Farmer Diaries

 Reading the comments on Zerohedge about Rivian IPO, and you would be hard-pressed to get comments that make any sense at all.  The bottom line is they hate EV, it's a passion.  never mind that 95% of EVs are manufactured in the US for the US market. They really want to have coal-fired cars if they could.  it's a pollution thing.  One bozo even said that Ford sells 900,000 F150 per annum (it's actually 128,000), not zero but still  Of course, there are always the guys who talk about camping with an EV or going on long road trips.  Facts, 99% of all vehicle trips, excluding trucks) are for less than 200 KM. The range for all EVs is nearly twice that. The issue with Rivian is that they sold 20 odds cars, they have an order book for 150,000 more.  

 The airline industry has pledged that by 2050 they will be carbon neutral, amusing if you think about it, considering that the airline industry has little say on the technology being deployed -- it GE, RR  and SNECMA who design engines for aircraft. Still 2050, lots can happen in 30 years

 OK in the 3rd quarter of 2021, Tesla delivered a total of 210,000 cars which is not bad, a few days ago, Rivian a competitor to Tesla did its IPO, and today the stock opened 35% above its IPO price, the total market cap for Rivian is north of US$ 90 billion. How many cars has Rivian delivered over the past 2 years...its s a smaller number than Telsa that's for sure, how about 22, not 22,000 but as of October 20th, 2021, Rivian had delivered a grand total of 22 vehicles, just short of two dozen cars. Rivian is today worth more than General Motors.  In the third quarter of 2021 GM sold about 240,000 cars Now Tesla is down 12% on the news that EM may sell some shares.  The company's market cap is still just north of 1,000 billion, only 10x more than Rivian, which sold 22 cars.  

 Two weeks ago, the already contentious announcement that CFE would prioritize the use of power produced by CFE rather than the independent producers.  This was already seen as a hard knock on the back of foreign investors, but it got worse last week when AMLO started talking about expropriation, not only that but those who have installed a rooftop solar systems to reduce power costs would be forced to remove them.   According to th the law before Congress, those who saw these systems removed would be compensated, although considering the state of Mexico's treasury, it's not entirely clear, the CEO of CFE on Monday indicated that the best bet was nationalization without compensation, like in 1936.  The old men who run Mexico today have this vision of Mexico as an energy-independent country (85% of all-natural gas is from the US, 22% of Mexico's electricity is purchased from the US).  This dream is based on this vision of a perfect example of what Cuba and V...

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 One thing for sure, the Delta variant is far more transmissible than the other variants, it's the only point everyone seem to agree upon.  As for the rest... Zero Hedge used Daniel Horowitz -- (we assume its actually the trump loving lawyer who got disbarred a few weeks ago), and now refer to him as a writer (there is a David Horowitz who is actually a conservative writer).  Says that Variant D is not dangerous and it's all a tissue of lies, then again he said that America faced no risk in 2020 from the first variant, you can quibble on the number of dead Americans, but it got to be around 600,000 -- some will say that figure is no worse than the seasonal flu (which is not correct about 60,000 Americans die from the flu every year -- mostly elderly). Then there is the announcement that its more contagious but far less deadly, and the proof are some numbers out of the UK, for once AD didn't use Russia -- because Russia is in trouble with Moscow and St Petersburg being aff...

 When Bitcoin hit $3,000 some years ago a friend said to me this was a great trade, and I should invest.  I told him, that to me, for now, Bitcoin was a purely speculative play and not an investment.  The same way a Picasso at $100 million was not an investment it was speculation, speculation that someone else would pay more for an asset that has no function -- sure its pretty but so is a poster! Bitcoin made it all the way to $60,000 or thereabout. my friend who had bought 500 coins at $250 in 2016 would be worth $ 90 million if he had sold at the peak -- he didn't sell at the peak he sold at around $10,000. Now Bitcoins are going down based on nothing, except that investors have soured to the instrument -- by the way, it's not only bitcoin that has seen a massive drop in price, it trades around $38,000 today down 37% from its peak in early April 2021, all other cryptos took a hit. My point was always the same if there is no reason for the price of a financial instrument...

