Farmer Diaries

The past four years have shown that the old adage that force projection was everything has been turned on its head.   The early destruction of Russia's tank offensive by Ukrainian drones (and the Russian's own stupidity), had fundamentally changed the power structure.   Until six months ago, the general perception was that the might of the US and of Israel in the Middle East was unchallegable.   Iran, Ukraine and drones proved otherwise. In the middle east Iran has been largely unchallenged in its ability to strike US bases in Kuwait (ok that's next door), Qatar Saudi Arabia and Dubai (a bit further).  Iran has shown a deep bench in terms of drones and its willingness to use them effectively.  It's unclear how much remains in the US munition depots, but it is serious enough that the American government which had sold systems to the Finn have told them not to expect any systems this year or next (and the US has been out of Ukraine for nearly two ye...

Was the departure of Prime Minister Starmer necessary?   In short, yes. He had two years as the leader of a new labour government with a crushing majority to take action.  He did absolutely nothing as if he was still a backbencher in the opposition.  He also made a massive error in inviting Peter Mendelsohn into his government when it was already well known that he had ties with Epstein.  This showed a massive lack of judgment on his part (and he only had himself to blame for that one). Will the new guy do any better, Andy Burnham has been a parliamentarian his entire adult life, from 2008 until 2016, when he became the mayor of Manchester.  Will he be an effective Prime Minister, who knows, the truth is that Starmer has largely been an empty shirt for the entirety of his mandate, he has managed to make the far right look good.   The same way Trump has made Iran's leadership sound reasonable (they are not – actually homicidal maniacs), and China a...

 Out of kindness of my own heart, I never mention the names of the billionaires that have bought property in Argentina. Several months ago, I mentioned that massive farms had exchange hands for millions and millions, and that these were self-sufficient mega mansions owned by some of the richest people in the United States. Well, this week, Peter Thiel indicated that he was moving to Argentina. It’s unclear this stage if this is a full-time thing or if it’s temporary one. Doesn’t really matter, Mr. Thiel has always been known as a right winger, at the very right of Genghis Khan.. I never spent a great deal of time in Argentina. South America is too complicated and too far away for London base businesses. In addition, most of South America has a love affair with the United States. I’ve only been to Buenos Aires three times in my life, twice for work and once for our holiday, a 25 year marriage anniversary gift to my wife and I. In fact, it has been more than a decade since I set foot...

 I am no fan of football. Couldn’t care less about the FA cup for that matter of the game in general. The summer, the Americans are going to host the World Cup. The funny bit of course is that this was all they doing of the President of FIFA and Donald Trump during his first administration. It appears, that FIFA has taken a very Mercantile outlook on this year‘s contest. Ticket price are 3 to 6 times higher than they were in the last World Cup. Granted, it makes sense for them to try to grab any available dollar. What has been even more impressive, is America’s dual message. On the one hand, hotel prices have increased 5 to 6 fold for the month long. Contest. And all the other hand, the Department of Homeland Security, ice, and many other security agencies have made the life of potential participants difficult. For many countries, visitors to America will need to post large bonds, a $15,000 per person. obviously, potential visitors are taking the view that this is looking like a ex...

Président Xi has a measure of Donald Trump. Pump and circumstance that’s all he cares about. So far the American president state visit to China has generated nothing burger. it’s not at all surprising, at the end of the day, Donald Trump wants one thing increase exports of US made goods, of any kind, to China. China, wants one thing, the ability to manage its regional affairs; in plain English take over Taiwan. It’s more than likely that both men will leave disappointed. The fact that Donald Trump talked about a board of trade between the two country, to manage investments and trade, tells you everything you need to know. Create a real or fake organization or Donald Trump can say he has nothing to do with it and ignore the problem, and yet bitch, if the Chinese don’t buy American goods. The roadmap to Donald Trump has now well established. Ignore him, provide good entertainment and reasonable food, smile a lot, and make sure that him and his buddies get back on the plane.

