Farmer Diaries

 Canada is a large country with an insignificant role in global affairs.  It major claim to fame is to have the longest, largely unprotected border with the United States.   Over the past two months, Canada has become President Trump's favourite punching bag. At first, it seemed that it was because the then-Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, had made fun of him at a G8 conference.   His party could read the tea leaves as well as anyone else; they were going to lose the federal election (scheduled for November 2025) badly.  On January 6th, Trudeau resigned.   First because of internal pressure, but also massive pressure from the Conservative Party. A month ago, already with no known leader the Liberals had gone from a 20-point deficit, where the Conservative opposition had a huge advantage, to near parity with the Conservatives.   The chief of the Party called Pierre Polievre, had been playing the "pro-MAGA" card for nearly 18 months al...

 It is often said that an American President has 100 days after the election as a kind of "Honey Moon".    The score for the current holder of the job is not too good, nevermind the court reverting about 90% of what DOGE did as illegal.  But the fumbling of the ball has been rather spectacular. Trump this morning will receive his first real piece of legislation from Congress, something to do with cryptocurrencies... Then of course there is the daily commentaries, completed and utter bullshit,.   Unsurprisingly, the Department of health has become an anti-vaxer hotbed with a rather serious outbreak of measles in Texas.   A few children have already died, apparently, and I find this incredible to hear. The mother of one of the two children who died said that his sacrifice was worth it against the crusade against vaccines.   As they say you cannot cure stupid. The latest trouble is the invitation on Signal (A Russian-owned and controlled co...

 Trading around $20 a share is amazing that its still that high considering the December numbers that came out.   revenues are flat at one million, and expenses are around $40.   So far nothing that the management has proposed has had any success.  Rumours are that they spend nearly $100 million on a media platform of some kind, but no serious (or otherwise) third party has mentioned any activities with the group.   The company has been less than clear as to its plans, and so far the SEC has left them alone, mainly because they probably perceive this trade as politically protected.   It's not that the managers are crooks, they are simply incompetent and expensive.     Stories emerged that the management team is paid nearly 25 million a year in compensation, for a company that generated about a million dollars in revenues a quarter with no obvious growth opportunity.  Trump's stake in the firm has gone from about $5 bi...

I was in the US this week for many reasons but one of them was to reconnect with some university friends, a convergence of sorts.    One of my friends worked in the Department of Energy.  A very very smart fellow, his job has to do with the maintenance of America's nuclear arsenal, I am not joking.    His knowledge is vast on all kinds of aspects of America's nuclear weapons arsenal.   Now the new administration decided that he was not need and he was fired.   This is where it gets good.   My friend had wanted to leave the department for some time, but government rules would make him illegible for the job he was best suited, because of civil service rules in jumping to private enterprise The one exception, getting fired!    Less than a day after he was fired, he had a fantastic job offer, at 10 times the salary.   Now this is the good bit, he's part-time back in his old office, his salary has gone up and he is do...

 In the past two months, the American President had done almost anything he could to weaken the Republic against Russia and China.    Stop all ongoing or outgoing attacks against Russian cyber attacks Created cracks in NATO Buying wholesale Russian disinformation on Ukraine Destabilizing the Western world economic order with massive tariffs on everything Shut down the easy wins such as USAID Shut down food safety agencies Shut down all departments that deal with government corruption or foreign interference Destroy the upper levels of the US military in a "anti woke" fight that lives in his imagination Fired all forest fire crew Fired all senior levels at NOAA Fired all investigators at the food safety agency This cannot be seen as incompetence; this is a clear signal that the American president's objective is to make America poorer and less secure.

Not much else to say about that, Trump rambled for 90 minutes and did not raise "his favourite thing" a single time.

