Farmer Diaries

Tesla and Truth Social are two strange animals in the US stock market.  First, Tesla has seen terrible operating performance and massive stock grants to its CEO and founder.   The world's single largest stock granted by a 20x order of magnitude.   Yet the company goes from weakness to weakness, and fails to deliver on new products.  The cybertuck is a disaster, the Y and the 3 are not leading the market anymore with falling sales, other brands such as BYD are doing a lot better across the world (not only China).    As for Truth Social, its performance continues to disappoint with massive operating losses, and now the rumors that it will be acquired by an American company active in the nuclear power plant business (Not a single nuclear power plant has been built in the US in nearly 40 years…).  Yet the stock is still trading around $14.00 (the company generated a $55 million loss in the last quarter, and has not generated a profit since incept...

It has started!   Things in Las Vegas have been hard for nearly 24 months now.   The strategy was always doubtful.  How many high rollers were there in reality?  The chase for the higher premium players the massive increase in the cost of visiting "Sin City", and the reality of ageing demographics was certain the result in one outcome:  failure and bankruptcy Las Vegas is a microcosm of the rest of America, a bet made on borrowed monies.   In the past 7 years the debt burden of the average casino has doubled, but more seriously the cost of debt service has grown exponentially, based on unrealistic assumptions.   Bottom line the cost of financing Las Vegas has risen from 1.1% per annum to 6.5% now, and virtually 30% of Las Vegas casino properties are heading for chapter 11 or maybe even chapter 7 (liquidation). An extreme example is the dome, that costed nearly $2.3 billion, and requires that 95% of its seats be sold at a premium rat...

 it’s been a while. To be perfectly blunt I’ve been busy, and repeating the same old thing over and over gets old quickly. Early this morning, the Americans decided to reveal all the information on the Epstein files. There is no doubt, that the data that will come out will be bad for Trump, but the worst of it is that no one will believe that everything is out. Maga and its cohort will still believe that some files are hidden away, especially when there are rumours that the department of justice has been trying to clean up the file of all the names of Republicans.  We know the data is bad, because of defrocking of Andrew Mountbatten (A.k.a. Prince Andrew).  It will do nothing to Trump, he’s Teflon and will remain Teflon. But more importantly is now officially a lame duck president. For the past year, Donald Trump has worked very hard at stopping the publishing of the Epstein paper and has failed spectacularly. Of course he’s now playing the role of the guy who wanted the ...

 The most amazing thing about the actions of ICE against the South Carolina plant being built by the Koreans, was the gleeful commentary by ICE. According to the leader of ICE, the raid had followed from months of investigation against the company. The implication, is that this was not an accident but actually by design. It’s hard to understand how America wins from this. Korea was well on its way to meeting Donald Trump’s expectation of massive investment in American manufacturing. It’s unclear how the bosses in Seoul Will react to the ice comment. However, the nearly 375 Korean workers are being deported and will be unable to return to the United States for at least a decade. this is where it gets interesting. The Korea workers were there to install the machines that were to make the plan function. That means, that the Koreans no longer have the necessary staff to get the plant working. Depending on how much the Koreans have spent on the new plant, either they will slow down the ...

 That's how some are referring to the National Guards that are currently deployed in Washington DC, they have nothing better to do than to pick up the trash from the parks...kind of sad

I just spent the last five days in Washington.  First, I did not fly commercial, we flew on a Challenger, and the immigration and customs reception was fine, polite even. Goes to show that some pigs are more equal than others. The trip itself was a favor for a friend, the conversations were with the government, some of the biggest players in the administration.   My observations are general: People I've met were polite but generally clueless and uninterested in the work.   It was evident that despite my counterparts being very senior, they had no authority.   Not only that, they absolutely did not want authority The discussions were about very serious topics that impinge the relationship between the UK and the US, and yet there was no sense of urgency, or even a desire to correct what was clearly incorrect information.   The knowledge base was shockingly shallow, and the American bench was very thin.    On my return to the UK after ...