  The Energy crisis The effect of the war in the Persian goes gulf are about to generate critical shortages in our economy. The reality of the United Kingdom, is that our primary energy imports are from the United States, Norway, and North Africa. That means, that none of our energy is sourced from the Middle East. So for the United Kingdom, the problem will not be supply. It will be price.  In its war with Iran, Donald Trump has decided to blockade the straight of Hormuz in order to deny income to the Iranians. In this fight, America is largely energy independent. It produces and exports more than it imports. It’s a net balance, as opposed to true energy independence, that most of the light and sweet crude produced in the United states has to go elsewhere to be processed. America’s refineries were built for heavy sour crude. This shift by America from being the policeman of the seas to Mercantile protector of the interest of North America is a long expected shift, excep...

The stage is set, the American President is about to commit war crimes by bombing civilian infrastructure.  It is amazing that Donald Trump has managed to make the repulsive Iranian regime into anti-heroes.  Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and now Trump…   Considering that Trump has fired a dozen generals, and is probably going to fire a bunch more, who probably refused his illegal orders, the stage is set for a pain over the next five years.  Rumors are that Iran has already bombed Saudi Arabian production and transport facilities, that were previously protected by Qatar and Kuwait, the situation could not be more dire. The impact on the global economy and on people's lives cannot be understated.  Poverty, famine and pestilence will be the result of the actions of this madman.  What is truly unbelievable is that there is no one stopping this madman, this is clearly a case of calling for the 25 amendment, but his replacement is as mad, and a religious nut too....

It has been years now, but Americans are crazy, there's no doubt about it.   It is evident that their electoral system is broken (we're not doing that great either) special interests run the place, and if you think otherwise you are lying to yourself.  It is more than likely that the 2026 mid term election will be the most honest in decades, because of the disgust of the population.  I want to be clear the wantonness of the republican party is matched by the wokeness of the Democrats.   The current occupant of the White House is an old kleptocrat, that was elected by an electorate that was so disgusted with the old bunch that they decided to punt for "that guy"  who proved over and over to be not only a bully but an idiot. Things are serious now, the situation has become dire.  Let's be clear, Trump has invaded Venezuela, threatened the same for Canada, Greenland and Cuba.   In addition he has started a war with Iran, that is going so ba...

I have not posted in more than six weeks, mainly because I have no insights to add.  Things in the UK are deteriorating rather quickly, and I am finally impressed with our Prime Minister who seems to have finally found parts of his backbone…  Things on the farm are unchanged, as I said a number of times we are largely unaffected by the moods and changes of the nation, the reality of our business model.   In terms of timing, 2025 we decided with our investment partners to restrict capital expenses on our various businesses, first because the new injections were massive, several of our businesses, if they were to grow further, had to undertake substantial investments, we were by some coincidence at a inflection point for several businesses.   Neither us or our partners were keen on moving ahead, especially with the political and economic challenges.   Boy are we glad to decide to pause our investments now. It would be a huge lie to say that we "knew...

For four years, Trump pushed hard on the prosecution of revelation of the crimes of Epstein & Co.   Considering Trump's own "Grab them by the pussy" comment it is almost certain that Trump did not care what his "friend" was doing.  It is well known that Trump had beauty pageant for the express use of finding pretty women… However, its more than likely that Trump had no idea how debased and appalling his friend's behavior (also of the Prince!).  Rape, torture and murder were common on his Island, and Eptein remain close to trump and his allies all the way to 2019 (AKA meeting with Steve Banon).  Had Trump known the absolutely terrible things that Epstein and his friends did it is unlikely that Trump would have pushed for the revelation of the FBI and DOJ file.   So far Trump's name is in the file more than 37,000 and is rumored to be named more than a million times in the unredacted version of the complete file… Trump and his allies in Congress, the...

From a high of $120,000 to less than $70,000 today, one has to wonder what is going on with Bitcoin.  My favorite are the stories of "Crypto-pushers" who now reveal that despite telling the world to "go big on crypto" have not purchased any bitcoin since 2018 when it hovered around $6k.  The truth of cryptocurrencies is that they behave more like rare paintings than even gold.  The value is entirely driven by what others are ready to pay, as a high water mark, and the cost of extraction, as the low water mark.   Currently the cost of mining a bitcoin is around $70,000 per coin.  The cost of extracting gold is about $1,000.  That means that gold suppliers will "stop" producing gold when the price drops below $1,000 (there is some flexibility there). However, the price of gold right now is around $5,000…so still a very profitable endeavor.  What this means is that most miners will stop mining until the price rises above $70,000.   I am exa...