Farmer Diaries

 So a very very small storm in a teacup is the front-page news of Quebec's leading newspaper.  Three deputies from the Partie Quebecois refused to pledge allegiance to the head of that state -- in the case of Canada, it's the King of England. Now, why is this relevant?  It's not, it's totally unimportant and a fabrication of the Press in Quebec and certain parts of the media. Quebec, unless it leaves Canada, has no right to decide who is the head of state, in the case of Canada, of which Quebec is a province, it can just shut up about it. The king of England when asked about the "controversy" apparently his spokesman said "he didn't care either way", which in English means this front-page news is so important that no one in London or Ottawa cares... That's sad!

 The big shift in the midterm has been the independants who instead of usually favouring the party of the opposition by a 10% margin this time favoured the democrats by 4%.  Also, some safe bet GOP strongholds were lost to unacceptable candidates; it's still possible that Herschel walker will win his election, but this is a guy who did not pay child support and who supported even encouraged two girlfriends to have abortions.   It shows how far the GOP has fallen.  This election was for the GOP to win the President favourable at 41% compared to Trump, and yet the Red wave never happened.  Interestingly the abortion issue was ranked second as the most important issue for voters in exit polls. The biggest loser here was Trump, again he maybe Teflon Trump on this one, still it's one of the worse midterm elections for any opposition party ever.  

 How on God Green earth is this even remotely possible? How incompetent does an oil company have to be, when oil prices are about US$ 75 per bbl is it possible for PEMEX to lose US$ 2;5 billion in a quarter?  This loss tells you everything you need to know about Mexico and its inability to deal with reality. Oil in Mexico is extracted in the golf of Mexico in a relatively well know and exploited oil well that has been producing for nearly 30 years.  The cost of producing that "shallow oil" is unlikely to be more than US$ 5 per bbl.  They sell the stuff for US$ 75 per bbl. PEMEX is the ONLY oil company in the world that consistently lost money in the past two decade NOTE:  Exon Mobile saw its Q3 results double over the previous year to US$ 19 billion.  

 Sometimes you get a trifecta, and with the above, I get that; it's about Mexico, it's about the airline industry and it's about the Mexican government.  Reading what is being said about that plan makes you realize that there's a sucker born every minute. The Mexican airline business is not doing well, too rapid an expansion, with declining margins, insufficient capital and aggressive unions that have created financially tricky situations.  In addition, you add Covid and the loss by Mexico of its Schedule A carrier rights and you have a difficult situation for airline owners, who rightly carry a large portion of the blame for their difficulties. Still, Aeromar is a small regional carrier with 12 aircraft, all of them aging ATR (turboprop) that operate a domestic service across Mexico.  The airline has a lot of debt and a lot of problems (as I mentioned above) and the owners are looking for additional capital. Enters the military that is looking to capitalize on their cu

Something like 95% of all GOP running in the midterm are saying that the 2020 elections were stolen, in addition, they are already claiming that the 2022 midterm will be tainted and that there will be fraud on the part of the Democrats. On the Sunday show, a well-known pollster indicated that he thinks that the 2022 midterm will take months to resolve who has won.  The reason is that in many cases the results will be close, and it has become the go-to solution for both parties (yes, the Democrats too) to say that the election process was tainted by voter fraud. Even today most of those running for the GOP are saying that if they don't win the election has been stolen, and America, it seems is buying it. However, this is only mildly interesting when you consider that in the midterm only about 40% of eligible voters bother to vote.  Nearly 60% of eligible voters cannot even be bothered to vote.  They simply don't care.  they pay lip service and say things about their country that

 This weekend is the ending of the once-every-five-years party congress.  the highlight: Xi is now totally in charge, 3 of the 7 members of the polite bureau are gone as is China's #2.  As far as Xi is concerned that's the positive side of the balance sheet. The negative: Taiwan China still wants to re-integrate Taiwan into the country.  The Taiwanese are less than keen, in addition, so many anti-market actions have been taken in China that Taiwan which is an example of extreme corporatist capitalism is not amused.  Many believe that the Ukraine war will dissuade the Chinese.  Personally, I think they are wrong. China's army is well equipped and far larger than Russia's, and China has a small window of opportunity, like after the US midterm as it looks like Biden will lose both Senat and the House, his second term will be a fight for survival, to invade Taiwan.  This may also address internal Chinese security issues. Property Real Estate accounts for 70% of all wealth i

 iceberg like the salad and not floating ice To say that Britain's new prime minister is in trouble is probably the understatement of the century.  She sacked the head of the treasury as if it was his fault. The woman was an opportunist from the first day she became a politician.   She may have the shortest live premiership ever

