a way out from this: foreign investment. Waterstones has recently been bought by Elliott Advisers (in April.) Are these rich Americans just trying to educate people? Has it turned into a charity? Now the book firm is owned by very rich people that seem to know what they’re doing. Do they want to compete with Amazon? No. At least that is what they say. Worse still: is this some form of espionage from the States? Will the shopping chain go down the same pan as Woolies? Are books more valuable than pick n mix?

They have plans for the store. Unfortunately they seem not to make too much sense. They want to expand overseas – but to the Scottish Islands? But what seems to be the point here? There will be a market merely of a handful of people and their sheep.

They have recently tried to break up National Express and tried to sell off Morrisons’ property assets. What are the wealthy American chaps doing? They must have a plan, for they have been successful in the past.

Elliott Management, the American name for the firm, oversees more than $31bn (£22bn) worth of assets, and has earned a reputation over 40 years as a no-holds-barred activist investor, with an unusually large appetite for public face-offs.

It has taken on some of the world's biggest companies. It likes forcing companies (e.g. Samsung) to do what he wants. Is this a bigger/better way of influencing the world than being a politician? Probably. It even has the ability to take on countries and the armed forces of foreign countries: it fought Argentina at one point, seizing one of their war-ships.

In the UK, it intervened on coach operator National Express and fought supermarket Tesco for damages stemming from a 2014 accounting scandal.

The owner – a Mr. Paul Elliott Singer - has backed Republicans with money. Donald Trump is a Republican. Is there some link here between money, and capitalism. Could Mr. Singer (and Trump) be working for the republicans as a spy? CIA bookworms might be able to influence the world through the sale of goods, even books. Could we be buying – through firms like Waterstones - into a regime that may have a bearing on the future of the world? I hope not. I just want to read a good book.