Farmer Diaries

First let me be very honest, by crystal ball has been remarkably out of wack. I got Greece wrong -- I don't know what the ECB had on Greek leaders but it was enough to get them to back down from leaving the Euro/ECB.  The consequences for the country and its citizen has been dire!   Unemployment is still very high,  retiree are still suffering from massive cuts to their pensions.   The system has broken down Thankfully young Greeks with some language skills have been able to leave the country Brexit:  Although I though there was some very good reasons for Britain to leave Europe the reason's my compatriots decided to leave were for jingoistic reasons Sterling has so far done rather well The economy has not collapsed -- its even growing again The Euro:  She strength of the Euro; now around 119 to the greenback is unsettling insofar that it shows a greater confidence in Europe, than in America -- who's currency has been rather weak -- against e...

[ Update:  A good friend made the following comment earlier this week:  "50 inches of rain is 50 inches of rain -- whatever you do, what ever you plan, you don't plan for 50 inches of rain.  Despite that the water evacuation system for the city of Houston works as planned... b ut 50 inches of rain is 50 inches of rain, even with the best planning there will be massive flooding.  Houston is ridiculously flat, there is simply no technology (or even green spaces) that can deal with 50 inches of rain" ] Last Friday I friend was flying to central America via Houston -- as NOAA was announcing that Harvey (which made land fall as a cat 4 hurricane) was approaching the coast of Texas, and where Houston, although not at the centre of the storm, was on the leading edge. United the airline that was routing her via Houston would not change her flight, that as long as the airport was not closed -- they would continue to route passenger via that airport.  The business of ...

Several months ago I wrote that the ending (effective rather than legal) would be the results of a 1,000 cuts; none of the issue serious in themselves, but together they would kill Trump's presidency.  Clearly, Trump is a loud mouth that cannot stay away from Twitter -- to say that his inauguration crowd were larger than that of Obama -- well in fact destroying his first ever news cycle with that (in fact this lasted almost a week), was telling. What I could not (no one could) predict is that 99% of the cuts were self inflicted!  You may be a racist idiot but you still understand that equating neo-nazi and far right fascist organization with anti-fascist organization is not the same kettle of fish!  Yet, in Trump's mind those who want to exclude people based on ethnicity have the same moral rights that those who preach inclusion. Even if you are a racist (and there is little doubt now that Trump is just that) as a politician you know what can and cannot be said -- gra...

The images at certain Quebec/NY border crossing are not on the scale of what you see in war zones where "the people" are fleeing advancing armies, and America's right wing may be ridiculing the whole endeavour but it remains a powerful image that blacks are fleeing the US...call it what you want, the change in US immigration policy -- a fallout of the ending of Obama's open arm gesture to Haiti following the earthquake of 2010! Quebec  is obviously a natural destination for Haitians; obviously the idea of living in the land of "gold and honey"  aka the United States of America has come to an end for many of them.  They are not going to a more "natural destination" that is Quebec, where the already very large Haitian population and the language commonality are important factors. Still black people fleeing the USA is a powerful image.  So far its a small number (in total over the last 10 days it has been somewhat around 4 to 5 thousands.  However...

The events of the last week, with Trump saying that he's getting ready to be serious with Iran, and it turns out two days ago, with North Korea (apparently most Americans think that North Korea is in Canada...). Two important externalities that may (or may not) affect the global economy!  The issue arose when meeting a new client (yeah) this morning and reviewing the world at large.  Two years ago we discussed his possible investment in the US retail sector -- while the numbers were still "ok" the underlying factors were not.  My point at the time was that the retail landscape was changing -- the internet was/is modifying shopping behaviours and this increases investor risk. Externality 1  Internet shopping:  Most people don't understand risk adjusted returns; they get the difference between government bonds, but even there, they have limits (Portugal is not the same as the US government).  Looking at this real estate play (in retrospect) would have ge...