 Those who follow Mexican politics (it's actually entertaining) will have heard that the Mexican MoD had a massive data breach two weeks ago, where tens of thousands of documents, in particular emails, were stolen by a Mexican hacker group. So far, the revelation has been minimal and related to the close relationship between Narcos and the President's cabinet.  The one surprising aspect is that it seems that for a long time the President had been talking the Narcos, but it doesn't appear to have done much for the violence in the country, which is the highest it has ever been.  Most of Mexico is very dangerous, and bulletproof cars have started to re-emerge.  In the end, AMLO doesn't really care since it has no impact on his party's standing. Yesterday, it was all the news about the Maya Train, one of the four cornerstones of the President's rebuilding of Mexico (the 4T).   The highlights of the leaks: Costs are even more out of control than they were communicate

 To nobody's surprise, the CAQ won the fixed date elections on October 3rd, 2022. The polling numbers all the way in August showed that the CAQ was going to win a majority by a wide margin (they got 90 seats and needed 63). The turnout was poor at 66% of eligible voters -- as an example in the 1997 referendum, 97% of eligible voters went to vote.     More interesting were the other parties: The Liberal are the big losers here with a drop of almost 500,000 votes for the party. The total impact was that the official opposition saw its number fall from 25 to 21 seats in the new parliament. The Parti Quebecois lost one seat but got more votes than the Liberals -- so that's good The Quebec Solidaire saw a fall of one seat, but it too got more votes than the Liberals The Conservatives got 200,000 fewer votes than the Liberals but got zero seats. The story of the October 3rd election is that all four opposition parties got nearly all the same percentage of votes, but the Liberal vote

 I only saw bits and pieces of the funerals for the Queen.  Fundamentally not that interested.  The whole thing was blown out of proportion.  She certainly represented continuity but ok.   I found amusing the bullshit around Harry and Megan; considering how they wanted to remain low-key, I think they succeeded, and good for them.   I suspect that tomorrow they will be on BA 283 the first flight to California, happy to have left the royal family.  For whatever reason, the palace (hence the King) has blown hot and cold during the entire process, when I got the feeling, they were working hard at not making these funerals about them, it seems that the Royal family and the British press were really trying to get to them and implied all kinds of behavior on the party of Harry and Megan (in particular).  It is clear that for Harry it was a difficult time, purely for family reasons, he has no stake in the British game and cares little since they've decided to make their life in America.  T

 $28,000 for a new batterie.  A (ex) Canadian Tesla owner complained that this was outrageous.  he stated that the air conditioning unit was leaking on the battery which led to it needing to be replaced.  Now Tesla will not do it for free.  HOW DARE THEY.,, Ok, now a bit of context.  The Tesla owner who paid $140,000 for his car did so in 2013.  The car is 9 years old.  If instead, he had bought a high-end BMW or Mercedes he would probably have to replace the following: The engine The transmission  Entertainment system Spare parts for luxury vehicles are expensive and the wear is terrible.  This guy is complaining that his 9-year-old Tesla needs a new battery.  Apparently, he sold his 9 year old car, but of course, didn't disclose for what price... That is apparently news in Canada...outrage and then nothing  

 I don't understand what is going on with the Trans movement in the US.  I thought this was a myth that children were being offered sex reassignment operations.  I really thought this was another far-right conspiracy.  Turns out not so much. Now when I mentioned children, I understand that we are talking "minors" here rather than 7-year-olds.  Still, one thing I know for sure is that full brain development doesn't occur until the age of 25 (I checked on the interweb).  I find it surprising that hospitals and doctors would consider gender reassignment before the age of 18.   My oldest friend's daughter, even when she was 7 years old, behave and dressed like a boy.  She looked like a boy and behaved like a boy, and what more than happy when she was referred to as a "he".  I saw them sparingly as she grew up, and her dad told me about five years ago that she had gotten married and had a baby boy (he was a proud grandfather).  Her wife had the baby and they

