When it pays to be in hock
With inflation running at 6% — or more— and interest rates at 1% — or less— it pays to borrow, especially if that debt is for an asset that is growing. In real terms you are making money, though nothing you can spend right now. Risky, but you could easily skate onside in the end.
A clever friend pointing out that people who have owned houses for decades could make more money when they sell than they earned in total all their working lives. People who buy now will probably never pay off their mortgage. When you were born helps.
It is a similar to the Stagflation era of the 1970s when you would take out a loan and see the payment reduced in real terms as your salary rose with inflation adjustments. That blew up when interest rates went to 21% in 1981.
Back then there was no Internet to look up rates, but there was a small green mortgage book.
It only started at 6%.
Current Canadian rates, click here
Cobalt
The metal of the week. Cobalt is vital to cell phones and electric cars because of its use in batteries. Cobalt is not that rare, it’s just that most of it is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country wracked by civil war and human misery. It is a place almost never mentioned by the likes of CNN. It is a far away place of which we know nothing. Except when it come to getting Cobalt for batteries.
Canada is number six in world production of cobalt, but a distant sixth. Cobalt occurs with other metals such as nickel and copper. That is why Canadian production is at two big nickel and copper mines in Sudbury, Ontario, and Voisey’s Bay, Labrador.
1. Democratic Republic of Congo 95,000 MT (metric tonnes)
2. Russia 6,300 MT
3. Australia 5,700 MT
4. Philippines 4,700 MT
5. Cuba 3,600 MT
6. Canada 3,200 MT
Climate hypocrisy in the State of Maine
The people of Maine say they are worried about climate change.
“The (2020) survey shows that Maine voters are increasingly concerned about the impacts of global warming, and more than 80% support reducing pollution by expanding solar energy and creating a statewide public transportation network connecting cities and towns with bus service. Mainers want their elected officials to work across party lines to address global warming and support the ongoing work of the Maine Climate Council to develop a strong Climate Action Plan.”
Earlier this month `Mainers’ rejected bringing green Quebec hydroelectricity to Maine and other New England states.
They objected to a relatively narrow swath cut through Maine’s forests to prove a 145 mile corridor to the New England grid. Much of it is already cut.
Maine says 79% of its energy comes from renewable energy. That’s a stretch. That red pie called biomass is from burning wood and wood waste which is called renewable because trees grow back. Natural gas is not renewable. Which leaves wind and hydro-electricity at 31%. Green-speak is easy; green-do, not so easy.
Ditto Ontario, but on electric cars
Ontario says it wants electric cars to dominate its roads. But Ontario killed its subsidies to electric cars when Premier Doug Ford was elected in 2018. Ford is a populist with his base outside the big cities where electric cars are popular.
"I'm not going to give rebates to guys that are buying $100,000 cars — millionaires," said Ford on Wednesday. Well there are a lot of electric cars that cost less than $100,000. Hyundai Kona Electric, Nissan Leaf, Ford Mustang, Tesla Model 3 and Model Y and a couple of Volkswagens.
Quebec and British Columbia subsidize electric cars. Vancouver adoption rate: 15%; Montreal: 10.9%; and Toronto three per cent. As for the millionaire dig, anyone who owns a house in Ontario is probably a millionaire. Ford has a family business and his net worth is said to be $50-million.
And Canada’s Federal Government
Melanie Joly, the minister of Foreign Affairs, objected to a proposed US tax credit for people buying electric vehicles made in the U.S. It would hurt future electric car production in Canada.
There is no electric car production in Canada. Little wonder. The federal government provides a $5,000 subsidy for electric cars buyers, but only if the car is worth less than $45,000. The same populist thinking as Ontario. Because of that Tesla produced a low-end Model 3 with almost no range to get around the rules. This from a government that has an ex-Greenpeace leader as Environment Minister. Again: Green-speak is easy; green-do, not so easy.
