Farmer Diaries

Well Italy now has a new government -- The new prime minister Giuseppe Conte is now the leader of the Five stars and the far right League, although some of their policies seem to be from the far left.  First off, the "draft" memorandum of union agreement between 5 stars and the League had a "Kill the Euro", "Get out of EU" provision that was scrapped in the final version  (remember that for later). The final agreement between the two parties referred to target economic growth via additional state spending, to re-start eh Italian economy.  What are Italy's biggest problems:  (a) High labor costs, (b) excessive red tape, (c) banks that acknowledged nearly 14% of Non Performing Loans, and (d) a toxic, crony-driven political system.  The fault of the high total wages is due to hard unions, truly, but they are also due to Italy, like most European countries entering the Euro at too high an exchange rate (exactly the opposite of what Germany did...).  Th

Ok ok this happened two months ago now!  Having moved out of Canada three years ago, the decision to purchase a new phone is complicated.  First, in most places, you first buy the phone outright.  No "subsidy" of a new phone (with higher rates for telephone plans).  So you got to fork out the cash outright.  Moreover, the local price is "nose-bleed level".  As an example an iPhone X that retails for US$ 999 sells for MXN 26,000 -- that's US$ 300 more (or 30%) than what you would pay at a US Apple store.  So there's incentive to do things differently...at these prices and margins First off, I asked my tech-savvy younger friends what I should buy:  Needless to say that none use the iPhone, I've seen the Android universe -- cannot say that I am impressed!  They are like Windows computer, needlessly complicated. Some of the stuff no longer matters -- I just don't have my music library on my phone.  I use Spotify...less space and works just as wel

Ok, so Facebook saw a massive plunge in users and value following the data scandal:  Want to bet! As of this morning, Facebook stock stood at 185/per share -- its all-time peak is 195 (and in fact, it must have been an intraday thing because I cannot find it in Google Finance.  The highest price there is 190 per share.  So, let's revise this, Facebook is off exactly 5% off its all-time high, but really only 2.7% off its all-time high. Now the market has spoken, and Facebook is chastised... As for users, well that's even worse -- Facebook usage is up 13% on last year (as of the end of April 2018). So there you go, Mark Zuckerberg, you should feel really really chastised!  The market and the people have spoken your business model is broken... Not even a little bit, but reading the press on Facebook over the past few weeks/months you would think that the company is reeling from the financial and social impact of the data breach.

Sorry folks, with The Donald in the White House its hard to get very excited about anything political -- I mean the crap he pulls on a daily basis would have normally made the front page of all newspaper for weeks, but because he's so crazy, ignorant and supported by the GOPs own crazies there really is not much to say. Europe, well Europe is doing OK, at least on the surface.  The Italians finally got a government -- which includes 5 stars -- which is as anti-European as can be, and drafted exit words from Europe and the Euro (plus canceling all Euro-denominated debt..) but thankfully these ideas were not in the final governing agreement (but how far are they below the surface).  France and Germany are trying to get along, with some success, but on one side you've got Germany and on the other, you've got everyone else.  How long till German gets fed-up of paying for everyone (actually that's easy -- as soon as Europe stops buying goods and services in Germany).  Ne