Manganese and Batteries; AI re-writes Sympathy for the Devil and Remembering Monty Gordon
May 29, 2023 Volume 4 # 5
Stock Markets
If the debt ceiling thing goes through stock markers should take off on Monday I find the whole debt ceiling thing so idiotic I seldom read about it and switch to another channel if someone brings it up on TV.
Speaking of stock markets, economist Hubert Marleau, in his weekly letter, points out that in the long run stock markets go up, but it demands some patience.
The New Metal du Jour
Manganese is all of a sudden on the radar because it can be used to produce a battery for an electric car with a range of 1,000 kilometres and last for two-million kilometres. It won’t be out until next year and there are many unkept promises in the EV world.
South Africa and Australia produce about half of the world’s manganese; China is third followed by Gabon and Brazil. It is the twelfth most common element in the earth’s crust. But it is the fourth most used element after iron, aluminum and copper. But being common doesn’t mean it is easy to isolate. It isn’t found on its own, but with other minerals.
Manganese is big in Africa
Steel Production: China Rules
Remember U.S. Steel? It was formed in 1901 by J.P. Morgan and was the largest steel producer in the world. At its peak in 1943, it employed 340,000 workers
US Steel was on the Dow Jones Industrial Index from 1901 to 1991. Its decline mirrors the decline of steel making in the United States. The question is: does it really matter?
Only the Train From Paris to Lyon
This week France banned all domestic flights under two and a half hours.
The TGV does Paris to Lyon in one hour and fifty-eight minutes. It would be faster than the plane given all the security lineups and kerfuffle at the airport.
When Zoom and Peloton Once Ruled
The Odd Couple
Ed Sullivan and Mick Jagger with Keith Richards looking on. They are doing Ed Sullivan’s Sunday night show from Expo 67 in Montreal. I worked there as a `Press Aide’ but I missed this show. Did see premier of Bonnie and Clyde.
Artificial Intelligence Ruins A Great Stones Song.
When I was a feckless youth I lived in a little coach house in Westmount and drove a clapped-out E-type I bought from Paul Levesque for $900.
Most mornings I would put the Rolling Stones on the record player and play it loud while I was in the shower. Sympathy for the Devil was one of my favourites. To get an idea listen to it:
Sympathy For The Devil: Click Here
American Songwriter magazine asked ChatGPT to re-write Sympathy for The Devil, which the magazine described as: “…one of the best rock efforts of all time.”
Here are the first two verses as written and recorded by the Stones:
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long years
Stole million man’s soul an faith
And I was ’round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
And here is how Artificial Intelligence re-wrote it:
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a figure of complexity and grace
I’ve witnessed centuries of human toil and strife
And I’ve been there in every time and place
I’ve seen empires rise and fall with might
And watched the ebb and flow of human greed
I’ve witnessed wars that tore your world apart
And observed the choices that make your hearts bleed
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards can rest easy.
The Peak of the Fin and of American Cars
There is something on the Internet for everything and this is from a site that specializes in 1959 and 1960. This is a 1959 Coupe de Ville, a two-door hardtop.
It was the biggest and most over the top fin of them all. It was perhaps the peak of wild American car designs. The Cadillac fin started small and grew through the 50s.
Its competitor from Ford was the 1956 Lincoln Continental. Much more sedate.
A friend of mine’s father had one of these. We drove up to St. Sauveur from Montreal with two beautiful girls. I forget who the girls were, but I remember the car.
Essay of the Week
An obit of a friend of mine I wrote for the Globe in 2019.
Monty Gordon was one of the founding members of the Canadian bobsled team which won several world championships including a gold medal at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. He was also a legend on Bay Street, the founder of Gordon Securities, which became Gordon Capital, one of the most powerful investment firms in the country until it was taken over by HSBC.
A farm boy from rural Ontario, Mr. Gordon worked his way through university and in 1957 joined Nesbitt Thomson, a Montreal brokerage house, where his intelligence, hard work and infectious charm made him a star.
When Mr. Gordon told his family he was working in the stock market, his father Ernest Gordon, a dairy farmer, was pleased, assuming his son was buying and selling livestock. Monty Gordon always spoke highly of his father and mother Katharine, saying they were such hard workers. So was he, but off the farm.
Lloyd Lamont Gordon grew up on a farm near Harriston, in western Ontario. He said only his mother ever called him Lloyd, and all his life he was known as Monty, though the more formal L. Lamont had more cache in business.
After Harriston High School, where he was president of the student council, Mr. Gordon travelled 120 kilometres south to the University of Western Ontario. He earned a business degree and made connections that stayed with him all his life. At University Mr. Gordon was mixing with people from rich families, but the dairy farmer's son had to support himself. He took on several jobs, including driving a taxi in London, Ontario. He was also house manager of the Zeta Psi fraternity and is credited with getting it out of financial trouble by organizing successful Friday night parties.