 So our eldest daughter is in the market for a new car.  She eventually picked an electric car.  I was shocked by the breadth of options, every single car manufacturer sells an electric car.   On the farm we only use Diesel vehicles, and several UTVs and ATVs.   I remember in 2020 when we were looking to replace the family car, we owned a Range Rover that, contrary to expectations, has been bullet proof, but after breaking two transmissions (my fault entirely).  We picked a Land Cruiser mainly because there's a dealer less than 5 miles from the farm.    We could have purchased an electric vehicle, but the truth is that at least twice a month we drive to London.  The 120-mile journey would have been fine, but at the time there were no electric SUVs that had the range we sought.    Thank God we never thought of the cybertruck...now that's an expensive disaster.  Also, we don't have off-street parking in London so the el...

Since the CCP made the decision to put the brakes on the real estate sector, the writing was on the wall.   Chinese banks were doomed.   Real estate accounts for nearly 20% of China's GDP, not entirely surprising since Chinese people need to invest their excess income somewhere, and since foreign markets are closed off, it leaves Chinese savers with few outlets:  Government debt, Corporate debt, the stock market and housing.  The easiest and until about 5 years ago was the housing market.   Friends would get together and purchase properties, these were seen as a savings tool with a better return.     The problem was that for Chinese people the idea was never to invest in productive assets, it was a store of value, therefore the apartments were left empty and often unfinished to reduce tax liability.   Most Chinese savers (like Americans before them in the 1980s and before 2008) used leverage to increase "performance"....

 The world is facing an interesting time with President Trump playing with the tools of government.   One thing for sure, is that uncertainty is a much more important factor than it has been for the past few years.   Our Prime Minister was asked if Britain could "take" the Russians, an idiotic question considering that the United Kingdom is an Island far from Russia, but the real point is could Europe "take" Russia?   What the Ukrainians have demonstrated in spade is that the Russian army is not what it used to be, and the nuclear threat is the same for Europe as it would be for the Americans.  The answer is yes, Europe can deal with the Russians. However, the tariff games that Trump has been playing are another story entirely.   The destabilization that he creates will first stop all capital investment.  Boardrooms the world over will slow down the CAPEX train until they have a firm understanding of what is going on.    P...

 In short nothing! The United Kingdom is suffering from the first real impact of Brexit.    As they say, the chickens are coming home to roost, and there's nothing to be done.   Europe had surplus production in almost everything, so they are looking at imposing trade barriers against the UK similar to what they impose on other countries, they are saving jobs at home, and the cost of these jobs is a slowing British economy, with fewer revenues and a bigger deficit.  In addition, most of the financial benefits of Europe (e.g., to farmers) were not replaced.  That's something I observed firsthand, we would get offers of European money, which in most cases were rejected, (one big exception was a grant for nearly 20% of the cost of our biodigesters).   The country will be poorer and will be poorer for several years, unfortunately, Europe will soon join us in this poverty, the impact of demographic decline.   Italy and Germany are the pro...

 The American President is now picking fights with allies and with Canada and Mexico in particular.   The on-again-of-again tariffs are set to be live on March 1, 2025.   25% of all Canadian goods, and 10% for energy.  The sector most affected is the automobile sector.   It was the CANADIAN GOVERNMENT, which imposed tariffs on US automobiles in the 1950s to protect the sector that gave rise to the Autopact and eventually Nafta.    The anti-immigration anti-illegal worker push is now affecting US industrial investments, the money is waiting to figure out where the dominos will fall, and this gives China time, which is all they need. The problem is obvious, Donald Trump's ADHD is kicking in, and for him, the China problem is solved.  

 In my "vast" experience in dealing with the civil service, there are numerous reasons for people to be there.  Surprisingly enough there are many types, but very few are incompetent, and some know very well that they could easily find jobs in the private sector for salaries that are multiple of what they are being paid. Donald Trump has offered to large swats of the civil service buyouts so that they leave.   The take-up has been surprisingly large, why because their view of "service:"  is being challenged and they are openly told that their services are no longer required, they are being paid to leave.    In virtually all cases that I am aware of, these were brilliant (I only know 4) men and women, the reason I  know is that all four found new jobs in the private sector the very next day.   The buyout was not the issue for them, it was not the money, it was the disrespect of the administration for their skills.  Not only that beca...