 Nearly 100% of the over 60 in New Hampshire have received their first vaccine dose, and 60% their second dose. In Tennessee, only 30% of those over 60 have received their first dose and less than 10% their second dose. The President of Mexico vacillates between taking and not taking the vaccine, he doesn't wear a mask.  The Prime Minister of India, in the middle of an election, is having massive rallies with his supporters with no mask in sight, neither the President of Mexico nor the Prime Minister of India wear mask.  The president of the United state, Canada, and all the EU all wear masks. Right now the worse affected country for covid 19 is Uruguay that had draconian rules until recently, India has an explosion of new cases  Some friends took extraordinary measures to obtain their vaccine paying large sums of money to get to the US to get vaccinated.  Me as a Canadian I am allowed to obtain the vaccine but because I am living outside of Canada it's impossib...

 Over the past few weeks I have been in Mexico, largely for work, but also to escape the winters of Quebec that was, in 2020 brutal.  So far 2021 has proven to be less painful.  First off it was far less cold, yes there were days of -40 but only very few.  Canada's winter was mild if you consider that the great lakes remained largely ice-free the whole winter. Snow that was still 50 cm deep in April is nearly gone.  The roof of our house is entirely free of snow, and in fact, the property is sloppy but nothing compared to last year.  This winter appears to be mild, and normally we would consider leaving Mexico later next month to start opening the house for spring and summer. But our plans are now up in the air.  Although Air Canada has announced that it will resume flights to Cancun sometime in May, we can still fly via New York, the news on Covid in Canada is not good.  Quebec is seeing daily infection rates rising again, it had been falling sin...

The Quebec government will soon introduce a law to reduce/control the number of available places in English-speaking CEGEP (schools that last two years after high school and before university).  Their popularity is understandable if you are a smart francophone who had his entire education in French -- it's your last chance to "master" the English language.  Quebec is surrounded by nearly 350 million English speakers -- Quebec is a very open economy that exports all over North America. I can tell you exactly what the impact of "reducing the number of available places"  it will dramatically increase the number of application because parents concerned with the children's education will want their kids to go to the best school and the best schools are those who restrict the number of places... Anglophone and francophones that want to study outside of Quebec will go to English-speaking CEGEP, entry will become more competitive standards will become higher.  It ha...

 So yesterday Elon Musk invited Putin to a conversation on Clubhouse (new version of WhatsApp) which feels like an "early" Gmail where you needed an invitation!  The market impact was that UNRElATED company Clubhouse Media saw its share price spike 12x its morning opening... Bitcoin hit $51,000!  At this stage there is no reason to think that Bitcoin could go to $300,000 or $50 there is no reason for the crypto to rise (or fall), Bitcoin is not a tool of exchange (or payment) its a speculative instrument.  You can chart the price, see the demand but there are NO FUNDAMENTALS (granted there are no fundamentals for Gold or Silver either). In fact, gold and Bitcoin share many aspects in common.  Gold is a store of value (it has been relatively stable around $1,800 per ounce), cryptos have been on a massive tear.  Neither are really used in exchange since gold is "complicated" and has never really been used that way.  Apparently, the majority of the world'...

 I have like many been watching the events in the US (and Northern Mexico), the funniest is via Zerohedge an interesting rightwing blog post website.  Anyway, it has been published everywhere on ERCOT's website that the Principal reason for the power failure is the freezing of the state's natural gas infrastructure (and yes some wind farm have been affected too), the net loss of generation is 30MW in the natural gas sector and 4MW in the wind sector -- there's wind but also icing conditions and the Texan windmills didn't have to install de-icing systems on their wings (because it's warm -- usually -- in Texas).  Every 10 years or so, Texas has a big freeze!  Every 10 years a report is written on the failures of the grid. The amusing thing here is the right-wing "blogosphere" who seem intent on saying -- we should have kept the coal, we should not use renewable energy... let's be clear coal power plants only work one way 100% of rated capacity -- if yo...