I broke my diet restriction yesterday since I had to order cookies and coffee at a nearby coffee shop while I had my car serviced. Needed to have the engine oil changed, have the gear oil checked, and have the aircon cleaned. I needed to make sure that my car won’t be belching black smoke before emission testing and have the LTO registration ready tomorrow. Ideally, I need to have my car’s registration renewed before I drive to Metro Manila on Tue or Wed.

I devoted all my morning and lunch time to car errands. Had it washed and vacuumed because it has been months since I had my car cleaned. You know, life gets in the way of so many things. I cannot stay on top of everything. Something’s gonna give.

The girls will be having lunch with their dad today so I would be freed from making meals. I’m tempted to go to SM in a nearby city to buy that new TV as the kids are hanging in our house more frequently these days.

Walked 6.5km today. It’s no longer cool and I can feel the dry air all around me.

Trump slaps 25% tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and of course, China. Trudeau, in retaliation, slaps 25% tariffs on US imports.

I can smell stinky high inflation rates in the coming 2 quarters. This is global trade war we’re talking about.

We’re headed towards a global recession. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Fuck around and find out.

Just like the Mexican supporters of Trump, the Pinoys thought they’re going to be spared. They thought that by supporting Trump, the other immigrants will not get their jobs. The Filipinos want to keep out other Filipinos because they would be taking their jobs, that’s the basic reason they supported Trump. The other is religious zealousness, but that’s for another day.

But guess what? All of them are going down, undocumented or documented. My relatives in the US are the biggest Trumpers out there and I already unfriended them or blocked them circa 2018 on Facebook and Instagram. Now one of my uncles is coming home before he could get deported because he has a mental disability. God knows what ICE will do to him. My mom is already preparing for his arrival and setting up his medical appointments.

They’re even arresting Native Americans! Like, where will you send them back to?! You see, it’s not about whether you are documented or undocumented; it’s about your skin color. Would they pick up an undocumented Polish or East European off the streets? Hell no. If you’re not white, you’re an easy target.

Fuck around and find out.

Meanwhile, Berlin had a massive mobilization against the extreme right. The US wouldn’t understand this now.

@c5n

🇩🇪 Masiva movilización en Berlín contra la derecha extrema | #c5n #noticias #berlin

♬ sonido original – c5n – c5n

The Germans know how it is to be led by a fascist, how to have leaders who hate. The Germans know how dangerous it is to have the extreme right take control.

As I predicted, Trump policies will lead the US economy into a slippery slope. The US Federal Reserve has taken a preemptive step before inflation could run away.

And how can a business man not know the basic concept of inflation and interest rates?!

The problem with the myopia of the Republicans is that they think manufacturing will return to the US this way. It will take them decades before they can achieve the manufacturing prowess and technology of China.

China can devote three cities just to produce one product.

To circumvent the US “ban” on Chinese products, Chinese manufacturers had been buying manufacturers in Southeast Asia, just to change the “Made in xxx” tag on products. They had been buying semiconductor makers, industrials, and medical device companies in Singapore and Malaysia. I had been writing about this for two to three years already.

The US can’t do import-substitution because they can’t substitute, let’s say a Taiwan-made computer chip, with an American made one. Because only 10% of the chips are made in the US. The most advanced chips are made overseas. TSMC, which makes chips for Nvidia, is the number one supplier in the world and it operates in Taiwan. They tried bringing TSMC operations in the US but they lack manpower or skilled workforce. No American would want to be assembling chips for minimum wage. Now that they’re deporting immigrants who are willing to work for low wages, good luck to them finding workers, especially skilled ones, to work for TSMC.

The Philippines’ number one export is semiconductors (specifically semicon and electronics) and not agricultural commodities like Manila hemp. Malaysia has a thriving EMS industry, so does Singapore. We have the manpower, the people who can do mind-numbing assembly day in and day out. I doubt if an American will do semicon assembly for less than USD 10 a day.

Brexit. My sister told me it’s just like Brexit. Now the Brits are swallowing the bitter pill that misplaced protectionism has done.

