If you watch B movies from Hollywood, there will be in the group beach movies and ski movies. People go to resorts both for sun and skiing. Once you have many people particularly around the same age together, there are multiple movie scripts possible and generally the supporting pictures of the landscape can be spectacular and a wonderful break for the movie goers. One of the aspects that is not shown is the cost of living for those who work at the resort, the focus tends to be on the guests to the resort.

In an article by Mead Gruyer of the Associated Press, one aspect of the ski resorts is ski patrollers. These are experienced skiers who wear crosses on their arm and are there when someone falls and potential injury. If you have skied, you are aware that you can easily fall. Once you learn the basics and slowly work your way to more advanced runs, the likelihood of falling decreases and skiing is fun.

The biggest ski resort operator is Vail Resorts which owns 43 properties on 3 continents and specializes in the winter season. Ensuring there are enough ski patrollers which allows them to operate all their lifts to the top is an important element of their operational efficiencies. At one of Vail’s properties – Park City Mountain Resort which is about an hour’s drive east of Salt Lake City, the ski patrollers went on a mini strike for higher wages. Similar to many resort towns, the employees find it hard to find places to rent given their wages, work is easy to find, reasonable rent much harder.

Vail Resorts increased the hourly rate from $13 to $21 an hour in 2022. In 2024, they were offering a 4% raise plus $1,600 credit for new equipment. (after a 2 week, the strike was settled with increased wages).

For Vail Resorts, the good news was snow had fallen and ski conditions were wonderful. In Park City, Vail operates 41 lifts and 350 trails, according to its website.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in every industry some quarters are better than others. If you have gone to a ski resort in summer, there are still terrific places to go because of the many trails you can walk or possible ride a mountain bike in the mountains. However, the bulk of the revenues are made when there is snow on the hills and people using the lifts and eating at the food areas. There is a reason why strikes are set against the main driver of revenues for a company. When you do your homework on your company, when is the best quarter expected? what the pinch point and how did the company resolve them?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In every economic activity there is a convention somewhere but at the moment Las Vegas is the biggest show in the US. Every city has a convention center, although they tend to more regional in nature, for people need to meet and see what all the suppliers arces e doing. There is a need for conventions some you will be interested in, some you will not be. The ones you likely interested in include related to how you make your money and the hobbies or relaxation activities you pursue. The others ones are for everyone other job that you have limited interest in and activities that have grown such as ComicCom and the like. You may or may not go, but there are likely shops which sell comics and people like particular characters, which means it is an interesting convention.

In our society today, the biggest technology makers come to the CES or Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It is the height of the US innovations and companies need to wow the consumer. (Recently saw a You Tube video on Las Vegas, which has many construction cranes as hotels, convention centers and sports arenas are built around the famous Las Vegas strip of hotels.)

In an article by Abhirup Roy of Reuters, the gathering in Las Vegas is one of the largest of manufacturers, analysts and suppliers in the US. (if you want to see what is going on in China – there are You Tube channels to see innovation, and there is a lot of it).

CES 2025 is used to debut products ranging from new automotive technology to quirky gargets as well as showcase AI. This year a hot topic is what does President Trump mean by tariffs?

According to Edmunds, nearly half of new cars sold in the US as well as a significant share of parts on the rest made outside the US. What happens to supply systems and how do they adjust? According to S&P Global if the US imposes tariffs, European and American carmakers would lose 17% of their profits. (in order to help the American autoworker, President Trump is willing to put the balance sheets of the companies in jeopardy).

At the CES 2025, Honda, Toyota, Bosch and Continental are expected to provide updates on self-driving technology. If you noticed Tesla shares moving higher, part of it is the promise of self-driving taxis.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, for the companies you invest in, one of the easiest methods to see what is going on in the industry and the trends is to attend a convention. There are multiple conventions around the US – local, regional and national and you will likely leave with a few ideas.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

If you listen to the words of President Trump you will likely be confused about what parts he really means and what parts he is blowing air. In the decades past, what the President said and did was scrutinized and dissected by people around the world, with Trump you are never quite sure. One of the things the President said he was going to end the war between Ukraine and Russia on day one. Many people who have followed the war, find it hard to believe unless President Trump was essentially going to call Russia the winner and stop sending military support to Ukraine.

