Farmer Diaries

take bullshit artist in a financial institution to say that there is a floor in the price of Bitcoins.   There is no floor because the price rose so quickly that there is no concept of floor in that kind of speculative bubble.   The price may pause for a time but like a speculative bubble there is one floor and it’s zero. Although i must say that at $10 a bitcoin it becomes a nice cheap option

So early this morning the futures for the S&P 500 were pointing up, and surprise surprise at the opening at 9:30 the market opened up +15 points.   It's now 11:30 and the markets are flat for the day.  How will it go from here is unclear.  The rest of the world is not doing so well, the FTSE is down 0.74 and the CAC40 is down 0.35 (now both are closed for the day). The market seems to want to go down, despite economic data (backward looking) showing a healthy economy -- GDP growth at 3.5%, unemployment at a historical low, consumer confidence and PPI at all time high!  Nevertheless, most commentators feel that a recession is increasingly likely, first a substantial portion of the GDP growth was caused by the massive corporate tax cuts that were put in place late in 2017.  But the hangover is on its way -- government deficit is massive (despite what the GOP said when they enacted the tax cuts) and the only solution is to cut entitlement -- since ...

1.  Rumors are that France's 2019 budget deficit may be higher than Italy's planned budget deficit -- of which the EU said this is unacceptable.  Next game of chicken 2.  Russia just sent a large number of nuclear-capable long-range bombers to Venezuela....I'm sure that Trump will like that 3.  China arrests Canadian ex-diplomat in what appears to be a "tit for tat" move against the arrest of Huawei's CFO 4. Brexit vote delayed -- cause May doesn't have the vote and a rejection of her plan would almost certainly lead to elections (and possibly a new referendum).  A game of chicken is being played between May and the parliament:  "Back me or we have a hard Brexit" 5.  Trump's position is getting very uncomfortable.  It appears now that the Russia discussions were not only over an 18 month period but involved a large number of players -- on both sides.  This was not a single meeting and a single conversation, but 6.  As long...

more than 4 years ago during a long walk between Burgos and Santiago de Compostela a conversation took place between my father and me.  The topic was the likely advent of autonomous vehicles.  I told my father that the first self-driving car would emerge in 5 years, my father thought that 10 years was a minimum!  Imagine our surprise as we walked out “of the woods” that Tesla had just announced the launch of its first "level 2" self-driving car — which still means substantial supervision by the driver. Last week the LAPD arrested a man in his Tesla 3 who was fast asleep at the wheel of his car.  Again a very dangerous situation since the level 3 technology still require substantial driver supervision. Then again this morning Waymo announced that it is launching, in Phoenix for nearly public use, its autonomous taxi; and that if everything goes according to plan, the fleet of autonomous taxis will be available for use by the general public early in 2019. Th...

Sooo On Sunday the American president announced a major breakthrough in is trade confrontation with Xi the president of China.   Since then complete radio silence from both sides, the market today (Tuesday)now seems to believe that there was no agreement to a 90 day moratorium on trade barriers and that American farmers will not actually get the relief Trump told them,  is tweet, that they would get. Today the makets reaction was brutal; the S&P  is down nearly 3%.  Now there are other issues at hand that take precedent too -  GM took $3 billion in restructuring provision and that seems to be leading to at least 15,000 job cut...Ford took a $10 billion cut but has not announced any plant closing...yet -  Lots of US corporate debt was dongraded yesterday... -  yield curve for the 2&5 is inverted, usually a sign that recession is imminent -  Trump “announced” that he will cancel the NAFTA to force congress to pass the USMC agreement...