Above the Fold

Low Prices Cure Low Prices

Farmers are an essential part of our economic and dietary ecosystem and the backbone of American culture and history. Unfortunately, many are struggling to make ends meet as the prices of many crops have fallen and larger, more efficient co-ops or corporations capture profits. According to the Wall Street Journal, farm bankruptcies jumped 13% in the first half of 2019 to the highest level since 2012.

Landowners are now turning to energy as an income stabilizer and supplement, adding wind turbines and/or solar arrays on portions of their land, while continuing to farm on the remainder.

Wind generation nearly doubled between 2012 and 2017 as 15,000 of the roughly 2 million U.S. farms contained wind turbines, and there’s been an enormous leap in farm solar arrays, with more than 90,000 installations, a three-fold increase in just five years (according to 2017 U.S. Department of Agriculture data).

And while all this is great news for struggling farmers, one has to wonder if land lost to energy generation will have an exponential impact on prices when demand returns.

Three Things

1. The End of Thomas Cook – Shares of the 178-year-old travel tour company were halted yesterday as the company moves in liquidation, leaving 150,000 U.K. travelers (600,000 tourists in total) stranded abroad. Cook blames a heat wave, higher fuel costs and economic uncertainty on the demise. Creditors rejected a $561.6 million rescue plan from China’s Fosun that would have given it controlling interest in its tour business. 
2. Paying Up for Protein? Look East – A yearlong struggle with African Swine Fever has ravaged hog farms across China, sending pork and the prices of alternative proteins like beef and chicken, soaring across the country. As the world’s most populated country, supported by the largest pig herd, the supply disruption means that China is willing to pay up. This means that global protein prices are jumping as supplies diminish. 
3. Wall Street Loves Clouds – 2019 is proving to be a record year for cloud software companies. Four cloud IPOs have already reached a $10 billion valuation and join the other 14 cloud companies in the “11 digit club,” many of which have been public for less than eight years. According to research firm Gartner, “the worldwide public cloud services market is projected to grow 17.5% in 2019 to total $214.3 billion.”

Did You Know?

Home Facts

Americans are known (at least statistically) for our large homes, with the average home square footage swelling to over 2,300 just before the Great Recession — but it wasn’t always that way.

Post-war America in the 1950s gave rise to the individual family residence as many Americans were sharing housing before World War II. A strong economy, home affordability and the push toward the suburbs meant that property ownership was now within reach. But even with the boom in families and babies, the average size house was just under 1,000 square feet.

Today, urban centers have expanded dramatically and so has wealth, but our desire to build “McMansions” seems to be slowing; some people are going “tiny” and building homes under 250 square feet. But recent data from AARP does show that most Americans may have found their square footage sweet spot, around 2,100 or less.