After graduating he and his university friend Vic Emery went to Europe in the summer of 1955 working their way across on Norwegian freighters, Monty landing in Bergen, Norway and Vic in Belgium. They met in Paris and toured Europe in an old beat-up car. The two had been in the Naval Reserve at university and found that donning their junior officer's uniforms got them invited to some great parties. At the end of the trip, Mr. Gordon took a naval course in England.
That winter, they found themselves in St. Moritz in Switzerland, where they were introduced to the daredevil sport of bobsledding. Mr. Gordon joined the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club, in 1956 and was a member all his life. He and Mr. Emery eventually formed the Canadian Bobsled team. They practiced at the bobsled run at Lake Placid, New York, 140 kilometres from Montreal.
In 1961the team entered competitions in the United States and Europe and they raced in the 1962 Commonwealth Games in St. Moritz. The Canadian team won a gold medal with Mr. Gordon driving the four-man bobsled. In the 1964 Olympics, the Canadian team won a gold medal in the four-man bobsled event with Vic Emery driving. Mr. Gordon competed, but his sled did not win a medal. He drove four-man and two-man bobsleds.
The bobsled team included many men who went on to successful business careers, including Vic Emery, Gordon Eberts, Paul Levesque and Christopher Ondaatje, (brother of the author Micahel Ondaatje) among others.
"Monty Gordon and Vic Emery were the driving force that propelled the rags to riches Canadian bobsled team to the Olympics," said Mr. Ondaatje.
Monty Gordon also raced sports cars on tracks near Montreal, and his accidents on the track earned him the nickname `Crash Gordon.' His crew of friends also rented a ski chalet in St. Sauveur, which at the time was the party capital of the Laurentians. In Montreal, in the late 1950s, Mr. Gordon shared an apartment on Ridgewood on the side of the mountain with Mr. Emery and Robin Korthals, who went on to become President of the Toronto Dominion Bank.
Back in Canada, Mr. Gordon started work at Nesbitt Thomson in a building at the corner of St. Peter and St. James, as the streets were known then. Monty Gordon worked on what is called the Institutional Side, that is trading stock for large clients such as insurance companies, banks, and pension funds.
Mr. Gordon rose quickly at Nesbitt Thomson and became a director of the firm in 1964. He worked for Nesbitt's office in New York and was instrumental in convincing his partners to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, something that was unheard of in Canada at the time. Nesbitt paid around half a million dollars for the seat, which allowed the firm to trade directly on the floor of the exchange, meaning they did not have to pay commissions to an American dealer when buying US stocks.
Paul Levesque, one of Mr. Gordon's oldest friends who started working with him at Nesbitt Thomson in 1958 felt the reason for Mr. Gordon's business success was that he was a straight shooter, got to the point and believed what he was saying.
"It wasn't difficult for Monty to convince someone of the pros and cons of a deal because he spoke so honestly and was so open," said Mr. Levesque.
Mr. Gordon also helped the careers of many young people in the investment business. Hubert Marleau was a young man out of university with no experience, but Mr. Gordon hired him at Nesbitt Thomson.
"He was a very unusual person. He had dreams, and they were ambitious dreams," said Mr. Marleau, who later founded his own firm, Marleau Lemire. "When he bought the seat in New York he gave me the job of training the Nesbitt directors to make sure they passed the New York Stock Exchange exams."
On New Year's Day 1969 Mr. Gordon left a promising career at Nesbitt Thomson and started a brokerage firm in Montreal with his bobsled teammate, Gordon Eberts. The firm was called Gordon, Eberts Securities, and eventually became plain Gordon Securities. The firm was entrepreneurial, took risks and hired ambitious young salespeople and traders. One of their innovations in Canada was the `Bought Deal' in which Gordon would buy the newly issued shares of a company with the goal of selling it to investors for a profit.
Mr. Gordon and his firm eventually moved to Toronto in the late 1970s, and he left the firm to work on a string of entrepreneurial deals, from a start-up drug company to a highway barrier firm. He had a magic touch, and a large group of followers always seemed ready to invest his businesses. Large brokerage firms also wanted him around, and for many years he was chairman of Sprott Securities and also worked with the Jack Lawrence.
Mr. Gordon was a familiar figure on Yonge Street every morning walking with his briefcase from his home to the Rosedale subway station to head downtown to work.
Lloyd Lamont Gordon was born in Harriston, Ontario, on April 29, 1932. He died in Toronto on July 26, 2019, Mr. Gordon was married three times. He is survived by his children Catherine, Deborah, James, Pamela, Jennifer and fourteen grandchildren.