Sometimes words are hard...I guess in the world of these two GOP politicians it doesn't matter that they are challenged by the English language. Wonton & Wanton Petri Dish & Peachtree dishes Gazpacho & Gestapo Really they don't know the difference... and the more important issue is that their supporter either don't care or don't understand the difference, because they don't know the word Wanton, or what's the Gestapo or what the CDC would do with a Petri Dish.  To their supporters its all irrelevant These are questions that have been asked by late-night shows to people walking on the streets of New York City: What is the capital of the US How many presidents have there been In what year did the US declare independence In what country is the Panama Canal and my all-time favourite:  Which is larger the sun or the moon... Something tells me that America's education system is not the greatest...BTW the people who were asked these questions didn't

 "T he fundamental difference between Ukrainian soldiers, who are fighting for their country’s existence, and Russian soldiers, who are fighting for their salary, has finally begun to matter" The Atlantic Elegant and true... A lesson, maybe, for the Xi Jinping

 For a very long time, my philosophy was right of center; I  believe that the government should only be active in segments of the economy where the market cannot operate efficiently.  I believe that the government should stay out of the bedroom and that women should be able to make decisions with regard to their bodies themselves.  Again, nothing is black and white here, there are complex issues, but these are fundamental issues.  And I believe that governments have an obligation to protect their citizens In addition, and possibly even more important is believe that individual privacy is fundamental.  Facebook, Google, Instagram and any free application sell your data, no free lunch.  I never got the 23andme test, first because I am not interested, but no one has ever said what is done with this metadata!  Your genetic data is sold, because the cost of the test is higher than what the consumer pays.  Money has to come from somewhere. Notionally, I am a conservative, although I don'

 On Friday, September 9, 2022 the headquarter of Evergrande in Hong Kong was seized by foreign creditors.  It is possible that the Chinese government decided that it was not worth the trouble to fight for that one piece of real estate, especially if it was owned by a single creditor (unknown at this stage).  My Friends in China tell me that the government is fully aware of the scope of the problem they face with mainland real estate and are threading a needle.  The problems are several, but the first and most important is the deal to restructure Evergrande which will be the blueprint for the other Chinese real estate companies that are facing nearly identical cash flow problems. The amounts are too large for the state to absorb.  Evergrande's total debt outstanding is around US$ 300 billion.  Evergrande is not the largest real estate developer.  The 300 billion is used as equity in projects worth between 5 and 10 times that amount.  These are the borrowings from ordinary Chinese th

 AMLO has now discovered the benefit of using the military for many activities; part of the Maya train is now being built by the military with zero oversight, like the new Mexico City Airport, because it was built by the military there is no cost oversight. It is well known by everyone in Mexico that all contracts with the Military will require some form of payment.  Rumors (and they are just that) are that the Military "take" is about 25% of the contract amount.  My gut feeling is that this is for a small procurement rather than a large one, but still, it is unknowable. The military has been put in charge of the Mexico City airport (14 gates unknown cost) and section 5 of the Maya train (100km and cost about 6 billion dollars), again the idea is to shield the true cost and environmental impact from the public -- AMLO's favourite move. The risk is that the military takes a liking to these contracts, like the military in China which now control about 10% of the economy.  A

The Quebec government's condolences have been absent, but then again Quebec is not in charge of foreign policy, that's the role of the federal government.  Those who do not like the province, and there are a lot, have made a point that Quebec has been less than enthusiastic, most will forget Quebec's difficult relationship with the monarchy, and those who forget history can easily repeat it. First thing, Quebec until the early 1980s was an Anglophone-run province, in 1976 the Parti Quebecois took power and made some fundamental changes, making Quebec a French stronghold surrounded by English speakers.   First was that Quebecers had less education (think of the blacks of Canada), and were therefore conscripted by the British (1914) and then conscripted to join the Canadian army (1942) and often used as cannon fodder.   When Canada repatriated its constitution from the British, the rest of Canada played the Quebec government in a way that was advantageous to the rest of the c