Tesla passes Mercedes
As the third most popular luxury car brand in the United States. In the latest edition of Consumer Reports the smaller Tesla Model 3 gets top rating for electric cars.
The Magazine gives the Model Y — SUV version of the Model 3 pictured above— a dismal score of 47% compared to a score of 78% for the Model 3.
Swans
I spotted a flock of mute swans off Cherry Beach near downtown Toronto this week. If it’s warm enough the swans will winter here, like Canada Geese.
Mute swans are beautiful but they are an invasive species. They were introduced from Europe in the 19th century to decorate ponds country estates. Mute swans are big— up to 19 kilograms (42 pounds) and they eat four kilograms of aquatic matter a day.
The mute swans crowd out native Trumpeter Swans that are smaller at 10 kilograms or 25 pounds. Trumpeter swans were almost wiped out by over-hunting.
Essay of the Week
November 11 was Remembrance Day and the Globe and Mail published the following piece about Rita Grimshaw, who died late last month at the age of 96.
Rita Grimshaw—she was Rita Pyman at the time—was eighteen years old when she read an advertisement, published in Canadian newspapers, that promised travel and adventure. The ad’s headline: “To Work for Britain.” It read:
“A department of the British government in New York City requires several young women, fully competent in secretarial work and of matriculation or better educational standing. The chief need is for expert file clerks and for typists and stenographers… those selected can expect to serve for the duration of the war.”
She replied to the ad, without telling her parents, and the next thing she knew the RCMP was at the door. Her parents were shocked.
The Mounties were there to check out Miss Pyman and her family. They all passed muster. They were a patriotic family. Her father Walter had been gassed at Ypres in the First World War—he volunteered even though he was too old to be conscripted-- and two of her brothers served in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
There was a war on and the job she was after was in New York City working for British Security Co-ordination (BSC), the espionage and propaganda service run by Sir William Stephenson, later made famous as A Man Called Intrepid.
The reason Rita Pyman and other young Canadian women were hired to work for a British spy agency operating out of New York City was that Americans were forbidden to work for foreign governments who were at war.
Rita had just finished the secretarial course at St. Joseph’s College School in Toronto when she landed the job she applied for and moved to New York City just before Christmas of 1943.
“Imagine leaving home just before Christmas. That tells you what kind of a woman she was,” said her daughter Karen Grimshaw. “She shared living quarters with a girl called Penny, whose full name I can’t recall. My mother worked as a cypher clerk re-routing codes and things. Because there was so much confidentially she didn’t talk much about it, even in the past few years. But you did get a sense of the de-coding, using machines.”
The young women were treated well and lived an exciting life in war-time New York City. “At first my mother lived in hotel with Penny. She met the actor Peter Lorre in the lobby and developed a passion for Frank Sinatra,” said Ms. Grimshaw.
William Stephenson made sure his staff were treated well as long as they stayed true to their oath of secrecy.
“Stephenson was immensely proud of his Canadian female staff,” said a lengthy piece on him in the December 1952 issue of Macleans magazine. “He took a personal interest in making sure they all got decent quarters in Manhattan. One of his instructions is they should never give the impression they were in secret work.”
There were only two women, out of a thousand or more, who were sent home for boasting about their secret life.
The BSC was more than a spy operation, though it covered espionage in Canada, the United States and Latin America. It foiled a coup in Bolivia, broke up a German spy ring in the United States – sending 13 people to prison—and trained special agents at a secret camp in Oshawa, Ontario.
Rita Grimshaw would have seen pieces of many of those things. The BSC also engaged in propaganda, trying to influence US public opinion to get America to join the war before December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill put Canadian businessman William Stephenson in charge of leading the propaganda war. He had easy access to American columnists such as Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson. They even manipulated horoscope columns to make things look good for Britain and its allies and bad for Germany and Japan.
The BSC’s Manhattan offices were in Rockefeller Center and there were at least a thousand Canadians working there, almost all of them women. They were under strict secrecy. The secrecy was taken seriously and throughout her long life Rita Grimshaw kept true to her vow of secrecy.