In an article by Patricia Cohen of the New York Times News Service, one of the ways the world has reacted to Russia was to impose sanctions. The sanctions included trying not to do business with Russia, for western banks with Russian accounts to place holds on the accounts (some of the interest has gone in the Ukraine war effort as more than $300 billion has a stop payment on it) and to ensure Russian athletes were not allowed to compete in international games, as well as a whole host of other activities.

Once the war is ended, and ideally it is sooner than later, what happens to the sanctions? While in the west, the idea of the sanctions was to put pressure on the Russian President, he has successfully remained in office and seems to be more powerful than before. The Russian President was hampered by lower oil and gas revenues, which sent up inflation and perhaps slowed Russian involvement in the war. Russian banks pay in excess of 21% for savings.

Similar to all organizations, alternatives have been found, they just came about more slowly. Russia has expanded trade with China and India particularly selling oil and gas to make up for the loss of European Union markets.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, for companies the sanctions are akin to regulations from the government which forces the company to do break up or pay large fines. Within the new Trump administration there are more people who wish to do less and allow companies to make their own decisions – good or bad for the consumer but should be good for the company. With all administrations there is hope for a better future, but time will tell who really benefits.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

If you listen to politicians on a regular basis you are aware that simple slogans work well. The slogans allow different people to think about the slogan differently and somewhere along the line it is possible they intersect. One of President Trump’s slogan is I love tariffs, a tariff on everyone. Tariffs are nothing new, countries have been using them since global trade was invented going back to the Industrial Revolution. A classic case was England which was the dominate country at that time, imposed tariffs on India’ wool industry. The wool was sent to the factories of England and returned as manufactured goods. The tariff was on long as England controlled India, it was only broken with the time of Mahatma Gandhi and India’s independence.

President Trump wants to impose tariff on China and he has the right to do so. Companies affected have the expectation to do work arounds, so that a slogan may or may not be effective.

In an article by Ana Swanson of the New York Times News Service, in 2018 Arnold Kamler then the CEO of Kent International which makes bicycles. One of the things he did was shifted production to new facilities in Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and India (notice he did not shift production to the US). All those countries were exempt from the 25% tariff had the bike been shipped from China. The effect of the tariffs because of the new factories pushed up costs meant bicycle prices at Walmart and other stores were increased.

The change in the supply system was called by Gita Gopinath, the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was connector countries. This means when the US and China impose tariffs on each other, countries such as Mexico and Vietnam benefit. Whether this is a good thing or not is an open question.

Brad Setser, an economist and senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations says the tariffs reduces bilateral trade but does not impact global trade. The US trade deficit with China has fallen to $278 billion in 2023 from $417 billion in 2018. However, US trade deficits have increased with Vietnam, Taiwan, Mexico and elsewhere.

It is unclear how effective President Trump’s tariffs will be against the creativity of global companies that are driven by strong financial incentives to maintain access to the US market.

In many industries, Chinese companies have moved production from China when heavy tariffs were placed on them. One example is solar panels. Companies moved production to other Southeast Asia countries where there were no tariffs. Then US companies had to lobby Congress to include those countries or a time lag.

In China, companies such as Sailwin, Vanzbon and Tetakawi are advertising services helping Chinese companies do turnkey operations through finding factory space in Mexico and recruiting workers there, allowing them to export to the US without tariffs.

The other solution is courtesy of the large accounting firms, using accounting and tax tricks which US companies use, to make it appear that their shipments from China are lower, and thus pay fewer tariffs without making major changes to their supply chains.

Lynlee Brown, a partner in E&Y’s global trade practice said there were many strategies that companies could pursue to reduce tariffs. For example, if a part came from Vietnam, it might be reported the whole thing came from Vietnam even though the final assembly was in China and exported from China to the US.

Another lever companies could use is valuation. The companies can officially lower the value of the import by stripping out the intangible costs and recording those to other subsidiaries. By lowering the value of the import, the tariff is less.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the reality is US based companies do the same thing as Chinese companies and that is why the slogan may not be effective as one thinks. If the government tries to stop Chinese companies, they run the risks of the lobbying efforts from the US companies who also benefit. The world can be complicated, but still moves forward.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

If you listened to debates in Congress in 2024, the Democrats often said to the Republicans have you gone to Mar-a-Largo to see Mr. Trump. This was a valid comment because Mr. Trump was the Republican nominee, but he had not won. Then the election was held, and it has been a tidal wave of people going to see then President-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Mr. Trump’s days include meeting with people in the day, going golf in the afternoon and attending dinner functions in the evening.

