Farmer Diaries

The only real impact of Italy's referendum was the resignation of Italy's Prime Minister -- The Democratic party was the ONLY pro-European party left in parliament and with the departure of Renzi, it too may decide that Europe is not worth the trouble. Europe could easily live without Greece, the Greek rescue plan really was the European banks and insurance company rescue plan, over the past 60 months, virtually all the debt that was owned to European banks, pension funds and insurance companies have been repaid at par with new loans from the European Central Bank -- quietly, the Europeans have nationalize a private debt burden at par, considering the health of Europe's bank this was the least the could do. Italy is another problem entirely, nearly 12% of Europe's GDP, the second largest bond market it is a large economy that sits at the heart of Europe. The Prime Minister's resignation means that elections will soon follow, and the topic of "interference...

A few weeks ago, the Indian government decided that it would withdrawn all Rs500 and Rs 1,000 (respectively $7 and $15) as a means of combating graft in the country -- it turns out that that Modis' government had neither consulted the Ministry of Finance or the Central bBank of India.  The plan was to remove cash from society, the impact has been brutal.  There is simply no cash available in India!  Business are failing because nobody can pay, the idea would be that everyone would use electronic transfer for payment ensuring that graft cannot occur (as if!).  However, India's problem is somewhat different; nearly 600 million Indians don't have a bank account -- their entire life is cash based with little savings (a cow here and there). BTW its the kind of crazy off the cuff solution I expect from Trump.  Last week he blasted the replacement of Air Force One -- already at 17 year old aircraft, getting on in age -- because its built of the frame of a B747-200 pa...

Increasingly we are hearing stories about using big data into comprehensive working tools especially with the idea of AI (granted its more intelligent systems that the AI of Scify) will contribute to the world economy. Already big data and intelligent systems are crowding out trading rooms at an unprecedented rates; why have expensive traders when a computer can do the job 24/7 at little cost. Bond desk have been decimated over the past decade, the same for F/x desk, and virtually all trading that is trough ETF is done via computer systems. That's the easy part, now come the doctors and the lawyers -- already we are seeing the medical profession being overwhelmed with data, diagnosis was easier when the doctor had only 10/20 data points, but medical technology has come a long way, already the number of data points has increased by nearly an order of magnitude than what was available 10 years ago, lets assume you suddenly have 400 data-points, the human mind is unequipped to dea...

And so it has started! Those in the know, now have a blueprint for getting government tax breaks -- with a bit of publicity added to the mix! Of the 1,300 jobs that were saved the real number apparently is far lower.  The official number is now in the region of 600 -- once you remove the jobs that were never going to leave anyway.  Now I am very happy for the 600 who actually kept their job, the cost to Indiana's tax payers is at least $7 million -- and I understand that there are further goodies such as lower corporate taxes. The blueprint is now for a company that wants to shift 5,000 jobs to Mexico/Vietnam (you get the picture) to announce 10,000 jobs being cut, and then wait for the government to give you your goodies bag, and then cut the 5,000 jobs you were going to eliminate anyway.  If you do it right you can even get a undertaking from Trump that he will not impose tariffs on your imported production.  The only looser is the tax payer, and considering ...