Farmer Diaries

After two weeks in the United States, it is good to be back home, although we miss the warm weather from Los Angeles.  As they say, typical English weather; it's rainy and 9.   Still, stiff upper lip and all. My impression of America is a sea change from what it was just months ago.  The change is dramatic, far worse than what is reported in the press.    Price rise and availability of certain goods have not really occurred yet, but the writing is on the wall.    Trump it seems is playing some kind of mad checkers game that has no rhyme or reason, tariff policy changes daily, and even takes some of his own people by surprise, the chaos is total and when the President says "they are all coming to negotiate" the question has to be what and with whom? I mean, attacking Harvard because it doesn't support Israel enough when the university president is Jewish...letters are sent, disavowed, but then policy is implemented on what the letters say?  If...

 Friends of ours are celebrating their daughter's wedding over the weekend, so my wife and I decided to make a holiday out of it.    As much as possible, we stay away from American politics; it makes good sense when you are a foreigner.  I would dislike having Americans tell me how rotten the UK political system is.  It's actually hard to watch the games being played in Washington.   "Permanent tariffs" are being discussed as transitory -- the news is directly from the President himself.  Every day, there's more activity from Washington with the American President acting more and more like a dictator.    Do we care? Not really, for foreigners, America's democracy is not real, as far as they (we) are concerned, certain groups have total power over our stay here.   So we take the whole thing with a grain of salt and watch from the sidelines.    One big change this year is that my wife and I have agreed on signals when t...

 I know it sounds insane, the policy was announced THURSDAY, where Chinese exports of electronic goods would not, after all, face a 145% tariff...It's Monday, and Trump & Friends are already walking this announcement back. It seems that the SEC should investigate Trump, because on Friday morning, several GOP members of Congress acquired a lot of tech shares.   Now I don't want to sound the alarm, but writing "fake news" on Thursday and then two business days later changing your mind sounds like a pump and dump.  I mean you buy the S&P index Thursday night, and you sell your position Friday night, and buy short position... Whatever is happening, on the tariff front, take it with a massive grain of salt, because it can all change in 24 hours.

Yesterday, while the US trade representative was being grilled about the massive increase in US tariffs and what was the strategy of these new cost to the American consumer, the President announced the "suspension of the tariffs". Now, what is important here is that these suspensions do not impact the tariffs that have been placed on America's three largest trading partners, China, Mexico and Canada.   Who account for nearly 65% of all foreign trade with the United States. What was interesting is that the US government's lead trade representative was unaware of the "suspension"; he knew nothing about it.   That means there is no trade strategy or methodology; there is nothing to analyse, it is entirely based on the tantrums of Trump.    Without a strategy, there can be no action by the participants.    That means an absolute decline in capital expenditure.   Do you grow your farm when there is a risk that American beef will be sold on th...

 Two seldom-visited islands, part of Australia, saw a massive increase in the tariffs they will face when exporting to the United States.   The 32,000 residents did not have much to say...being Penguines.   NO kidding, massive tariffs were imposed on Heard Island and McDonald Islands.  According to the Australian government, the last visitor to Heard was about a decade ago.   Never mind the 47% tariff on Madagascar, where the principal export is Vanilla and the GDP per capita is less than $500 a year. Not only a Stable Genus but evidently an administration that took all of two hours to proof the list of countries.    They also treated St Pierre & Miquelon, two islands part of France in the middle of the St Lawrence Gulf...

 The first quarter of the year is over, and our performance is in line with last year. The small fall in fuel costs has impacted the firm a little bit, but overall, we are within 1% of last year's Q1 results.   The big question is Q2, but it's much too early to say. Our team number is static on the farm, but we did acquire a business last year so ignoring that new income stream shows results in line with last year, the new business is already performing ahead of projections, the impact of additional capital cannot be undersated, it has freed up a lot of resources inside the firm. Agai,n I want to thank everyone.

 President Trump seems to believe that he can raise $6 trillion from tariffs, his stated objective is to cut income tax for his constituency -- wealthy Americans.  There is also a move to cut social security Medicaide and medicare, three of the four most expensive programs for the Federal Government --- with defence, they represent 80% of the federal budget. Tuesday, the American government introduced lots of new tariffs; there is absolutely no way of knowing how this will work out.   What the government will do and what others will do.     No one ever believed that Trump would do it, but he is, expect a massive increase in US domestic inflation over the next two years until all these tariffs are worked out. It will not be a bed of roses around here either.