Farmer Diaries

Necessity is the mother of invention.  Most adults today have never dealt with foreign exchange controls.  Yet they were relatively common all the way to the 1960s.   The remnants of a mercantile world.   China has retained control over its currency to this day.  For Chinese people, they have to request permission to purchase foreign currency.  Even State-owned enterprises need to do this... Chinese private companies that thrived in the 1990s and the early 2000s faced the problem of slow approval to obtain the right to purchase foreign currency to buy the necessary supplies they needed, and so many were forced to build foreign currency reserves abroad.   At first, it was innocent, it really was to simplify their lives, mostly a timing issue.   So Chinese manufacturers would create intermediaries in Europe or America.   They would buy supplies from these intermediaries, at a slightly increased price. Instead of buying a chemical from the market for 8 dollars a kilo, they would buy it fr

It takes a special kind of person to turn off 74% of the "great" people you nominated for senior posts in your administration.  That does not include Vice President Pence who thinks very little of the ex-President.    You would think that if 3/4 of some of the brightest people you worked with in the past think you are no good, lazy SOB then it should tell something to the electorate... Apparently it doesn't

 The most amazing thing here in politics is the normality, granted it's July so the place is on holiday, still, has anyone noticed how normal things are in Downing Street?   Still, Prime Minister Starmer seems to be knuckling down and is busy at work....  A nice change!

For almost 10 days Donald Trump wore a massive bandage on his ear.  A picture of the man last night shows almost no damage, and as far as I could see, only a very small nick near the top.   Granted for 10 days it gave Trump an image. Since then Harris has taken over -- not good, Trump is now the oldest JD Vance is no Trump and says crazy shit aka "crazy cat ladies..." anyone wants to go against the Swift army? JD Vance doesn't praise Donald Trump 24/7  (only about 20/6 hours a day Trump doesn't like that!)   New polls show Harris and Trump neck and neck --- the problem, Trump was well ahead of Biden in the battleground states two weeks ago (rumours of 6%).   In one week Trump has lost the advantage to a black woman 20 years younger than him!   Lest we forget that the elections are in 100 days... It's not over until the fat lady sings! Harris has done a credible job on the stump (much better than when she was the VP, her ticks are gone) Harris has not said anything

Senator Vance like all human beings is a complex person.   He wrote a powerful book that was even turned into an excellent movie.  His "memoir" Hillbilly Elegy talks about a man who grew up in some level of poverty -- not exactly true, but then who cares, it was still an excellent book.    Being the running mate of Donald Trump cannot be easy, first and foremost President Trump is nuts and lazy.  It has been reported from several sources that one of his ideas was to create a 2,000-mile moat between Mexico and the US and fill it with snakes and crocodiles -- -not kidding here!  The bleach against Covid, there was a lot.  Not only has been proven to be ignorant he is also famous for doing absolutely nothing.   Senator Vance brought two things to the ticket Ohio (a swing state) and youth.  He is not 40 yet.   He was a great "anti-age" foil against Biden and to an extent Trump who is not a young man either, at 78.    However, part of the problem is that Senator Vance li

 In France, they can hold the entire electoral process in a few weeks, the same for us here in the UK.  The American media are now saying that "they are running out of time".  The US elections will be held in exactly 99 days from today.  Three solid months, apparently that's not enough! I am always in awe of America.  It is both the best and worst place on earth.   Brilliant people and utter Morons (granted we have those too).   Still, the American media is serious, they really think that 99 days is not enough... So, I contemplate this situation, I was reading the Telegraph this morning, and I had to pinch myself, the news was that Britain's economy is doing fine, while Europe is facing stagflation.   A month ago, the Telegraph announced that the UK economy was down the toilet and that labour would make it even worse... Oh I get.

 Last night my wife and I were in London, for many reasons but principally because we had been invited to a dinner party.  Nothing unusual there.  One of the guests, an American, started talking about how China would kill America because it would force it to "repay its loans".  I swear I tried to stay out of it, but having been a fund manager for 20 years, and the only finance person in the group, I could see where this was going.    In the end, I had to say the truth, that bonds don't work that way, China can wait until maturity and get US dollars back, or sell the bonds to third-party investors.  However, since China holds less than 3% of America's sovereign debt, what they do doesn't matter.   I also pointed out that as long as China insisted on a trade surplus they would accumulate US dollars.    The man did not understand, he could not comprehend   Basic trade theory.   The man was almost violent and even accused me of being a communist (strange considering I

 If you are interested in the policies of the project 2025 go on the web.  I will not even summarize them because it is so extreme that it makes even the Nigel Farage party blush.   For about a month now Trump has been distancing himself from the group and more importantly the book that was written by the President of the Heritage Foundation -- the brain trust behind Project 2025.    The current GOP electoral platform is pro-state rights about abortion.  Project 2025 had other ideas.  Trump, not a man with a massive memory, says he knows nothing about the book, his author or what it stands for.    This has been his line for a month, although he knows the author, very well considering that he visited the What House nearly 200 times during the Trump presidency.    That's not the problem, the problem is who wrote the book's forward...J.D. Vance.  In the forword, he called it a defining moment in the conservative movement and the best way forward for the Republic.    So now Trump c

In less than 100 hours the fight for the 2024 election has entirely changed.  Sunday's bombshell now looks like the only reasonable outcome as Biden's numbers were in freefall.   As I mentioned a week ago, people were no longer listening to him, but just watching for a fall in mental acuity.    Sunday night Harris was obviously the favourite, for several reasons, first, she is already the #2 on the ticket, but also she has direct access to nearly $300 million in war chest reserves since the money was for a Biden/Harris presidential ticket.   On Monday Harris moved from "one of several" possible choices to the only game in town.  All the other potential challengers supported Vice President Harris' bid to replace Joe Biden. Monday night it was announced that Ms Harris had raised nearly 100 million dollars, in less than 24 hours as the presumptive Democratic party nominee.   Tuesday she did her first stump speech and she killed it.  Vice President Harris had an annoy

 So the Chinese had another one of their policy meeting.  Bottom line nothing changes.  Part of the problem is that the objective continues to be the expansion of foreign markets and not consumption at home.   There is talk of "weak currency" but since the Chinese yuan is not a tradable currency it really doesn't matter very much. Fundamentally China is stuck in a corner and it has no idea how to get out.  The problem is that the political leader is perfectly happy with how things are right now.  Xi Jinping is in charge and there is no one to challenge his leadership.    For a long time GDP growth targets were nationally important, a bit like a "dick measuring contest".  For a very long time now China has been playing the game alone, but it made the central government and its leadership happy.  Economic growth is entirely driven by the desire to create jobs so that the population does not interfere with the political process.   The meeting for the past few days

Vice President Harris is a huge headache for the Republican Party.   Over the past six years, she had downplayed how tough she was as a prosecutor, to appease the party faithful.  She is the worst possible candidate to replace Joe Biden, she is almost 20 years younger than Trump -- you can bet the Democrats will play the "old man card", expect memory jokes galore.  It gets worse, Donald Trump supported her years ago, as one tough prosecutor... She is also rapidly moving to an anointment of her shift from Vice President to running as president, plus she had been on the ticket from the start.    Trump's latest problem is JD Vance.  A lot is emerging from his past, he grew up in a middle-class suburb with a four-bedroom house (not in poverty at all).   There is no doubt that he flirted with the "gay lifestyle" and was apparently convinced until his twenties that he was gay.   He is a little nuts with his techno conspiracy, including that the COVID-19 vaccine contai

So it seems that my criticism of Egypt hit a cord of sorts among my thousands of readers (no not really not even remotely true).  Egypt's fundamental problem is that they are cramming a 111 million population in a habitable land mass the size of Switzerland.    There is a solution, as usual, that involves using other people's money, but it's not entirely insane, it would be to build a 100-kilometre canal between the Mediterranean Sea and something called the Qattara Depression.  The depression sits about 60 meters below sea level. The project would create a large water mass and evaporation, which could fall back as rain, would provide arable land in which to settle some of Egypt's population.    While not entirely crazy it has never been done.  It is unclear how long it would take for rainfall to create arable land, and even if the arable land would be near the lake.  The cost is anywhere between 100 and 150 billion dollars.    Is it a crazy idea, yes and no.   Elon  Mu