The average Briton was nearly £2,000 worse off in 2023, while the average Londoner was nearly £3,400 worse off last year as a result of Brexit, the report reveals.

london.gov.uk

UK’s inflation rate was double than that of the rest of EU in 2023. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the shortages in UK grocery stores are in part, if not all, because of Brexit. It’s the supply chain, stupid!

🤷🏻‍♀️

The US Fed has already seen this, hence, the pause in rate cuts.

And you know what’s the best way to destroy the confidence of the financial markets? Having a president, or whoever is in the executive branch, who meddles with monetary policy. That’s the number one lesson I learned when I covered the central bank.

I promised myself that I would be working today even though it’s a holiday. I needed to finish writing those two analysis pieces and have them published tomorrow and on Friday.

But I just spent the entire day reading and watching videos. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Maybe it was my brain’s way of saying that it was too exhausted the past two days. It needed a break.

But now it’s 11 pm I haven’t written even the lead paragraph. I needed to meet my monthly quota or I’m screwed. My manager will be talking to me on Friday since my team hasn’t been meeting the quota. It’s really hard—this region is hard and I can’t keep whipping my team to death. My Indonesia reporter said he’s exhausted; he can’t keep bouncing off Jakarta every 60 days.

What makes things worse is that I may be headed to HK next month and that would eat into my days for news gathering.

I don’t how I would sleep well tonight.

I thought I will have it easy this week. Nope, I was so wrong.

Last night I was editing until almost 8 pm while finishing a story of my own. I just took a break and went back to writing until 11 pm.

I finished another story today while editing another. I still have to do two more tomorrow—on a holiday—just to meet the monthly quota.

My brain is fried.

Wash and repeat in February.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

As the years drag on, the more dread I feel.

It’s deceptively calm this entire January and I’m scared what kind of disruption will shatter this. Maybe I’m a bit relaxed because my boss is super busy chasing her own stories so she has less time to criticize me.

In any case, I’m enjoying these relatively calm days. My week will be quieter than normal because Asia will shut down for the Lunar New Year/Spring Festival. I will hold the fort together with my Australian colleague for the rest of the week.

After that nasty bout of flu, I can now walk around and breathe in fresh air. Have sunlight on my face, too.

I did my usual 3 km walk after church service and it was such a relief. I was scared I had turned into a blimp after my week-long confinement inside my tiny home. I can finally stretch my muscles.

Economists have never liked tariffs. I am surrounded by economists, in my personal life (got two of them for siblings) and in my professional life so more or less I know their sentiments. Protectionism always has a way to slap you in the face and most of that will be in the form of unforgiving inflation.

When the US imposed tariffs in the 1930s, it was followed by the Great Depression. It’s not a coincidence. For those who paid attention during their Economics 101 class, they know that tariffs on agri commodities contributed to build up to the Great Depression. And periods of strife and hunger lead to wars/uprising.

So Donald Trump is repeating what Republicans of the past did. He didn’t study history.

Now the question is, should I shift a bigger allocation now to the S&P 500 UITF when I know in two years it will tank? Maybe I should start buying when everything falls from the sky? The problem is, the US economy may not be able to recover from it and cede the throne of being the biggest economy and “leader of the free world” to China. Would it be useless if I continue the current allocation for my PSE feeder fund when I know it will follow Wall Street?

Maybe I should go debt all the way. Yeah, fixed income mutual funds thrive during recessions. I know that interest rates will go sky-high again as tariffs will push inflation to God knows where.

I should rethink my visit to my bank branch in QC next week.

The dry season is already here and my pathetic garden is starting to bear fruit, like the bell peppers I sowed a few months ago. The lone pomelo fruit that was left after Typhoon Kristine ravaged my yard is still there, holding on.

The cooler days and nights allowed me to cut my electric bill in half since we’re just using our electric fans. However, I already felt like the 23 to 24-degree nights are disappearing so I would have to call in the aircon guys again to clean my units before we return to heavy usage of my power hoggers.

I should enjoy the remaining cooler days outside before the hot summer sun kills us again.