 In 2019, FDI in China totalled nearly 350 billion dollars.   In 2024, according to the Chinese government, it totalled 3.4 billion, a 99% collapse.    There are several reasons for the collapse, the most important is the increase in security and making almost any data state secret, it became impossible for companies to have a good sense of what was happening in China.   The second reason is COVID-19, the corporate link between foreign companies and their Chinese subsidiaries were broken during the almost two-year-long shutdown.   Third, for the past 8 years the trend toward foreign trade has been negative, first Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, but then Biden left them in place, and A bit later the Europeans did the same thing, the truth was that the trade imbalance between Europe and China and between the US and China has grown at double-digit speed.     My personal experience is inexistent, but if you cannot have a ma...

 Everyone knows how to spot a Canadian backpacker, the little Canadian flag, usually only the maple leaf is enough.   Well following Donald Trump's game with the Tariffs, Canadian retailers, especially in the food sector have begun adding little Canadian flags, my guess is that some retailers will soon come up with country of origin tags, for the Canadian, it may be worthwhile to differentiate American and Mexican goods.   The only reason I am aware of this was a couple of videos and a call from an old colleague who wants to go skiing in a few weeks, he's based in Vancouver and confirmed that many stores now use the little red flag.  the result has been startling, the boycott is real, and more importantly, retailers have begun putting "Canadian" merchandise at eye level.    It is hard to see if this trend will persist, but to many there its a signal, and if rumours are true the impact is real. Interesting

 Things are bad when Donald picks of fight with India.   total trade between US and India, about 40 billion dollars (aka peanuts).   What does America buy, pharmaceuticals are the most important, a lot of drugs on the shelves of your local CVS are from India.   What does America export to the US again ordinary stuff, equipment and machinery.   The question is why did Donald pick of fight with India of all places? Now Donald will institute a massive increase in tariffs, 99% of everything exported to the US can be exported elsewhere, and it will.   the only people who will suffer are American consumers, but they are the suckers anyway. The problem for Donald is that his only real target is China. Tariffs between Europe and America are almost the same, so reciprocal tariffs will have no impact on Europe. Tariffs in Europe are 5% vs. 3.2% in the US. Now, on Steel and Aluminum, the Europeans and the Canadians have a nice growth path. It ...

 Last December, we shut down the first business in which we invested; making baby food.   The reason was we were being sued for having glass in our food.  We took this very seriously and immediately shut down our production as soon as we heard that a client had found glass in her daughter's baby food, she was asking 100,000 pounds for distress and possible harm to her daughter.   We found this to be a strange reaction and so we asked for a sample of the glass, and what came out was that the glass was not from our pots.   In fact, none of the glass in our plant matched.  Because the ask was so large, the insurance company got involved as the Office for Product Safety and Standards. The managers, ourselves sat down with the various authorities and in the end, the decision was made to shut down the company, first because we could no longer get insurance, and as such the business was doomed.   In reality, the meeting was far shorter tha...

 I rode a cybertruck a year ago, while in Los Angeles.   It was fine, as far as it was, the road noise was a pain, and I thought that $120,000 was a bit much, but it was not my money.   A few things have emerged, first, the craze for electric vehicles has died down, I suspect that it's temporary, with Trump's stupid games there are stupid prizes and higher energy costs are a given.   Buying a Tesla 3 or Y when gasoline costs 8 dollars is easier to swallow. The one killer for the Tesla cybertruck was how hard and expensive it was to repair.   According to everyone I spoke to (and I spoke to two people who own one) the time and cost are much higher than for regular vehicles.   So few places specialize in dealing with electric vehicles. The impact of all this on Tesla has been epic from $450 a share to $350 in less than 45 days.   However, year on year the stock is still up nearly 75%, so stories of the demise of Tesla are gr...