Though she barely gave her family any information, Mrs. Grimshaw would meet with other women who worked with her during the war and they could safely talk about the secret work they did.
When an artist did a portrait of Mrs. Grimshaw about 20 years ago, she was asked to write a short bio to go with the painting. Her daughter Karen Grimshaw thinks it was the only time she ever wrote about her experiences with the BSC.
“In 1942, as Vera Lynne sang, There’ll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover, a small gang of beautiful, brainy, and tight-lipped young women were hired by the British Security Coordination (B.S.C.) in New York City to receive and reroute secret codes from the underground in Europe and other sympathetic hot spots. I was one of those young women. Our boss was Sir William Stephenson, a.k.a. Intrepid! Those years are very memorable by their shared bond of secrecy.”
Sir William’s cover was a passport officer with the British Consulate in New York.
Secrecy was so important that at the end of war 20 copies of the activities of the BSC’s office were printed in Oshawa, Ontario, bound in leather by a shop in Toronto and each placed in a locked box. That book, British Security Coordination: The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas 1940-45, was only made public in 1998. All the records of BSC were burned in 1945.
In a review of the book, Charles Kolb said there was an avalanche of material that arrived in the offices every day, things women such as Rita Grimshaw would have to sort out.
“The number and length of the messages was becoming a serious issue and would reach 50,000 encrypted messages per day by 1943. The report documents the development of Telekrypton cyphering machines, Transatlantic Lines, Rockex I encyphering and de-cyphering, and its replacement by Rockex II beginning in March 1944,” wrote Mr. Kolb.
At the end of the war, in a letter dated May 8, 1945, VE Day (Victory in Europe) William Stephenson sent a letter to Rita Pyman, thanking her and all the others who worked with her for their help in the secret life at Rockefeller Canter.
“Dear Miss Pyman, On this day of final victory in Europe it is both a duty and a pleasure to express my appreciations and the thanks of the organization for your valued contribution to our efforts,” began the one-page letter. Sir William then emphasised the continuing secrecy of the job: “…because of the confidential and often very difficult nature of the work. I assure you that your loyalty, your discretion…are very much appreciated.”
Rita Grimshaw was born in Toronto on 1925. Her father Walter Pyman was a typesetter, her mother Sabina Scott was an Irish immigrant. The family lived on Pape Avenue in the east end of Toronto. Young Rita went to a Catholic high school in downtown Toronto where she picked up her secretarial skills.
After the excitement of life in the secret world in New York City, she returned to Toronto and in the fall of 1945 went to her brother’s wedding where met Ross Grimshaw an RCAF officer fresh from a tour on Lancaster bombers. They married a few months later on December 1.
After her three daughters were older Mrs. Grimshaw went back to work.
“I returned to the workforce, taking the position of Secretary Treasurer of the Ontario Racing Commission and Business Manager of the Magistrates’ Quarterly,” wrote Mrs. Grimshaw.
“Our mother worked pretty much most of whole lives. She was a business manager, so she had a secretary rather than working as one,” said Ms. Grimshaw. “She was very interested in racing and she and my father would go to a lot of races”
When she wrote her bio for the portrait she included a rather whimsical summation of her married life.
“This past December, Ross and I celebrated our fifty-eighth Wedding Anniversary. Time seems to have flown by: 58 years; 696 months; 21,170 days; 63,510 meals; three daughters to raise and educate; ten Prime Ministers; two dogs named Tippy; one and with a broken tail; one canary named Peter Pan; one accordion; one piano; summers in Port Elgin; trips to Montreal, Quebec City, British Columbia; one summer on Prince Edward Island; two years hiatus in Halifax; trips to Hawaii and Europe; four houses; ten cars; four grandsons and one granddaughter.”
Rita Grimshaw was born in Toronto on January 14, 1925. She died in Toronto on October 21, 2021. She is survived by her three daughters, Karen, Marie Linzon and Susan Levesque and five grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren