Farmer Diaries

 President Trump seems to believe that he can raise $6 trillion from tariffs, his stated objective is to cut income tax for his constituency -- wealthy Americans.  There is also a move to cut social security Medicaide and medicare, three of the four most expensive programs for the Federal Government --- with defence, they represent 80% of the federal budget. Tuesday, the American government introduced lots of new tariffs; there is absolutely no way of knowing how this will work out.   What the government will do and what others will do.     No one ever believed that Trump would do it, but he is, expect a massive increase in US domestic inflation over the next two years until all these tariffs are worked out. It will not be a bed of roses around here either.   

 Canada is a large country with an insignificant role in global affairs.  It major claim to fame is to have the longest, largely unprotected border with the United States.   Over the past two months, Canada has become President Trump's favourite punching bag. At first, it seemed that it was because the then-Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, had made fun of him at a G8 conference.   His party could read the tea leaves as well as anyone else; they were going to lose the federal election (scheduled for November 2025) badly.  On January 6th, Trudeau resigned.   First because of internal pressure, but also massive pressure from the Conservative Party. A month ago, already with no known leader the Liberals had gone from a 20-point deficit, where the Conservative opposition had a huge advantage, to near parity with the Conservatives.   The chief of the Party called Pierre Polievre, had been playing the "pro-MAGA" card for nearly 18 months al...

 It is often said that an American President has 100 days after the election as a kind of "Honey Moon".    The score for the current holder of the job is not too good, nevermind the court reverting about 90% of what DOGE did as illegal.  But the fumbling of the ball has been rather spectacular. Trump this morning will receive his first real piece of legislation from Congress, something to do with cryptocurrencies... Then of course there is the daily commentaries, completed and utter bullshit,.   Unsurprisingly, the Department of health has become an anti-vaxer hotbed with a rather serious outbreak of measles in Texas.   A few children have already died, apparently, and I find this incredible to hear. The mother of one of the two children who died said that his sacrifice was worth it against the crusade against vaccines.   As they say you cannot cure stupid. The latest trouble is the invitation on Signal (A Russian-owned and controlled co...

 Trading around $20 a share is amazing that its still that high considering the December numbers that came out.   revenues are flat at one million, and expenses are around $40.   So far nothing that the management has proposed has had any success.  Rumours are that they spend nearly $100 million on a media platform of some kind, but no serious (or otherwise) third party has mentioned any activities with the group.   The company has been less than clear as to its plans, and so far the SEC has left them alone, mainly because they probably perceive this trade as politically protected.   It's not that the managers are crooks, they are simply incompetent and expensive.     Stories emerged that the management team is paid nearly 25 million a year in compensation, for a company that generated about a million dollars in revenues a quarter with no obvious growth opportunity.  Trump's stake in the firm has gone from about $5 bi...

I was in the US this week for many reasons but one of them was to reconnect with some university friends, a convergence of sorts.    One of my friends worked in the Department of Energy.  A very very smart fellow, his job has to do with the maintenance of America's nuclear arsenal, I am not joking.    His knowledge is vast on all kinds of aspects of America's nuclear weapons arsenal.   Now the new administration decided that he was not need and he was fired.   This is where it gets good.   My friend had wanted to leave the department for some time, but government rules would make him illegible for the job he was best suited, because of civil service rules in jumping to private enterprise The one exception, getting fired!    Less than a day after he was fired, he had a fantastic job offer, at 10 times the salary.   Now this is the good bit, he's part-time back in his old office, his salary has gone up and he is do...

 In the past two months, the American President had done almost anything he could to weaken the Republic against Russia and China.    Stop all ongoing or outgoing attacks against Russian cyber attacks Created cracks in NATO Buying wholesale Russian disinformation on Ukraine Destabilizing the Western world economic order with massive tariffs on everything Shut down the easy wins such as USAID Shut down food safety agencies Shut down all departments that deal with government corruption or foreign interference Destroy the upper levels of the US military in a "anti woke" fight that lives in his imagination Fired all forest fire crew Fired all senior levels at NOAA Fired all investigators at the food safety agency This cannot be seen as incompetence; this is a clear signal that the American president's objective is to make America poorer and less secure.

Not much else to say about that, Trump rambled for 90 minutes and did not raise "his favourite thing" a single time.

 So our eldest daughter is in the market for a new car.  She eventually picked an electric car.  I was shocked by the breadth of options, every single car manufacturer sells an electric car.   On the farm we only use Diesel vehicles, and several UTVs and ATVs.   I remember in 2020 when we were looking to replace the family car, we owned a Range Rover that, contrary to expectations, has been bullet proof, but after breaking two transmissions (my fault entirely).  We picked a Land Cruiser mainly because there's a dealer less than 5 miles from the farm.    We could have purchased an electric vehicle, but the truth is that at least twice a month we drive to London.  The 120-mile journey would have been fine, but at the time there were no electric SUVs that had the range we sought.    Thank God we never thought of the cybertruck...now that's an expensive disaster.  Also, we don't have off-street parking in London so the el...

Since the CCP made the decision to put the brakes on the real estate sector, the writing was on the wall.   Chinese banks were doomed.   Real estate accounts for nearly 20% of China's GDP, not entirely surprising since Chinese people need to invest their excess income somewhere, and since foreign markets are closed off, it leaves Chinese savers with few outlets:  Government debt, Corporate debt, the stock market and housing.  The easiest and until about 5 years ago was the housing market.   Friends would get together and purchase properties, these were seen as a savings tool with a better return.     The problem was that for Chinese people the idea was never to invest in productive assets, it was a store of value, therefore the apartments were left empty and often unfinished to reduce tax liability.   Most Chinese savers (like Americans before them in the 1980s and before 2008) used leverage to increase "performance"....

 The world is facing an interesting time with President Trump playing with the tools of government.   One thing for sure, is that uncertainty is a much more important factor than it has been for the past few years.   Our Prime Minister was asked if Britain could "take" the Russians, an idiotic question considering that the United Kingdom is an Island far from Russia, but the real point is could Europe "take" Russia?   What the Ukrainians have demonstrated in spade is that the Russian army is not what it used to be, and the nuclear threat is the same for Europe as it would be for the Americans.  The answer is yes, Europe can deal with the Russians. However, the tariff games that Trump has been playing are another story entirely.   The destabilization that he creates will first stop all capital investment.  Boardrooms the world over will slow down the CAPEX train until they have a firm understanding of what is going on.    P...

 In short nothing! The United Kingdom is suffering from the first real impact of Brexit.    As they say, the chickens are coming home to roost, and there's nothing to be done.   Europe had surplus production in almost everything, so they are looking at imposing trade barriers against the UK similar to what they impose on other countries, they are saving jobs at home, and the cost of these jobs is a slowing British economy, with fewer revenues and a bigger deficit.  In addition, most of the financial benefits of Europe (e.g., to farmers) were not replaced.  That's something I observed firsthand, we would get offers of European money, which in most cases were rejected, (one big exception was a grant for nearly 20% of the cost of our biodigesters).   The country will be poorer and will be poorer for several years, unfortunately, Europe will soon join us in this poverty, the impact of demographic decline.   Italy and Germany are the pro...