71% of Americans are for the right to choose, within certain guidelines 70% of Americans are supportive of Gay marriage 66% of Americans are for some form of Gun control After the Supreme Court overturned Roe Vs. Wade, the culture war roles have been reversed.  The anti-abortion movement that has won, has been successful because most Americans never thought that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe Vs. Wade, but now that it has, they perceive the courts as the enemy of what the people want, and the most direct way to affect the courts is via the ballot box. The left is energized.  Democrat candidates are now vocally talking about gun control and the right of State to allow abortion.  The right, well they won and the battle at the state level is complicated.  Moreover, Democrats have been far more successful in raising money than has the GOP.   This is a twist.   On top of everything, the GOP has decided to go even more extreme.  The story that a woman was refused to be allowed to purch

 I was born in the UK, on a cold night on November 2nd, 1961.  I left at the age of two as my parent's life took them elsewhere in the world.  I first returned to the UK as a 19-year-old in 1980 as a guest of my aunt for two weeks after having worked as a chef in the South of France for a summer. England was so different from North America, as to be a different planet.  My aunt and uncle lived in Notting Hill, one street over from the famous Portobello market.  One of my aunt's neighbours owned a stall on the market and two things, he would refuse to sell you anything if he didn't like your face, secondly, he and his wife would neither answer the phone or the door on Sundays -- nothing religious rather they wanted peace and quiet one day a week. The Queen of England was nothing to me, as a Canadian (I also hold a British Passport) I felt no allegiance to the Queen, yes she is on the Canadian dollar and on our coins, but that's it. This morning I saw on the news that ALL

So the Prime Minister of Quebec has decided that his party's political platform should only be available in French...and so he will actually remove the English version.  Did these people even know that all browsers can translate any webpage?  I mean automatically!   Aside from the theatre aspect of this announcement what is the CAQ's real objective?  The message is that as a political party the CAQ doesn't care about those who don't speak French ( if you don't speak french we don't consider you as real Quebecers, and we feel comfortable insulting, ignoring and disrespecting you).  That's the real little FU that the CAQ has sent non-francophones.   Well folks that's my f'ing country!     

The elections taking place in less than 30 days are not very exciting.  The party that is leading the show is called the CAQ a nationalist somewhat corporatist government that has been in power for four years.  The opposition is not very exciting, the Liberals, the Parti Quebecois, Quebec Solidaire and the Conservative Party each share about 15% of the electorate's support while the CAQ is sitting around 45%.  In terms of probably seats the CAQ is looking at anywhere between 80 and 107 (they need 67) and the liberals between 15 and 25, the rest each get between zero and four seats, because how their votes are distributed.  Quebec's prime minister has been a good steward of the economy during the COVID and has met the crisis head-on taking full responsibility.  In the current fiscal year, the Quebec Government has a small budget surplus.  It has aggressively protected the rights of French speakers in a province surrounded by more than 300 million English speakers.  He has passed

Well, the initial cost of Dos Bocas, one of three of AMLO's key projects, was supposed to be less than US$ 6 billion. On September 1, 2022,  the President insisted that the cost would not be US$ 18 billion it would be less.  Unfortunately, on September 2nd, PEMEX's auditors (the company that actually pays the bills for the refinery) have a different number and this final cost estimate was approved by the board at its latest board meeting.  The figure:  US$ 22 billion Yes, the total cost of Dos Bocas including the yet-to-be-planned or built supply pipeline (something of some importance for a refinery), will cost US$ 22 billion or 3.6 times the initial estimate.  That sounds about right for Mexican government projects.  Let's not forget that AMLO had a firm bid from Bechtel to build the entire thing for about US$ 8 billion...that he deemed theft by the neo-liberal foreigners. I shudder to think how expensive the new (14 gates) Mexico City airport cost.  We will probably never

 Most will have heard of Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged .  To say that the book is a contradiction to the real life of the author who lived off the government for years would be an understatement.  One of the premise of the book, is that society is corrupt by the good thinking left, because the problems are not caused by greed but by incompetence.  Obviously, the first idea that incompetence is something only left-leaning people do is ridiculous, but it somewhat fits here, since AMLO's government is considered a left-wing (really it's a  1960 nationalistic corporatist) party. So THE STORY: The Mexican, government is building an oil refinery in the middle of a swamp.  The total cost was to be US$ 6 billion, but now it could be as high as US$18 billion.  So the cost of building a simple refinery is 3 times the initial estimate (BTW Bechtel had bid the project at around US$ 8 billion excluding the pipeline -- and yes that WAS in the bid offer). Now the good bit; this morning