 By now the world knows that Joe Biden had decided not to run as president for the November 2024 elections.   This is almost a "movie-worthy" outcome.   The assumption was that he would stick it out, probably lose and Trump would be president for at least four more years... The Democrats have a problem because they have a few weeks to find acceptable replacements. Obviously, Kamila Harris will put her hat in the ring, but this will certainly be one of the most riveting modern political conventions for over half a century.   It is a risk, but also a huge opportunity to shine a line on the Democratic Party's electoral platform, and the success of the Biden term. Donal Trump's strategy of looking young and spry when compared to Biden is now out of the window.   The GOP is now running against "Candidate to be named later" which means that for the next three weeks, the GOP has to run for something, its platformer, its ideas, and some are rather "special"

 Trail riding early this morning, a combination of solitude, the wife is away, and jet lag, Asia for a week takes it out of you, meaning that I was at our local stable to take Artur.   Aside from two grooms, I was the only one about.  Arthur is my wife's horse.     There is a great circuit around where we live, for riders, and before you ask riders are far more considerate than ramblers.   About three miles from our house a developer has built, because it's almost finished now, a small hamlet of apartments.   The result is very pleasing and affordable.   Several of our staff were considering buying or renting there.  First owners/tenants will take possession before September.   I think I counted about 24 apartments in all.   The developer broke ground 18 months ago. On the other side of our property, a couple acquired an old farmhouse about five years ago.  I had a break there for 20 minutes, to give Arthur a break, and me a cup of coffee.    The old farmhouse needed a brand ne

I make a prediction, Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States.  The Democrats will win the popular ballot but it is irrelevant, because the Republicans are ready for a redo of the 2020 election and what they cannot win at the ballot they will win in court.   In reality they don't have to win they just need not to lose. Kari Lake (R-Arizon) lost the election in 2020, yet is still in court to reverse her loss, spending millions every year, and the courts let her do it.   To her supporters she sounds like a fighter and that that has been wronged.   Her detractors have moved on...which is the problem.    Bob Mendez (D-New Jersey) and Donal Trump are both convicted criminals.   Bob is out, Don is running for President.  the difference one is a Democrat the other is Republican. Mat Gaetz (R-Florida) has basically been convicted of being a child sex offender.   Sex with underaged women (plural) is a proven.  Yet he is running for re-election.   The Democrats are about

The benefit of having a strong and comprehensive trade policy should fill me with dread as a farmer.   Truthfully, the Americans are a useful catalyst to force some long overdue farming reforms in the United Kingdom.   The bucolic idea of the small family farms is ridiculous in the 21st century.  It was mostly ridiculous in the 20th too.   The united Kingdom has created (with Europe) a policy to support the smaller farms as a superior good, against the overwhelming benefit of concentrating on the modern industrial farm.    There are even Youtube videos of morons cutting hay as in the 15th century, by hand...really.   A good portion of farming in Britain is back breaking low paying jobs.   20 years ago, an American company invented a machine to pick strawberries.   I saw their latest model, it is 10x better than hand picking, more gentle and only picks ripe fruits.  One of thousands of examples.   Robots to muck stalls or even feed the animal. entirely automated milking process, that re

Britain's new prime minister made his first foreign policy statement.   Unlike the Tories who wanted to be out but treated as if they were in Europe, he says Britain is out, and will remain out for the foreseeable future.  When Prime Minister Starmer talks about a closer military alliance with Europe, the signal is not to Europe but to France.   The message, we play together or we play with others, and the only other is America.    Starmer sent the message,  unfortunately, France is unable to consider any proposal as it has no functional government until the post election mess can be addressed.  The current caretaker government is unable to act.  We can hope that the French will be quicker than the Belgians.  Bottom line, Prime Minister Starmer is preparing the nation for the real push, if those in the East cannot engage us, we will look West, and I don't mean Canada.  The process of engaging with the United States in an agreement similar to what Japan signed a decade ago, is n

The game has already started.   Some of the more idiotic members of the party are already trying to blame the fall of the Conservative Party on the back of Sunak, as if the goose was not already cooked, even overcooked beforehand.   Voters who switched from the Tories to the Reform party conveniently forgot that the "brain" behind that party was one of the "brains" of the Brexit campaign, and probably the biggest liar of the lot (thinking of you Nige).    The truth is that whatever promisses were made by the Tories in the Brexit shitshow, doesn't matter, but the gross and absolute incompetence afterwards is proof that the old guard needed to go.  Boris, Liz and  Jacob are all gone from their constituencies.   However, the crazies will re-emerge.  Expect all three to run for the head of the party.   It doesn't matter, the Conservatives need a long vacation on the opposition bench.  The crazies will take over for the next cycle, it's guaranteed and will ag

