Farmer Diaries

Tarrif Man was at it again last week imposing massive tariffs on nearly $200 billion of Chinese imports...the end of the world as we know it.  For those paying attention, Trump has also imposed new tariffs on Mexican tomatoes to appease farmers in Florida who are feeling the sting of higher labor costs (thanks to ICE & its friends). The question is what does it mean; well first off its evident that, so far, the Chinese exporters have not absorbed the additional costs of tariffs -- that is usually how these things work, right now supply chains are being examined (on both sides) and decisions about future production are being made.  Nevertheless in an US$18 trillion economy -- even a few hundred billion is not that much!  So far some consumer (actually as farm products are an important staple for most household) are being affected by some rising costs (imported vegetables) and some lower costs (hog feed prices are the lowest they've even been having collapsed).  ...

Only 18 months ago, Boeing's reputation was good, sure it had screwed up its battle with Bombardier on the C-Series handing the project to Airbus that now has a full complement of aircraft from 100 seats all the way to 550 seats (ok ok the A380 is a financial quagmire).  Still, Boeing had the upper hand with the B777 and the B787 and the B737 was a dependable workhorse for short haul flights.  In the space of 18 months throughout 2017 and 2018, Boeing repurchased nearly $20 billion worth of shares.  The impact has been dramatic on December 31, 2016, Boeing's share price was near US$ 155.  On March 1, 2019, the price of Boeing peaked at US$ 450.00 per share!  In the space of 18 months, the share price of the airline had trebled!  Since then it has lost nearly $100 per share! The first "big" problem was the two accident that involved the B737MAX -- the savior aircraft for Boeing and its potential long term profit center.  Cheap to develop (all things...

On one side a government is blamed for poor economic growth, often without it being responsible.  On the other side it gains the benefit when the economy is growing; last month Canada create more than 100,000 new jobs -- youth unemployment is at its lowest in years!  See here for more. Bottom line 100,000 new jobs in Canada is like the US adding 900,000 jobs in a month -- its a lot!  Actually, its the largest number of new jobs, in one month, ever recorded since records began in the 1950 (yep only 70 years).  Again, showing how little central banks know (sorry Monique) these numbers came out just two weeks after the Bank of Canada got all "negative" on Canada's economic growth. Granted I've not looked at the type of jobs being created...still a few of these 100,000 jobs must be good!  After all the bad news suffered by the Trudeau administration, a large percentage which seems to be self-inflicted, the strong growth in the job market will play well for th...

Actually, I'm far from being the only naysayers about the health of European banks, in German banks in particular.  The reason German banks are in trouble is that the two biggest cannot count on their domestic operations -- because DB and Commerzbank only account for 15% of the domestic depositor base (compare that to Canada's nine largest banks that account for 95% of all deposits).  Moreover, European governments decided to shield their banks from reform requirements after 2009, even their 2009 intervention was different than in North America -- in the US the Treasury took shares as collateral for their "investments" in Europe they got bonds -- limiting control and upside potential. The reality is that DB/Commerzbank merger dies (rightly) a few weeks ago because taking two bad banks and making them into one bigger bad bank is not a good idea -- for politicians!  So the American Conservative Blog wrote about the European banks here , and it's interesting to s...