Gentle Bubbles, Students in Montreal, And a Guest Essay from a Tesla Novice.
October 30, 2023 Volume 4 # 23
The Bubble That Gently Bursts
Everyone keeps predicting the real estate bubble will burst. Central banks push up rates but most property values hold or take a small hit. As this chart points out the biggest hit so far is Stockholm. Dubai is in Bubble Risk territory but all those desperate rich Russians aren’t going anywhere soon. Ditto for Miami and Latinos.
Anecdote from Toronto: the market is swamped with high-end listings that won’t sell.
Where The Growth Is
There is not one rich country on this list. A lot of countries in Africa, which are starting from a low base. The richer the world is, the safer it will probably be.
There is only one country in the Americas: Guyana, a small place with huge oil reserves that are already producing riches. A friend from Guyana recently made sure to renew her passport. The Guyanese government is so flush with cash that it is giving free money to every citizen. Guyana borders Venezuela and shares the same oilfield.
Unintended Consequences
Montreal is seething with students. There are four universities— two French, University of Montreal (67,000 students) University of Quebec at Montreal (43,140 students) and two English, McGill (34,840 students) and Concordia (45,056 students) along with at least fifteen junior colleges, known as CEGEPS, thirteen French and three English, as well schools for plumbers, electricians, artists and actors.
One survey places Montreal number four on a world scale of cities for students.
The Quebec government is almost doubling tuition fees— from $9,000 to $17,000— for students from the rest of Canada who want to go to McGill, Concordia and Bishop’s University (2,500 students) 165 kilometres southeast of Montreal. It applies to students wanting to attend French universities as well, though the education minister was silly enough to say one reason for the hike is there is too much English spoken on the streets of Montreal by maybe 20,000 students living in the city from the rest of Canada. There is panic in Quebec’s shrinking English language population from what it sees as a cultural threat and it has angered middle class parents in the rest of Canada whose children might want to go to the three English universities.
The way I see it is the students will still come; $17,000 a year is relative peanuts. Middlebury College in Vermont, a two and half hour drive south from Montreal, charges US$64,800 ($90,000 Canadian). The students going to McGill from the rest of Canada will just be richer. Try selling that concept to the general population. Unintended consequence number one.
The universities in Montreal are all huddled around the centre of the city, with some minor outlying buildings. Downtown Montreal is crowded with restaurants, bars, theatres, clubs and all kinds of trouble students love to get into. It is a lot more fun than Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Kingston or Halifax. Take it from someone who grew up in Montreal; it is a spectacular place to be young. Rich kids will love it. McGill and Bishop’s University will become a place for the rich to network. Like Princeton, Harvard and Middlebury. Unintended consequence number two.
Unintended consequence number three is that the extra tuition for Canadians outside of Quebec paints the Quebec government, which is pro business in the extreme, of being mildly xenophobic and it could put off firms from moving to Quebec, whose economy is booming at the moment. A silly policy that won’t keep any students away but sends a nasty message even if the Quebec premier says it is not against Anglophones, as English speakers are called in Quebec. Me, I prefer xylophones.
Other Languages Spoken in the United States
If you watch Jeopardy every night, as I do, you will notice that educated clever Americans, that’s all the contestants, are not great on world geography or foreign languages. That is why I take this chart with an entire shaker of salt. I believe the recent immigrant tongues, such as Chinese, Tagalog and Arabic, are spoken but German? Many Americans might have German roots but do they really speak it?
Difficulty of Learning A New Language
A man I am working with speaks fluent Chinese; he is fluent in at least two other languages that I know of. He says, modestly, that it was easy to learn Chinese— I can’t remember if it’s Mandarin or Cantonese. This study from The Economist shows that for an English speaker, Chinese is one of the most difficult languages to master.
The Easy Ones:
The Harder Ones:
The Really Tough Ones:
Come Fly With Me
The British Overseas Air Corporation, BOAC, once known as Imperial Airways, was the pride of the British Empire, connecting routes around the world.
This is an aircraft BOAC would like to forget: the de Havilland Comet. It was the world’s first commercial jetliner, flying passengers in 1952. Metal fatigue, not understood at the time, led to crashes and a redesign. Oddly rectangular windows caused stress and they were replaced by oval windows which were safer.