Canadians look and sound (mostly) like Americans.  To a Canadian to be referred to as an American is a huge insult (well maybe not that big, but we are always concerned with foreigners hating Americans...why take a chance!).  Anyway, while the rest of the world suffered from America's mortgage binge of 2008, few in Canada were affected -- excluding my old firm.  So when the world went crazy, Canada just slowed down a bit.  Canadian banks had to use the liquidity of the Bank of Canada, and its (the BoC) balance sheet grew, but within a few quarters that liquidity was fully repaid.  For Canadian banks this was an opportunity to shop for talent south of the border, with great success for some (thinking of you RBC, BMO) and less so for others (CIBC, TD and NBC). Canada's economy slowed a bit, as oil prices dipped as did commodities but the people's principal asset (their houses) hardly faltered, it has been a constant upswing in Canadian house price with only a br...

lets see: Hire Scaramucci, Hire John Kelly fire Scaracucci -- 10 days it took to go from "Hey I work at the White House" to "Hey can I get my job back at Eximbank".  He's after session Start a fight with the GOP and insiste that the Senate should do nothing else than kill Obamacare!  He said that he would sign anything, just anything that is put on his desk.  The reality of politics is killing Trump's agenda.  If he starts a fight with the Senate then what?  His projects were: "Kill I say kill Obamacare" -- I suspect that this is personal rather than philosophical Kill the Muller Russia investigation Tax reform Infrastructure project Reform immigration -- he suggested a point system (that's what we use in Canada) Aside from that he wants to make America great again, which is a good goal to have assuming he can.  I though it was idiotic of him to suggest that the stock market's rise is due to him, what happens when the stock m...

Well Whatever the Russians wanted to achieve in the American electoral system part of it has been a total success.  Is Trump (son) a bought and paid for shill for Putin, of course not.  Was he a fuc&ng moron to go to a meeting with Russians (connected to Putin) to get dirt on Clinton -- Yeah!  Was Manafort a moron too (the bate was just too attractive -- Trump had asked the Russians  -- on live TV to find dirt on Clinton)? Putin somehow destroyed the legitimacy of Trump (not that he was seen as very legitimate) by playing the Russian game of "look here, find the Cheese".  Granted Trump is probably the least qualified holder of the Oval office, on the other hand he's exactly what Ryan and McConnell were dreaming about -- a president that will sign any legislation he just doesn't care.  Trump is not that different from the other 7-9 Republican candidates (remember those). They all held similar views -- if anything Trump was at the left (better healthc...

The seriousness of the Senate, in fact of America's entire elected body was un jeopardy last night when the Senate Republicans drafted a new version of the health bill between noon and 10 pm -- to then reveal the health care bill for a midnight vote! Can American electoral system be more broken?  I am sure that this morning, the blame game will start in earnest; Trump will blame the Democrats -- after all they got 120 minutes to review the bill, but were not allowed to ask any question or make any amendement -- clearly their fault if the bill failed! This morning Mike Huckabee suggested in a Tweet that the 17th amendment should be abolished -- that Senators be elected not by the legislature, as it had in the past, but by the people (BTW this is not really unusual -- in fact the French Senate elections are by elected official in each district).  Still, the GOP's view is if we don't get what we want lets change the rules -- never for one minute thinking of the impact of t...

Soooo I had a very pleasant dinner with a very good friend -- a big cheese in one of Canada premier investment bank -- that has Canada's largest research budget...by far.  I mentioned, en passant, that Nomura had set an annual price of $120,000 for its gold plated research, and that I was thinking that few would pay that kind of money.   He disagreed fundamentally. In his view, research is not about paper but about access, access to special conference where every American tech CEO is present (you never hear about those conferences -- private and no journalists) they give "prime" investors the CEO's thinking -- that's privileged information (but legal).  Usually these conferences (Goldman has the best) are limited to 50/100 investors -- their top clients which is where the problem arises, in a sense, there are a lot more than 50/100 real investors, and for them this information simply doesn't exist! My very good friend only though of his 50 best clients -...

Obsolescence is a feature of the 20th and 21st century manufacturing process, but does our society require obsolescence.  The reason the question is intersting is a relatively recent TED talk with Elon Musk where we spoke about his new solar roofs -- one of the main features was that because the tiles are made of glass they don't wear out.  Essentially a solar roof made by Musk's company could outlast the house on which it has been installed. Modern cars have hundreds of moving parts (on average 1,500) a Tesla model S around 45...The engine has one moving part, the wheels and breaks account for a bunch more, trunks, door handle, steering wheel and pedals -- things that don't really wear out anyway. Musk's two main products (cars and solar roofs) seem to have very very long lifespan.  The often told story is that the first light bulbs were made to last for every, but consumer society allowed manufactures to make them disposable -- true but not for the reason most peo...