Nearly 20% of registered Republicans are socially conservative born-again Christians, who have crusaded for the past 40 years to make all forms of abortion illegal.   It is that group's single issue (well book burning too...).   From Heritage Foundation project 2025, they all have the same objective pass a federal law to make abortion illegal throughout the country.    As of last night, the official party platform is pro labour, states right (aka the abortion issue) and isolationist, pro Israel, China, and Russia.   Not making this up, the platform is that Taiwan should fend for itself, that Israel should kill all the Muslims and that America will stop funding Ukraine.   A lot of Republicans are pissed (aka Ron DeSantis being #1, and Nikky Haley #2) with this outcome.  Anyone from the Corporate or neo-con part of the party is watching this not because their side lost, but because their side of the Republican party was not in the room when these changes happened.   They are out! I w

Even in banking China resembles Germany.   Chinese banking has three layers, the big four (or five) aka ICBC, the 45 regional banks, still massive but you have never heard of them, and then thousands of small local banks. The top ones are well regulated and strong, account for 50% of all assets, and deal almost exclusively with state owned enterpises and the very largest private companies.   The last 4,000 which are poorly capitalized and account for 15% of total bank assets provide mortgages to Chinese people and loans to property developers.   Their bread and butter new business died five years ago, when the Chinese government created the long overdue real estate correction.  They are being hit on all sides of their balance sheet, which is a consequence of the implosion of the bubble.  In the past, these banks would have been rescued by THE local government where they operated, which would buy the non-performing assets.  That doesn't work anymore, because the state and local gove

There are two schools of thought: (1) Musk is a machiavellian operator and with his money, the PACs will increase the scope of their message, a few of the PACs that have been identified are proponents of the 2025 project (aka.  Extreme right-wing policies, shut down the justice department, abolish federal taxes etc etc).   This will show Americans the extreme corruption of the American republican party.    (2) Musk has a more pressing objective.   It is well known that almost all of his focus now is on SpaceX, and not on Tesla.   A large part of the GOP's platform is anti-Tesla, but if like with Twitter he no longer cares it means he is ready to sacrifice Tesla for a more important goal.    In his tactical mind, Tesla will survive for at least a decade which is the time he needs to make his Mars mission a reality.   It is well known that Elon Musk has discarded projects in the past when he saw they were not going anywhere really useful.  Paypal is only one of thousands of payment s

 This 3 or 4 days marathon of chest-thumping in front of the faithful is a relic of a bygone era! The Republicans either just finished or are about to finish their nomination convention.  Until the 1960s the winner was hardly pre-determined, there was a certain level of excitement but also the whole process although it looked democratic, was no such thing.  Everything was decided in the backrooms.   It then developed into a media show, essentially giving each party tons of free airtime.  This reality shifted first, after 9/11 a new type of convention emerged, especially with the Republicans, that attacked what they call the "mainstream media" which to the rest of the world translates into "people who don't agree with us". Then the rise of social media and the internet killed the whole process.    Talking to the faithful is always nice, but for a party to be ignored by the independents is a grave mistake.  However, for the Republicans, it is a feature because it

 As part of my world tour, not really, I landed in Las Vegas two days ago.   Here is a meeting that I am attending as a favour to my old employer.  The city is unchanged from my last visit a decade ago, the hotels are different and there's the Sphere now, an IMAX on steroids.  But I was there for meetings.   I landed late.  The first morning I had an early breakfast and went for a walk, but did not last long, it was not even 8 in the morning and it was already too hot.   At 2 pm the thermostat was showing 119, to the rest of the planet that's 48c -- the temperature of a Swedish sauna.  You know things are not normal when the locals talk about it.   Thankfully my stay was short, but in the back of my mind, I wondered how people could stand such temperatures.  Needless to say that the discussion about climate change is absolutely forbidden in polite American society. Anyway I was not there to create a fight, just for a few meetings on my way home, which will occur the day after t

 Its simple and it emerged from the first debate -- all the arm chair doctors are analysing of Biden is still all there.  the problem, of course, is that when they are doing this they are not listening to what he has to say, for the Democrats it gets worse, because the armchair doctors are the independents who are still trying to figure out who to vote for -- that's a problem.