BOAC, long the state owned airline, was privatized in February of 1987. Many state-owned airlines followed: Air France, Air Canada, and KLM, among others. Russian carrier Aeroflot is partly state owned, as is Air New Zealand. China— Air China— and India— Air India— still have one state owned airline apiece.
Trans-Canada Airlines —TCA— was re-named Air Canada— the same in English and French— in 1965. It was partially privatized in 1988, and fully free of government control in 1989. Like other state carriers, it was better off without political meddling.
The Vickers Viscount, along with the larger Vickers Vanguard, Air Canada’s last propellor driven planes before it went with an all jet fleet. Air Canada actually flew these until 1974 by which time it had been flying Boeing 747 Jumbos for three years.
Essay of the Week
Electric vehicle sales are weak, say top executives from Ford, Mercedes and others. They are too expensive for one thing. Example: Audi came out with the new electric model that costs more than US$110,000. Mercedes has EV’s north of C$200,000.
This is a guest essay from my friend Rob Patterson, an EV neophyte who fell in love with the idea of electric cars. Rob was in Europe earlier this month and toured around in a Tesla Model Y with his nephew, who did the driving. The Model Y is the best selling car in Europe, where governments are pushing a carbon free existence even more than in Canada or the United States. Reading British newspapers, there has been some pushback against EVs, mostly because the charging infrastructure is so poor. Police had to be called to a charging spot in Britain because of a combination of too many cars waiting to be charged and broken down chargers, a universal complaint. Except with Tesla and its Supercharger network. Rob by the way is not a car guy but he is a computer guy, and hadn’t given much thought to electric cars before he went on his European EV jaunt.
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Tesla Y - after 10 days and thousands of KM - here are my first impressions of a Tesla Y. I have never even sat in one before. So my views are based entirely on this experience.
Bottom line - Yes Tesla's are EV's but that is only one aspect of the experience. The big aha is that each car is part of an ecosystem and that the offer is more like an iPhone versus an old Nokia when the iPhone first arrived.
The core process is how the mapping integrates with all that you do. We, the car is my nephew's, plan to go from Xanten to Regensburg. We enter the destination. The route is mapped, and where it is best to charge is identified. Each choice tells us how much charge we will have left once we arrive. Result all the "where do we charge" anxiety goes away.
Tesla in Europe has a widespread network of Superchargers. They are nearly all in ideal locations and next to a place to get coffee and use the loo. You arrive, plug in and take a 15 minute break. You then simply unplug and drive off. You are billed online. Your Tesla account is fully detailed. The Superchargers are very fast. We were driving for 3 - 5 hours each morning. Taking a 15 minute break is a good idea no matter what kind of car
Driving support - Much of our driving was in the dark and often in rain. The work load on my nephew was reduced a lot by the autopilot function. When this is on, the car settles into the lane at the set speed adjusted to the traffic at the optimal distance behind the car ahead for that speed. All you have to do is to keep your hands on the wheel. All the slowing down or speeding up is taken care of by the car. If there is a problem, such as a car alongside that is moving into your lane the car will set off an alarm and react much faster than you ever could.
We hardly use the mirror, Tesla's have cameras for every angle. Changing lanes, use the indicator and the side camera gives you a full view inside the blind spot.
Everything in the car is adjustable using the interior computer. Km versus miles, angle of the head lights, airflow etc.
For those who live in winter climates, you can tell the car to warm up before you get into it.
It is not worth anyone's while to steal a Tesla. You can disable the car. You can track it. You can photo the thief. The car locks itself as you leave and unlocks as you approach. It's all done by your phone. For added security you can use a PIN.
Performance? 0-60 in just over 2 seconds. Massive torque. With the battery on the floor, the car also has great handling. So, getting out of trouble or getting into a lane is amazing.
Service - Your tire pressure is monitored as are all systems. Replacing tires is about all there is for regular service.
In Quebec, electricity is very cheap, but even in Europe the savings in energy costs are meaningful.
In summary, the Tesla is a computer on wheels whereas a competing EV is only an old car with an electric motor. Rob Paterson.