 So the election in Quebec is in full swing.  It's not very interesting because the current government is ridiculously popular -- every poll shows that they will win by a landslide.  So people have begun focusing on the small stuff, the stupid stuff. Two days ago, the Prime Minister using a hammy tool of running for office decided that he would not say the name of the leader of the official opposition, instead calling her the french equivalent of "this little old lady", not that she's old, it's just a somewhat derogatory way of referring to women in French. It would be funny if it were not so very pathetic, and it shows how amateurish the whole thing is; the idea is that you remove power from your opponent by not naming them.  How very 1960s! First, the problems (1) The prime Minister and the leader of the opposition have known each other for more than a decade.  So the only way he could not remember her name is either (a) he's a dumbass or (b) he has memory i

 So Emirate took delivery of the very last A380 ever manufactured.  total production was 251 aircraft.  In a nutshell a disastrous program for airbus.  The total development cost for the aircraft was estimated to be around Euro 25 billion, or about Euro 99 million per actual aircraft delivered.  In short, the total program loss exceeds Euro 15 billion for Airbus.   What happened? That's the easy part.  I was part of a team of commercial bankers (there were many teams for both manufacturers) and we estimated that demand for very large aircraft over the next 25 years (up to 2025) would not exceed 400 units, as air travel was changing with more point to point flights and fewer spokes and hub. I know we were not the only ones with that result, years later I spoke to bankers at other firms who had done the same thing we had for Boeing, and they came up with similar figures.    When Airbus announced the A380 Boeing announced the ending of the B747 program, over a period of 50 years Boein

 Over the past two decades, Turkey has been the "fly in the ointment" and has played a hard game against the West but also the Middle East.  Over the past year, the country has made some new friends from old enemies; starting with Israel and now Saudi Arabia.  The reason appears to be Erdogan's self-interest.  There will be an election in 2023 and Erdogan is in trouble -- the opposition is united, the country is broke and inflation (at 80%) is out of control.   AMLO's government has followed a similar pattern, although its trajectory has been shorter than that of Turkey, mainly because the country was also poorly run before AMLO took power -- he just compounded the problems.  The Mexican people are now finding out that AMLO has been supporting Cuba and Venezuela on the quiet with food and energy exports.   Now, Mexican inflation is rampant, the coffers are empty and AMLO should soon be looking for friends out of old enemies.  Over the past two weeks, AMLO has antagoni

 70% of Americans are pro-abortion, and yet in many places in the US, their opinion counts for nothing.  Well, it turns out that the slam dunk November midterm just took a massive hit.  There seem to be two reasons here: (a) Majority of Americans are pro-abortion (within reasons and limits) (b) The GOP thought that the issue was resolved and they could move even more aggressively to get their far-right agenda approved. Well so far the game plan has been a disaster, and the ability of the GOP to retake the Senate seems to be a 50/50 proposition when it was considered a sure thing a few months ago.  What happened? First, most Americans are pro-abortion, and the supreme court decision was partisan as opposed to legal.  A fact, that the GOP and the supreme court seemed happy to acknowledge  Second, the GOP has been unable to promote non-Trump supporting candidates, and those they have pushed have generally been defeated.  The consequence is that the crazies are running the show, and ruinin

The first thing that comes to mind is "what was she thinking".  Three weeks ago Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the house and America's third most important politician (third in succession if the President dies) flew to Taipei which created shock waves that continue to reverberate.  There are serval issues here that need to be addressed: (1) What was Pelosi's objective in going to Taiwan? The first thing is that NP has been a politician for a very long time;  She was first elected in 1987 -- so she understands the geopolitical implications of such a trip, she flew to Taiwan on a US military aircraft, with the support of the rest of the US government.  At first, glance it's not entirely clear what the US gets out of this trip.  Strictly speaking on what is "apparent" the visit by NP seems to have been a wasted opportunity. (2) How did the Chinese react? The Chinese leadership is not having a good time.  Both economics (an well beyond overheated housing market