 It may take months to discover what pushed a young man to try to kill Donald Trump.   Rumours of political affiliation and of intent will take time to fully emerge.  the killer, did not come from a broken family, he seemed to be a smart kid, who won awards for school performance in mathematics.  Some say that he was apolitical, but really a young man does not start shooting in a crowd if he is apolitical.  Something else happened here.    Rumours that he is a democrat or a republican, both are possible and are also meaningless for a 22 year old.  of course the tragedy is that one man was killed and two other were gravely injured.  As for Trump he got nicked in the ear.  A lucky man. What this means is strange because two related issues, first the whole gun lobby is in trouble here, what do they say it was a false flag to help their guy!   Really?  That Biden should be held accountable, well the Supreme court just ruled on that one too, with the Republicans rejoicing.  So that is a no

 I genuinely thought this story was completed and utter bullshit. A relatively large Shanghai based aluminum and copper reprocess company, basically taking old aluminum and copper and recasting it for use in industrial processes.   Nothing sexy about this business, about as boring as it can be, 100% of its input are local.   All its labour is local, all its revenues are local, the aluminum and copper are sold the users less than 20 km from the plant.   This company could not be any more Chinese.  All its expenses and all its revenues are in Yuan... A month ago, the PLA took over the plant for "unpaid taxes on foreign revenues and for using transfer pricing to avoid Chinese taxes".   This sounds insane and frankly like disinformation because it is so evident.  The company was created 25 years ago, to deal with the local metal waste, that was not steel.  The owner and CEO had previously been an electrician, so he understood the material. Yesterday, I met the ex-CEO.   The PLA g

Why the hate?   I gave my perspective on a currency.   The exchange rate is largely apolitical, there's a lot of stupidity around it, and its "strength" as a kind of macho positioning.  There is no doubt that when the Euro was adopted many European countries confused the rate they set with national strength, others were far more cunning.  Where the French, the Greeks, and Portugese entered to Euro at an unreasonably large premium, created instant wealth but destroyed their competitiveness inside of Europe.  While others (aka Germany) did the exact opposite.  Personally I don't care about AMLO and his government.   However, the government's largest achievement has been to reverse education reform to get the support from teachers, cut public health budget so that hospital can no longer purchase medicine and Reversing the policy of fighting narcos.   He played the austerity game while spending billions on vanity projects (airport, train and refinery).   Mexico's

If you want to know about the world there are three or four importance sources of information, and yet they show the world in a completely different light.  TV5, CNN and Al Jazera.   They all have their bias so you still have to think, TV5 is great about everything that is not Africa, Al Jazera is great about all things that are not the middle east, and CNN is not great it a source of sensational news that repeat the same thing over and over, but they do have a global reach (I may explain at the end). By far the worst most dangerous, with the most death and the greatest attacks on civilians is Sudan, that terrible country which seems to go from one great tragedy to another, remember Darfur... The cruelty, the number of deaths is scale worse than Ukraine and twice that of Gaza (lets not forget that its a tiny territory).   Yet there are demonstration about Gaza and money about the war in Ukraine, and virtually not a single news article about Sudan, with the exception of Al Jazera!  Why?

The stock at $29.16 is only $11.81 from its pre-purchase of Truth Social.   So far aside from the $300 million dollar loss the company has not lost much.  Investors have not gained a great deal, although five months ago the value was in the hands of one group of investors and now it's in the hands of Donald Trump.   IN the last six the SAPAC has transferred about $3  billion to Donald Trump who will have the right to start selling his shares this Friday, six months after the IPO.   All the locked investors will be allowed to slowly sell their shares.  THAT ALONE will ensure that the price remains under pressure, as of today only about 45 million shares are tradable, as of Friday nearly 100 million will be, and five weeks later nearly all the shares will be tradable.  If you follow charts, then assume that $17.24 is the floor (the value of the assets of the company pre dilution), but of course, many many new shares were issued (about 125 million in March), all going to Donald Trump.

