Farmer Diaries

 The US Supreme Court is in trouble, already three judges have been found to receive "unusual" payments.  The latest is the wife of Judge Roberts, who apparently has made more than $10 million advising law firms in Washington...that's a lot of money!  No wonder he doesn't want to talk about all these payments to the Senate. Three in a row...how much does anyone want to bet that this is not the end of it. If someone or some group wants to make the Supreme Court look corrupt and "bought" I could not think of a better way.  All three are conservative, and there are three more conservative judges on the Supreme Court.  Who wants to bet that two more judges will see their dirty laundry published.  Let's not forget the cuts were small and grew for the first two judges. Interesting times

 Ok so this morning, I had to replace an internet repeater in the house.  Something rather innocuous that has a tendency to break down regularly, it's cheap and easy to replace, except this week I don't have access to a car, the reason is irrelevant but everything I need has to be within walking distance.  Really I live in downtown so it's not really a problem, except it is.  There are three electronics stores in downtown Montreal, guess how many internet repeaters they sell between the two of them.  How about none, they all sell them but they are only available on their online store. Now if I have the choice of online store what will I pick? Best Buy, The Source of Amazon.  the answer is simple, I order from Amazon at least twice a week, and neither BB nor TS could confirm a delivery date (tomorrow or next month), guess what I did, I ordered from Amazon, and the same repeater was available from all three stores...but Amazon sold its model for $5 less than ...

The Advantage Sweet is a Suezmax crude carrier that was seized by the Iranians two days ago.  In the past, the US would have sent frigates to get the vessel back from the Iranians.  Yesterday, the state department issued a press release! First, the vessel that was carrying crude which was loaded in Kuwait was owned by a Turkish  Chinese company via flags of convenience counties, the crude was owned by Chevron and the crew was Indian  diverse (read no Americans) as the vessel was on its way to Texas.  Second, the US has so far shown no desire to take further action.  Third, the sixth fleet is not really geared to rescue tankers.   This is the Fifth  second time in the past three years that a tanker has been seized (by Iran) and the Americans have done nothing.  This is a clear message to the rest of the world, insofar that messages are sent that way.  America is disengaged and will take no action.   In terms of players h...

Many Americans on the left will beleic that the FOX settlement will have a huge impact on their democratic process.  The truth is that it will change nothing! For Murdoch this is just the cost of doing business.  Over the past 5 years FOX has generated profits of more than 10 billion.   This is less than 10% of that!   The truth is that it’s not the first time that he’s had to pay for his lies, just ask the Brits!  I’m addition those who watch the right wing media are entirely unaware of the lawsuit or the settlement it’s not like Newsmax or Fox ever mention it. This whole thing has no impact aside from the shareholders of Dominion who got a huge freebie.  I mean Dominion’s totally annual revenues are less than $60 million per annum.  With profits in the low teens.  For dominion this is like 100 years of net profits in one go, a winning lottery ticket.  I suspect others will collect too.

 Ok so I bought a new fridge in 2011 it was nice all stainless steel from it turns out an Australian brand strange name and their helpline is one of the most useless I have ever used…the French menu is so bad is incomprehensible still I don’t really care (BTW at first I thought it was Portuguese go figure).  So this 2011 fridge has a water filter for the ice machine, the filter should have been replaced but we kind of forgot it was there at least until Friday of last week when we found out that it no longer made ice cube because the filter was done (after 11 years).  Now it turns out the filter is unavailable it doesn’t exist you cannot buy it from the fridge company and their Canadian distributor (there is only one in Canada) doesn’t stock the filters.   Nor does the company from which they originated manufacture them anymore. This is an 11 year old fridge not something from 1971!  It beyond bizarre that such a thing would occur.    It’s the one reaso...

It’s Tesla that made electric sexy, it’s Tesla that is reducing costs and use of exotic materials it’s Tesla that is expanding production by 49% per annum.  It’s Tesla that is profitable  Some ICE lovers will do almost anything against teslas for no good reason if you consider that 80% of a Tesla is manufactured in the US.   Yes it’s PE was in the nose bleed section at 200x at one point, but it’s now nearly 45x compare to the loss making ford and hardly profitable GM.   Go figure 

 Last week there was a major leak out of the Pentagone into social media.  Why did this happen and who gains?  At first blush it is the Ukrainian forces that would suffer, but on closer examination that makes no sense, since the damage would have been worse if only the Russians know their attack strategy. However, there were a lot of comments about Russian forces and how dispirited they were.  Let’s assume that the Russians knew about Kiev strategy already this would be a perfect platform to show that things in Russia were going badly.   I mean it’s a leak!!! Two ideas the first is that Ukrainian have similar military strategy to the Russians, but now the Ukrainian not only have western equipment they have western strategies available, and the success of the Ukrainians has been driven by quick thinking, nationhood and adaptation.  Western trained Ukrainian soldiers are returning to the country with new equipment and new strategies.  Second, Russia has ...

 Once the yield curve is inverted a recession is “baked in the cake”. As David Rosenberg is often quoted, it’s a sure thing.  Yet job creation exceeded expectations. 35,000 new jobs is a lot.  Granted we don’t know the composition of these new jobs. I have no positive analysis about all this inflation is still high, mostly driven by externalities (it’s not higher salaries) but it is evident that people are feeling confident and leaving jobs and seeking new ones.  Interesting times in deed. Still historically inverted yield curve means recession in 100% of all cases

 Saw images of Trump in court in NYC. He looked sad and dejected probably because they didn’t do either a peep walk or take a mug shot (although I hear the trump t-shirt are on sale for 47$ with a made up mug shot).  Perp walk only necessary when the accused is arrested and trump came voluntarily to the court room. And everyone on planet earth knows what Trump looks like!  Of the 34 counts about 22 relate to the same “crime”. Which are the 11 invoices from Cohen and 11 book entry so it means there are 14 accusations.  The worse relate the to the scheme Trump, Cohen, National enquire to find the stories about Trump’s mistresses (and a doorman) buy the stories then impose gag order and kill the stories.  Trump then used campaign money (apparently) to repay cohen and the National enquirer of business.  It also appears that it’s Cohen and National Enquirer that went looking for the stories.   All this is really small potatoes Trump’s real problem are the J...

 Why is there a black history month in Canada?  Don’t want to sound racist but whereas 16% of Americans are black. Here in Canada the numbers are rising but are far lower.  As of 1999, 2.5% of Canadians were black, and as of the end of 2022 it’s around 5%, there is no Chinese history month, and yet the account for nearly 5% of Canadians.   Moreover, the history of blacks in Canada is far different than in the US.  Of course there was slavery in Canada, which ended in 1807, as in the rest of the British empire.  Moreover, the vast majority of black Canadians are not descendants from slavery, let’s be clear as early as the mid 18th century slavery was poorly seen in Canada (especially upper Canada).  I grew up in Montréal that was essentially a white city, there we few if any blacks anywhere, certainly not in the service sector as in the US.  My first exposure to black people were refugees from Haiti.  They quickly took over the taxi industry (...