 Yesterday a Mexican journalist posted a good question, what would be the impact of Mexico leaving the USMCA free trade agreement? https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/opinion/alberto-tovar/2022/08/20/si-hay-un-mexit-que-pasaria-en-nuestros-bolsillos/ My conclusions:  The answer for Mexico is unknowable, but we should expect a negative trend.  The two largest energy players (CFE & Pemex) are operating in crisis mode with excessive borrowings and little or no profits, as they are both used by the government for social engineering.  The Mexican government has neither the will nor the resources to combat the Americans (Canada is inconsequential here).  Three things are certain:  (a) new investments are unlikely to come to Mexico as the government detests foreign capital (b) CAPEX by foreign companies is unlikely to rise, and finally, and (c) a lot of US companies are "on-shoring" jobs to meet the challenges of weak supply chains. Reasoning Mexico is the US third largest trading

 So the much anticipated Quebec elections are less than 44 days away and to say that the battle is anticlimactic would be a massive understatement. August 20, poll: QAC 42% voter's intention between 80 and 105 seats (currently 97) Liberals  18% of the vote between 11 and 26  seats Who cares about the rest, their votes are so concentrated that they will be lucky to get even one seat in the next parliament. The bottom line these are the only two parties that saw an increase in the voter's intention (the poll was done on August 20th, 2022).  To say that the election process is slow is an understatement.  No one is really that interested because the current party in power needs 67 to obtain a majority, and NO ONE believes they will have less than 80.  That's the most conservative estimate if everything goes wrong.  In fact, it's more than likely that the CAQ will obtain more than 100 seats, and thereby increase its majority (the liberals will have between 11 and 26 seats (t

 NOTE:  Conrad Black was pardoned by then President Donald Trump, as they say:  "one finds all kinds of qualities to someone who does that" A week ago the FBI raided Trump's Florida residence for missing documents, I thought look at that they are doing an over the "Over the top Hilary Clinton thing" that will eventually help Trump to get re-elected in 2024.  BTW I am not a fan of Trump, to me and many many others, the raid looked like over-reach by a government agency.   My thought was "on the side of the GOP" they just got election ammunitions.   Then Monday the Attorney General said he would make the search warrant public...OK, that's different, maybe the DOJ realized they screwed up and that this would reveal the FBI's anti-Trump bias.  On Tuesday it emerged that the FBI had, on a number of occasions, asked "privately" for the specific documents it found in Florida, Not good for Trump -- this was not a fishing expedition, the FBI w

 Trump boasted a number of times that he would meet with the NY state attorney general and answer all its questions.  I guess he said the truth.  During his deposition, he only confirmed his name and proceeded to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 440 times.  He didn't answer a single question. Amazing, when you consider that some aids to Hillary Clinton pleaded the fifth twice and he Trump was the first to blast them! Of course, FOX news is still pro-trump, still decrying the FBI's search for Presidential documents that Trump had kept at his Florida home...

 If you want to discuss the failure of the popular press is the lack of overall news this second week of August 2022.  Except there is still stuff going on.  The war in Ukraine continues to see death and destruction, but again reading the main sheet you would be hard pressed to find anything about this. Fatigue is a common issue, it was the problem with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Americans simply didn't care anymore (not that they really cared that much to start with), 9 in 10 American could not show you Iraq or Afghanistan on a map of the world...despite America fighting there for nearly 20 years. The same is true for the Ukraine conflict, sure there's the odd article on how Russia is suffering from the blockade, that some North Korean soldiers will be sent to the front to support Putin (with friends like that who needs enemies...). Still, the war in Ukraine is no longer part of the front page (or in some cases the back page), it's not being discussed.  Sure we have

 This morning in the NYT there was a long article about the increase in food costs.  Item #1 was Canola Oil which saw a 161% increase in price.  Flour 61% and carrots 14%.  What is interesting here is the time frame.  between 2019 and 2022.  In that period the price of diesel rose from $2.49 per US Gallon to $ 5.48.  Between August 5th 2019 and August 8, 2022, the price of diesel rose by 122%.  Energy is not everything in the production of food, but it's an important component.  I was told by farmer friends that fertilizers and other pest control products have also seen a massive increase in prices over the past two years. The reality is that food processing has become more efficient as time goes by and therefore despite the increase in energy costs, food prices have been relatively stable. However, worrying is the increase in the cost of Canola oil because it is a lightly refined product, therefore, the increase in food costs is just, in my opinion, starting.  Once the increase in