As a side business I dabble in currencies, its something I always found fascinating, the downfall of the Euro as a reserve currency can be precisely dated:   The day after the EU seized the cash from Cyprus based banks to restore the country...uncompensated to this day. Now, what makes the Mexican Peso interesting are two external factors, first the Mexican peso was the proxy currency for investing in emerging markets, the correlation was over 80.   Massive and liquid play. The second was the American on-shoring of manufacturing activity away from expensive and politically challenging China.   Sure AMLO was an ass, but for most of the world that was investing into hard assets in Mexico it was irrelevant.  The easy picking for American companies shifting manufacturing to Northern Mexico is about done. Central Mexico and Southern Mexico are the next target but present complex challenges that will require massive investments... the capital is not available domestically. So in 2025 and 202

 People appear to be genuinely curious. 2024 has been a record first half for the farm.  The addition of high tunnels has greatly impacted our revenues.   While we expected Q1 profits to be higher, it really was the second quarter that produced the goods.  The terrible weather has greatly impacted the production of high-end vegetables. Energy costs are now very stable and have become a fixed variable especially now that our bio digesters are fully dialled in.   Replacing some of our pre-dryer equipment was covered under warranty, and the new equipment is far better at dealing with gas moisture, and much better steel!   Our diesel costs are what they are! Our biologist and ecologist devised a new planting plan for our high tunnels that greatly reduced pests, especially slugs.   We have seen a 90% decline in sluggs this year, resulting in better yields.   It seems that several plants act as natural repelants and if planted correctly (location) provide real protection. As we mentioned bef

First was the debate, then the interview.   In neither case did Biden shine.  The interview with 100% softball questions, exactly like what Trump gets from Fox or other Far-right media.  Yet he was all over the place.  Biden will not quit, he will go all the way, because despite his declining mental acuity he is still the Democrat's best hope.   The US economy is on fire, inflation has been falling for three years and interest rates have fallen.  Unemployment and labour participation are at historical lows and highs respectively.    Not all of these improvements are because of Biden, but it remains that the party in power gets rewarded or blamed based on the economy's health.   The war in Ukraine remains popular with the electorate, and the abortion debate is far from over.  The GOP has made it a plan to introduce national legislation to ban abortion.    The truth is all the markers are in place for Biden to win a massive victory.   Voters may not like Biden, but they like the

 The voters realize now that the Conservative Praty desire to return to 19th-century dominance has driven its hatred of the EU.  The voters realize now that departure from the EU has accelerated Britain's decline and may soon make it irrelevant.  At best it will have to kiss American arses to maintain its standing.  For this, the conservatives were punished.  The decline of Britain was inevitable, competition from Frankfurt and Germany in Finance was bound to grow.  The core of Europe (aka Germany) is aging quickly Macron seems to be winning his bet, the left alliance that won the legislative elections will not remain united for long, since they disagree on about everything.   The Far right though it was about to assume power is once again relegated to the back of the bus.   It may draw its own conclusions, but not all of these are good for France.  The far-right has won nearly 1/3rd of the electorate, that is not something to be ignored.  Yet, French politicians are masters of the

 Egypt had had stable government for nearly 5,000 years.   Until modern communication, the country was completely isolated, with desert on either side and fertile land next to the Nile River.  Over thousands of years, irrigation expanded the possible population where nearly twenty million people could be fed from the land it cultivated.   Until 1947, the population of Egypt was about twenty million, in 1962 the population of Egypt was still around 20 million.   Infant mortality and war ensured that over 15 years the population hardly grew.  Today Egypt's population stands at 111 million, the building of the Aswan dam allowed a massive increase in the land that was cultivated, and with the help of foreign-purchased fertilizer (100% imported), the country can meet about half its total caloric input.    Egypt's problem for the past four years was the massive increase in the cost of fertilizer, a good portion of that increase was absorbed by the government, and still the cost of fo

It was to be the coming out party for the French Far Right.   Yet the ended up in third place!   Socialist are the biggest, followed by Macron's and then the far right!   Honestly, I did not see that one coming At the very worse the far right should have been in second place, but to be in third is a surprising outcome.    Anyone who says they predicted the outcome is a liar, none of the polls gave the actual outcome as the likely result from the legislative elections.   Macron will have an interesting job in creating an administration out of  this result.   Calling an election was idiotic, the outcome is far better than he could have hoped still he will probably have to contend with Melanchon as Prime Minister ...an uneasy alliance