In an article by Adriana Gomez Licon and Michelle Price of the Associated Press, sightings of those turning up offer a glimpse into the workings of Mr. Trump’ incoming White House and how he is setting priorities for office.

The fee to belong to Mar-a-Lago is about $200,000 with $14,000 in annual dues. It stands to reason the vast majority of the people who belong are the 1% or companies paying the fee. It is also a place where people go to get a job or seek favors from the new administration. Essentially it is the place to be.

Elon Musk has been living in the area and is reported considering buying a penthouse condo nearby for $100 million. All the big tech companies known as the Magnificent 7 CEOs have been seen – Mark Zukerberg of Meta or Facebook; Tim Cook of Apple; Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet or Google; Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Bill Gates of Microsoft.

Various world leaders have dropped in for dinner including Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum; Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; Sara Netanyahu, wife of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Argentine President Javier Milei and Akie Abe, widow of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

In addition, many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies including all the bankers have been in Florida.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in the world of corporate public relations, people go to be seen but they also go to ensure their agenda is taken care of. Part of the agenda is to ensure the government does as little wrong as possible, in the eyes of the CEO. For the investments you own, has your CEO been to Mar-a-Largo?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In all economies there are natural advantages and often times for lots of reasons, they have not been taken advantage of. The reasons tend to be the owners of resources look after themselves, but over time the government of the country evolves to take advantage of the resources for everyone. A classic case is Ecuador, South America.

The country is located south of Columbia and north of Peru and it is rich in resources the Andes Mountains run through it, and closer to the Pacific there is the Amazon jungle.

In an article by Julie Turkewitz and Jose Maria Leon Cabrera of the New York Times News Service, 2 decades ago there was a vision – the water running down the mountains could be and should be tapped for hydroelectric power. The government of Rafael Corra in 2007 set out to do such a thing. The government had little money, but Chinese lenders did and a dozen new hydroelectric projects, including dams were built. With Chinese banking, came Chinese companies to do the work. The country’s overall energy generation capacity rose 60% according to the Ministry of Energy and Mines. This was a good thing and energy costs fell.

Mr. Corra flew Ecuador for Belgium because of corruption charges related to the hydro projects.

The problem in the country is whether its due to climate change or bad management of the hydro system, Ecuador has been experiencing drought conditions and the output of the hydro has decreased leading to blackouts. This has meant Ecuador is buying power from Columbia and every election the cost of power is the number one election issue. Power cuts began in 2023, then became daily occurrences in September of 2024 shutting down businesses and ending entire industries into crisis. Power costs for a small business went from $3,000 a year to $15,000 because of the need to use diesel generators.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, all companies start off with a number of advantages, costs are less than competitors, which is why they were able to generate profits to pay dividends. Over time things change, sometimes because of management decisions, some of them due to what happens in the world, but things change. The issue is how to deal with them to maintain margins.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In 2016, Alex Ross wrote a book published by Simon & Schuster, NY called The Industries of the Future. The chapters include here comes the robots; genetic code code-ification of money, markets and trust; big data; and weaponization of code. All the above are coming into normal life – although robots are more in the factory than in the house. Genetic code and predicting life is getting closer eventually the insurance world will adopt it. The code-ification of money includes using cellphones as ATMs and bit coin; the emergence of AI and the use of big data is commonplace. However, unfortunately the weaponization of code means every company and maybe every person will need cyber security features as a given or at least a need to pay for it.

In an article by Surbhi Misra and David Shepardson of Reuters, the Chinese-linked Salt Typhoon targeted AT&T and Verizon but limited to a small number of individuals of foreign intelligence interest. Those individuals were connected to President Trump and what he and people around him were texting and audio recordings about China and China’s interests.

In a Department of Justice investigation gaining hold of someone’s text messages is an important part of the case to be made against someone. The department goes through a judge and shows intent and has permission to if people are breaking the law.

The cybercrime is involved without permission, gaining information to leverage against in this case politicians and those around them.