 Well, lets see its seems that Canada's Ministry of foreign affairs bureaucrats don't read newspapers since they were unaware that things were too volatile to have the Canadian embassy open in Kiev.  Then the minister of foreign affairs was surprised that the Canadian Ambassador to China was called in because of Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. BTW what's the point of having an ambassador to China if the Chinese cannot pass an important message to the Canadian government? Maybe someone should buy the minister a subscription to the Guardian newspaper so she and her staff could read about the war in Ukraine.  Just saying... 

How does this happen? It's not really important but you have to wonder about all this.  Reportedly, the production company spent $90 million but now the movie has been cancelled.  Let's say that it's not $90 but really $30 why not still the money is gone?  Why would they cancel the movie after having spent so much money? (1) The movie is so bad...that's unlikely there are plenty of terrible movies that were released and went directly to video.  So this is very unlikely to be the truth.  I mean there are plenty of terrible movies that are released. (2)  The right to the story has not been paid and not agreed to a new price.  It was so much that the production company decided "fuck it" (3)  Movie is really bad and the distribution company is suing because the movie is bad, the only way out is to make it disappear. (4) Aliens are about to attack earth!   Personally, I will support #4 Anyway, have a good weekend. UPDATE:  So on a number of articles about this it s

The wet dream of some bureaucrat the idea of building a high-speed train between Quebec City and Windsor.  A distance of 1,100 km with thousands of viaducts.  The Mexicans are, right now building a tourist train in the Yucatan and not a high-speed train and the total bill is just around US$ 20 billion, and that's going to be a diesel train. It's a stupid project in Mexico, and it is even more idiotic here in Canada.  Problem #1 population density is just not there.  There are currently 20 flights a day with an average flight time of 75 minutes at a cost of C$ 250 return (so $125 each way). Looking at the pure transport economic perspective:  Right now you can leave Montreal downtown at 6 am, and catch the 7:00 AM flight to Toronto, and be in the business district around 8:30 am.  So a 150-minute door to door.  The train has to equal that measure to be worthwhile.  The distance is 560 KM and a TGV  average speed of 320km/h so it could notionally do the trip in 200 minutes.  So t

 For the past six months, Canadian have been following the leadership race for the conservative party of Canada (no they have not, no one really cares except the party members).  The race has been close (not even), and the leader presents a true conservative pedigree of achievements and boldness (not really more of the same pablum). There are two wings to the party, the economically conservative "lassez faire" wing (classical blue Tories) and the Western socially conservative wing of the party (think of the GOP today);  Anti-abortion, anti-Kyoto, Pro gun, anti-vaccine, against marriage equality etc etc.  There are three candidates for the leadership that matter but we will focus on two which represent the two extremes of the party: The race is between a socially conservative junior minister under Harper and the ex-prime minister of Quebec who was also the leader of the Federal Conservative Party when things were very bad.  The big news: Poilievre recently got the endorsement

You've got to admire his inventiveness.  In 2020, AMLO signed the USMCA (new North American trade agreement), which was also signed by the Americans and Canadians.  In this agreement, there was a section on energy -- that AMLO made sure was included.  Now, US and Canadian companies are suing the Mexican government and CFE for breach of contract under the USMCA agreement.  AMLO's latest push is to announce that he is considering leaving the accord unless the Americans and Canadian walk away and allow him to do what he wants! First, the one country that stands to lose the most is Mexico, the trade balance is not in Mexico's favour.  As for services, Mexico is so far behind that there's little value there:  Mexican Banking and insurance are decades behind what is available in America, and the latest catastrophe with the creation of trading markets only made the Mexican capital market is not even appealing to Mexican companies. Virtually all financial products purchased by