 They are back in force this summer.  After a very wet spring when 80% of our rambling trails were under water, the ramblers have now returned.   We've only had two damaged dry stone wall so far, but in all honesty these sections of wall were overdue for maintenance.  We have replaced all the signs around the farm with high visibility ones, so that they not approach our cattle.   We introduced some will breeds of beef this year.   The production is entirely artisanal and for home consumption only.  However, the cattle have rather impressive horns.    Out of the thousands of ramblers we have on our land, the vast majority are polite well behaved and sensible.    There is always the occasional imbecile but that cannot be helped.  It is the reason we added the new fence warnings, that ramblers should be very careful around livestock, and that they are not all friendly.    Still we hd two injuries this week on the farm, some poor women fell into a creek (which was fenced in because the

 About a year ago, we tried to have a permanently wet part of the farm transformed into a pond area.   It would have been an extensive and expensive project, and would have greatly improved the biodiversity of our area.  We were dedicating nearly 10 acres to the project and up to half a million pounds in costs.  The town council decided to get involved and started to make a fuss, an expensive planning fuss.   So my wife and I killed the project, we had already a full plate.   The reason I raise the issue is that I was approached by some of the members of the council, and was asked when we were going to resubmit the project.   The three that asked the question were some of the most reactionary from the council, any change is bad.   So I simply answered the project was dead.  The three who had blocked the project, and had even threatened to bring Heritage UK involved to "stop the development" were shocked.  The whole conversation got a lot uglier, angry letters were received at

It's never who you think, and yesterday the biggest loser was the Scottish National Party!  Sure the Tories got walloped, that's not a surprise, but they retained 121 seats, Reform got 4, nowhere as much as they had hoped and they too will go down the history hole as they rightly deserve. The surprise was the Liberals from 8 to 71. That's the surface result.    In terms of the vote, Reform was the third most popular party well ahead of the Liberals, but it's not so much that the Liberals gained votes it's that Reform took away from the Tories.   Labour saw its share of the vote rise by 1.7%, the largest gain was Reform, but it was diffuse, and so Tories voters voted for Reform.  No one expected that the Tories would do well, but no one saw the total destruction of the Scottish National Party.   Righly, the Tories got killed at the poll, the vast majority of their supporters went for Reform, and that allowed the Liberals to slip between Tories and Labour. Sunak is do

Tonight we will know how big a majority Keir will get in the new parliament. It is important because it will determine how much power he actually has.   Who is in second place is almost irrelevant, the role of the opposition had been greatly diminished with the radicalisation of parliament.   The saddest and funniest moment of the election was the "arrival" of the great savior Boris "I'm the king"  Johson.  How this clown is still listened to by anyone is shocking, as expected better from the Tories.   The reality is that Boris knowingly lied about the impact of Brexit.   He lied about COVID.  However, he does give a good speech!   But so did Hitler.  Not that I am comparing Boris to Adolf.  Boris lies more! Today, I voted Labour for the first time in my life.  I am not proud of this, also the conservative candidate in my constituency is almost certain to win.  The Tories need to go the corner and rethink their actions.  They (not us) need to re-think who they a

In November 2012 I issued a note to our brokers that the one of the most interesting short-term investment was The Boeing Aircraft Company .  I outline why the all encompasing drive to maxmize profits was the single most important factor in my recommendation.   The second was that Boeing has just announce a massive share buyback program, in total the company was going to spend nearly $20 billion in buying back its own share.    I disclosed that as an investor it was important to differentiate between good companies and good return companies, and Boeing was doing everything to maximze short term stock prices.   I suggested a 36 to 48 month hold period, as afterward the shortfall of CAPEX would be felt in the company, especially since Airbus had the new A320 family of aicraft which was due out in late 2016.   I was far from the only strategist to recommend the stock, the truth was the company had been clear that its only drive was to see a rise in the price of the stock.   As a strategis

 The old fight between the far right and the rest of the country is heating up in France.   It looks like a replay of previous elections but one important change is the number of support for the far right.   Will  2024 be a watershed moment?  God only knows, the pressures from the right have been growing for years, immigration is a hot topic, France had done a terrible job at integrating migrants setting them up to fail in the "Cite".    Here the elections are a little loopy, from the far right to the middle right, they will make you believe that the arrival of Labour marks the end of the world.   Maybe, but overall it's irrelevant.   Also, to all those who insist that Brexit has been a total success...maybe one day, but right now the economic cost had been substantial and easy to show.   While the benefits are far harder to quantify.   Over time maybe, but we are talking a decade or more. Our American cousins have a real fight on their hand.  Until the debate I thought t