 Over the past 75 years, America made a deal with the rest of the OECD, you get to sell your shit to our country and you will be our cannon fodder when the Russians invade.  That commitment to the rest of the world had been in decline since 1990 (aka the fall of the Berlin Wall etc).   Now, America is energy-independent (if you include Canada and Mexico) and doesn't give a crap about the world, America is the same as it was in 1890s -- they wanted out! Trump for all his faults (and there are a lot) declared something very wise, we will match each country's tariffs.   right now America imposes an average tariff of 3.2% (which covers all the costs associated with imports) foreigners don't pay taxes in the US for "services".   The vast majority of OECD countries impose far greater tariffs on US imports (the best of the lot is the UK with tariffs of 3.5%), Europe is at 5%, Japan and Korea at 11.5% and 13%, well you get where I am going with this....

 I mean, it says something about the country, but it is something that has been true for a few years now, it's just that our chickens are coming home to roost, and we only have ourselves to blame.  On the bright side, the country borrows mostly in its own currency, which it controls, the cost of future borrowing will rise, but it's the reality of living in a country that has told its neighbours to "fu$k off".  Whenever we go out I get taken to task for having worked in the City (aka the financial district), as if it was our fault that consecutive government took the easy road, and voters elected them.   Right now Labour is being blamed for the whole mess, granted they were largely silent during the whole vote for Brexit because it fitted their "plan" to restrict the flow of labour (don't ask but there were some serious morons in that party -- the Conservative did not have a monopoly on idiots).    So the UK is once again forced to face the reality that...

 The devil is in the details, and trust me, the details will kick Trump's ass!   The reality of Trump is that once he writes an executive order, he's basically done, the problem is that Republican congress does nothing with all the executive orders.   They are still anti-government, so nothing will happen.   What Trump has done is stopped the engine of government, with his buddy Elon on the side looking at running each department, according to sources every CIA employee has been offered a redundancy package.   What does this do?  It stops everything but that's the easy bit.  What's next?   It's not the Democrats in Congress that will do anything, they are basically treated by the new administration as the enemy, traitors to the nation.  On the Republican side, no new laws are being prepared.  why bother, fighting DEI is more fun, and gets your airtime (by the way having only white guys in charge is clear evidence...

 In 2019, the governor of California passed a new law which prohibited insurance companies from raising insurance premiums, without the express authorization of the California legislature.   This was following the massive brush fires that saw entire towns burned to the ground, and insurance companies re-pricing the risk of fire, following dry weather.  California enacted rules where clear brush cutting around powerlines was made illegal... That was the first blow to the insurance industry, which was already having issues across the entire country, excessive competition had kept rates too low for too long.    The second hit was the rise in the cost of construction, in 2018 the cost of a one-inch sheet of plywood was $24.15, and in 2024 the same sheet of plywood was $82.45.   The average annual cost of construction across the United States has grown by 8% per annum for the past 10 years.   Yet insurance premiums increases in California wer...

 The first thing to understand about Donald Trump is that he likes a free ride, it has been his life story.   So tariff presents the ultimate free ride, it's usually a tax on consumption (aka the poor) and it is "paid by foreigners" who don't vote for you. The backdown against Mexico and Canada is just the first step in the battle, the 10% tariff against China is nothing, the suspension of USPS from carrying goods from China is the real thing, that's a real trade war because it affects ordinary Chinese citizens and not big Chinese corporation (except TEMU).   On March 1st, tariffs will be imposed on Canada and Mexico.   Thankfully for Canada and Mexico, it presents an opportunity, a small one, but Canada can import orange juice from Mexico and all its fruits from Mexico too, instead of the United States.    The most immediate impact will be to kill the small car business of US manufacturers, and to increase the price of all US automobiles by ...

 I've not talked about the British economy very much.  Granted it's not firing on all cylinders, things are thought and blaming the Labour government is easy.   I agree that some of the recent policy announcements were expensive giveaways to people who will soon be able to dictate terms. The reality of a post-Brexit world is finally coming home to roost, it is evident that the Conservative who had three years in power after the "day" did nothing.   The new government is still finding its feet, it will be interesting. Of course the government's biggest problem is the new American administration.  In the past week, Trump has made more public statements than Biden did in four years in power.   For Britain, the problem is dealing with the 800-pound gorilla. the problem is simply, that certain classes of civil servants have discovered that they have real bargaining power, that they did not have in the past.  Nurses, Doctors, technicians....