 For the better part of the past decade, the State of Nuevo Leon has been plagued by the same water problems that Arizona and New Mexico have faced -- there is a massive drought in the US Midwest, and it's been a big problem for at least a decade. On Friday AMLO signed a new law that makes drinking water in NL a national emergency -- that one unlike the building of the Maya Train actually is an emergency. Granted there is not much that can be done in the short term, cistern trucks will have to be used to ship water to the most affected areas, but there is virtually no short-term solution.  Now before you think that NL is some small forgotten state (there are 35 in Mexico) the capital of NL is called Monterrey.  Yes that town, is basically one of the most important manufacturing center in Mexico and a very important part of the North American manufacturing hub.   How things got so bad is an exercise in laissez-faire by the governments over the past few years.  The state government h

 Over the past decade, I have written more than 1,000 blog posts (actually as of today it's 1,035) on average 300 people read my blog per month, so it sounds like people want to listen to me (no not really).  My most popular post was on PISA, a ranking of teenager school performance across the globe.   Overall I am a drop in the ocean, I have an acquaintance who writes a daily financial blog, and he has for years, it's rather technical on interest rates, he averages 10,000 readers a day!  What he gets in 10 days (including weekends and holidays) I got in 10 years. Anyway, I write this for myself, like my books!  I like to believe that...

 On Tuesday, at his daily two-hour press conference where AMLO takes no questions from any real journalists, but rather is fed questions from his own team, he revealed the projected costs for two of three iconic mega projects: (1) Maya Train:   Until about a month ago the cost of the Maya train was estimated at US$ 8 billion.  It started at less than four and had slowly, and unofficially, risen to eight billion a few weeks ago, then FONATUR revealed that the now planned cost had risen to 200 billion Mexican Peso or about ten billion dollars.  Ok, a 20% increase considering inflation, it's expensive.  Already at eight billion, it was the equivalent of $5.3 million dollars per kilometer, about 40% higher than the highest estimate, but ok, its a government project, and its Mexico, then about two weeks ago FONATURE announced that the Maya Train would now cost US$ 11.3 billion or about seven and a half per kilometer.  On Monday the Presidential bombshell, the total cost was now estimate

A few weeks ago, I wrote about guns and mass shootings in America, and I wrote that really mass shooting was the outcome many Americans wanted.  Not really wanted, but at least didn't care about in terms of national policy.  I remain of the opinion, that for many Americans the fear they hold of the Federal Government makes them want to be heavily armed in case, the Federal Government comes for their guns (I know, I understand how it sounds). So last week I was speaking to an ex-colleague who apparently reads my blog (He was born in Russia, but has lived nearly his entire life in America -- I think he told me that he arrived in America in 1981, he was 11 years old).  He is a proud American, a heavily armed one at that.  Ridiculously smart, and for an American really well read, despite everything (Ha Ha Yuri...) but he took umbrage to my commentary.  I told him that like him, for mass shootings, I don't care about his opinion but really we had an honest conversation, and I said,

 About two years ago, the new government of Sri Lanka decided that it would lead the green revolution and forbid the use, across the country of all pesticides in agriculture. Farmers protested, demonstrated but the government held firm, and since 2020 no pesticides have been imported into Sri Lanka. Until 2021 farmers used what pesticides they had left, but in 2022 the vast majority of Sri Lanka's farmers failed to produce food in the quantities they had in the past because their harvest was destroyed by pests.  Sri Lanka began importing food.  In addition, nearly 80% of all farmers are now mired in poverty because they borrowed to buy seeds and now that the harvest has failed they cannot repay their loans.  In addition, food price inflation has been near 50% over the past year, the result of high global prices but also a weaker domestic currency. A few weeks ago the government fell, due to massive popular protests.  Now a new government is trying to form a coalition, but the count

 It has been more than six months since Evergrand defaulted on $300 billion in bonds.  Since then things in China have not improved.  The pandemic brought a massive slowdown to the construction sector and for the past year those who bought "planned" real estate projects have largely stopped paying their advance payments (these are often termed mortgage payments in China, but it's really a secured loan on a construction project).   Over the past 10 years, Beijing has been aggressively supporting the construction sector with cheap loans and debt forgiveness.  It has been widely reported that the margin return on capital has been below 1 for at least a decade -- every $100 dollar invested only generates $70 of economic growth, and the rest is wasted, compared to 30 years ago when every $100 dollar invested generated nearly $300 in economic growth. Over the past 40 years, local governments have relied on real estate taxes to grow their operations.  These are not recurrent rev