Don't even think about it!   There are powerful forces in place to ensure that even if Trump is greatly diminished that he will remain in power for the foreseeable future.   Think of Regan, Joe Biden, both clearly diminished by the end of the term, and yet protected by the party and the White House. What you can expect is less Trump in your face, fewer visits and speeches, but he will be there long after he is no longer competent. It is the nature of the beast.

 The Numbers for Truth social stock price are pretty bad. Not bad in the sense that the company is now severely undervalued, considering it makes no money, has no prospect of ever making money, it’s shocking that it is still worth $17.55 a share. Yet, it’s only three bucks from the lowest level. It’s ever been since acquired the business that is now true social. Before that, it was just an acquisition company.  so, the reality is that true social it’s not a real company, it’s a vanity project, and the quarterly reinvention,It’s proof, that the company has no real business plan. Last quarter, the business plan was to create some kind of video feed company, now, it’s acquiring bitcoin, apparently or some kind of cryptocurrency. At best, it’s Mildly amusing at  worse. It’s a scam.

In 1984, the total Japanese sovereign debt as a percentage of GDP was below 20%. At the end of 2024, Japan's sovereign debt as a percentage of GDP was 229%. What happened in these 40 years? Quite simply, the Japanese were the first to employ quantitative easing to turbo-charge economic growth. It all started after the crash of 1987. Japan’s growth had been anchored on an unsustainable real estate market. Japan, like many Asian countries, is a country of savers. The truth of the matter is, Japanese have consistently saved between 25% and 45% of their income, that money was put in savings accounts and pension designated savings accounts, to be used when they retire. In addition, the Japanese government never eases the rules for pension funds to invest in other things than domestic sovereign debt, or Japanese equities. The truth is, that over 90% of Japanese savings have been funding Japan’s debt. 95% of Japan's sovereign debt is financed domestically. As of the end of 2024, Ameri...

 this will probably sound incredible, and the whole exercise started almost by mistake. Do United Kingdom, and Japan, both agreed to ratify trade agreements with the United States, both of these nations, did this weeks ago. A rather reasonable question was ask of the Japanese by a French journalist, as to the process for having the trade agreements in place. So far, so reasonable. however, there’s a small problem. And it’s a Japanese who gave away the farm. According to the minister of foreign affairs in Tokyo, there has been no exchange of document between the Japanese and the American government. The enterprising journalist, whose lives in Japan, made inquiries. With the Vietnamese, foreign affairs department, the Indonesian, foreign affairs department, and eventually, with the European union for foreign affairs department in all cases, he found the same answer. Since the initial announcement of trade agreements, absolutely nothing has been done. I think it’s important to underst...

The "war" between Jerome Powell and Donald Trump on interest rates is missing one critical point.   The real world.   America is increasingly facing steep interest rates when it borrows on the international markets.   The last $100 billion 30 Year bond auction was a disaster.  It is unlikely to improve, because of the weak dollars, many investors are "re-thinking. their dollar holdings, and are coming to a similar conclusion; they have either too much or enough.    The American government's total debt burden of 37 trillion dollars has a duration of five years, that means that about 20% of the total amount has to be refinanced every year.  Of this total about 2/3rd is finance in the international markets (or it has for the past few decades).  In addition, under Trump the deficit is rising quickly from 6% of GDP to 9% next year.  Investors are smart, they know that a big refinancing bubble is an opportunity – hence the last 10 auctions hav...

The jump in the PPI from an expected 0.3% rise to an actual 0.9% is about as bad news as the President of the United States could get.   Unfortunately, it's getting a lot worse, the month on month increase in price to consumers of fruits and vegetables is nearly 39% in July... The first figure was long expected, but the scale of the rise surprised, which means that producers are now starting to pass on to their clients the tariff costs.   That was always going to happen and it is now. The price of fruits and vegetables is the natural consequence of two factors, both political; the tariffs on imported fruits and vegetables from Mexico (35%) and Kenya (25%) and Brazil (50%), the hit there is instantaneous (note: Brazil and Kenya are the largest exporters of coffee to the US).   These avocados that used to cost $2.00 are now $2,60.   In addition, the raids by ICE have increased the cost of domestic fruits and vegetables...because many farmers are una...