 In the United States, every department has an inspector whose job is to report to Congress how well (or badly) things are working in a department, from embezzlement to misuse of resources to conduct that is well outside the department rules or even breaksing laws. twelve of the most important checks and balances have been removed in a midnight raid.   In effect, Congress will not be informed (or the public) of mismanagement, theft and overreach. The impact is simple, lots of illegal things are about to happen.  the interesting thing is will Congress let Trump get away with it?  In my estimation, they will.  Republicans in Congress are not the most courageous lot, some are remarkably stupid and more importantly ignorant.  What Trump is setting up is an autocratic system where his "enemies" who always played by the rules will be hounded out of office and put in jail.    Trump admires two people Putin in Kim Jung Un.   Let's face it, ...

 I used to be a political animal here in the United Kingdom.  I lost interest in the last few years of the Conservative term.   Honestly, Brexit broke me!   So when I am asked about President Trump a few things are clear.  First, a leopard does not change his spots; what was true of the first administration is certain to be true of the second. In the first two years of his first administration, Trump was surrounded by people who were of the faith but had no trouble in speaking to power.  They were all fired!  Those who survived were the ones that prayed to the altar of The Donald.  Yes, I am being hurtful, but the truth always hurts.   Bottom line those who did well in the second half of his administration drank the cool aid.  The problem with the cool aid is that you are divorced from reality.  So the administration wants to kick out all the illegal immigrants, well where will he kick them out?   Will Mexic...

Before Christmas, and as a favour to an old friend I spent a fortnight in China, granted about half the trip was in Shanghai.   Talking about China when you spent most of your time in Shanghai is like talking about the United States after a week in New York.  You have no idea what you are talking about.  My two weeks in the country were to meet "clients" of my old friend, as a company can no longer travel to the country, but me and my wife, as tourists were left mostly alone.    First, I must say that I had forgotten how beautiful the country is, and the size of the domestic tourist industry.   Shanghai is an amazing city, and since 90% of my time there was spent in the central part, I did not see any of the dislocation mentioned everywhere.   The one aspect that really surprised me was the number of cameras everywhere.   I mean, we complained in London, but in Shanghai and the other cities we visited, it was insane.  ...

 So Donald decided to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.  I wonder if this will be as popular as when George Bush chose to rename French fries Freedom fries, to the total consternation of the French population who always wondered why Americans called "frites" french fries since the country best known for "frites" was Belgium and not France.    To the French, the "insult" led to more hilarity than anything else, since it demonstrate the ignorance of Americans as to where the food came from (don't get me started on hot dogs or Hamburgers). If it is any consolation there has not been an official renaming of places since 1953,  the Japanese and the Koreans are still in a tiff about the naming of the Sea of Japan (aka the Sea of the East).  Anyway, America can call the Gulf of Mexico anything it wants, it doesn't mean that anyone is paying attention, and it is unlikely that a lot of maps will change the names (maybe some pro-Maga map maker -- ...

We rented a few condos in Vail for the Christmas period, in fact, we landed in the US on the 26 of December for 10 days of skiing and fun.   The skiing and the fun were all there, which was great, what was less fun was the "political discussions".  For some reason, Americans are convinced that the entire world is interested in the bowel movement. I mean, sure Trump won, but he's not taking office for a few weeks yet and the stuff coming out is amazing, I mean invade Canada, Greenland and Panama.  My favourite was three nights ago when some guy was trying to convince everyone that it was not Putin who had invaded Ukraine.   I mean that's beyond revisionist history.    When did America's far-right become pro-Russian?  In short Americans are nuts and that's that.  I have no idea how successful Trump will be in his second term,. because he did absolutely nothing in the first term, he did cut taxes and built about 10 km of new walls with Mexi...