In response to the last attack, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency urged senior government and political figures to move mobile communications to end-to-end encrypted apps.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, we want and love open communications then the other side happens and the world slowly closes. If the companies you invest in are not using encrypted apps, one has to ask why not? what processes do they use to fight cyber crime?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

In every community, there is an economic development committee which attempts to increase jobs in the area. Ideally the focus is what is existing and develop those businesses along with others to complement. But the sexy headline in the newspaper is a large multinational firm relocating to the area to jump start investment and jobs. If a large multinational firm decides to locate, there will be a demand for housing, increased retail sales and perhaps new schools and other services. A number of regular economic activities happen and more can happen.

In an article by Peter S Goodman of the New York Times News Service, the same thing that happens in Mexico. For years, first NAFTA was in place, then President Trump renegotiated the deal to USMCA, but it amounts to free trade of goods and many multinational firms have built operations in Mexico to send goods to the US to achieve higher margins and profits.

During the USMCA, companies that relied on China to ship goods to the US, did not move operations to the US, many moved them to Mexico. The companies include Trane, a company that makes heating and air-conditioning units. The practice of moving to Mexico is called near-shoring or in this case closing the distance between plants in Asia and customers in the US.

The proposed tariffs across the board, leads to companies similar to Trane which makes parts in Mexico, but the final assembly is in Tennessee.

At the moment, business leader in Mexico believe that Trump hates China more than he hates Mexico, and given the long standing agreements, Mexico will benefit.

One of the cities that has benefited from near shoring is Monterrey, which has over 5 million people. The city is within 3 hours of trucking to the US and in 2024 over $23 billion of foreign investment was committed to more than 100 projects. 2 of the projects are Volvo making trucks and John Deere making construction equipment. Intel is looking at possible operations. Bosch, a German home appliance giant shifted some operations from China to Mexico.

A Tennessee company called Plaastiexports which does custom injection molding expanded into Mexico and uses robotic arms to pluck lids for plastic storage containers from the steel molds. The factory has 41 machines, and it is expected to double to 82 in 2025.

Wisdom Digital Logistics which operates warehouses and arranges trucking on both sides of the border opened a 4th warehouse and is considering expansion to number 5.

Besides US and European companies, Chinese companies have opened operations in Mexico. According to the Rhodium group, in 2023, Chinese companies made 42 investments worth $3.77 billion. According to the USMCA agreement, as long as the rules of origin are satisfied, requirements that certain percentages of the parts are drawn from North American suppliers, the products are classified as Mexican and are duty-free to the US. Chinese companies employ Mexican workers while buying parts and materials from the US and Canada.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the basic rules around manufacturing are the same whether you are in the US or another country, it really depends on where the senior executives want to spend their time. For once a plant is built, through the capital allocation, then it needs ongoing support from the senior team. As robots are involved in more manufacturing at all levels, the advantage of cheaper labor is offset to a degree. There are a host of factor that need to be checked off, but investors are expecting wherever the plant is located, margins remain high enough to ensure profits are made on sales and dividends can be paid.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.

If you own a piece of land to build a house on it, you will quickly determine to build takes time. It takes a while before all the moving parts to make the house function like a home happens. It is no different with the supply system.

In an article by Meaghan Tobin and John Liu of the New York Times News Service, US President Trump talked about implementing tariffs on day 1 or short afterwards. If you are a company, you need to take that seriously and had to start planning long before.

Foxconn has been preparing for this possibility for years. Foxconn produces a significant share of the world’s consumer electronics at its factories in central China. For decades it has produced the iPhones for Apple and it says makes half of all computer servers that power artificial intelligence or AI systems.

Foxconn has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on land and equipment to make iPhones in Bangalore and Tamil Nadu in India. It makes AI severs in Jalisco in Mexico. It received $300 million from Thailand to make parts and equipment for computer chip business. Foxconn paid $33 million for 10-acre tract north of Houston.

Just because Foxconn makes an investment does not mean success. Two examples are an announcement in 2011 in Brazil for an expected 100,000 jobs has produced 3,000 jobs. Plans for Indonesia $1 billion investment fell through. In the US, a $10 billion investment in Wisconsin has produced empty land and a few warehouse buildings but infrastructure was paid by the state.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, diversification takes time and preplanning, if the companies you invest in are in process, then there will be a time delay when governments make announcements.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.