Turbulent Times

Tesla, Elections in Canada and Israel divided

It will not have gone unnoticed; Tesla is under pressure. Following its years as the darling of the energy transition and poster child of a greener future, it has fallen so far from grace that dealerships are now being vandalized, in some cases cars are even torched. The stock is plunging and targeted by short sellers and now has fallen to 52-week lows. Last week on Dutch TV, the prime time news paraded a guy who was both selling his Tesla and dumping his Tesla stock. Mainstream media somehow love anything that involves criticism of Trump, even some random Dutch guy selling his five year old Tesla is now apparently big news. There is of course always a low point and that honour went to former vice presidential candidate (remember him?) and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz who thought the time was right to chime in:

Walz conveniently forgot that Minnesota pensions plans are investors in Tesla, a company that also employs numerous people all across America. But common sense has long left the room. Walz of course is exemplary of the sort of people keen to display their green credentials before the US presidential election, now they are trashing one of the very things they once believed would save our planet.

Of course it is all to do with Elon Musk who is the nominal CEO of Tesla, he holds the title but has many other executive roles at the same time. He owns only 13% of the car manufacturer and he wasn’t even a founder. But the irrational hate of Musk’s role in getting Trump into the White House is so unhinged that there is an emerging global movement that believes it is totally justified to tear down Tesla. This crowd has come up with everything from virtue signalling your dislike of Tesla all the way to actually torching cars. Even if it affects employment, the development of green technologies and workers pension plans. So, for a moment think about the incessant Trump-Musk hate and the tactics it employs: it has lowered the bar to a morally questionable standard where violence and irrational behaviour are normalized.

Note: I don’t have a Tesla, but I do own the stock. Cathie Wood tells us it has the potential to go to $2600. Why? Because Tesla is a cutting edge AI and energy storage company that is now rapidly breaking ground in robot-assisted driving. Car models come and go. So do politicians. New modes of transportation and energy infrastructure will stay. Place your bets.

Canada’s Lost Decade

Or that is what the Trudeau reign of some ten years is now often referred to. Spiralling debt, low productivity, inflation, unaffordable housing, global irrelevance, soaring crime rates and a divided nation, to name only a few things. For me the endless politicking, lying, obfuscation and the deliberate inability to try and bring Canada together stand out as the sad epitaphs of the past ten years. The unwillingness to stand up against antisemitism and to support Israel should also not go unmentioned here. It’s a sad state of affairs.

So Canada needs a change and at the same time come up with a viable strategy to deal with Trump’s trade war. That is a lot to digest in an election that was announced yesterday where Canada’s ruling Liberals will have to fight it out with the opposition Conservatives and a few smaller parties. Using a constitutional maneuver Trudeau was cleverly sidelined and replaced by former Bank of Canada and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney who now can run the campaign as Canada’s sitting prime minister. A handpicked member of the elite, a man also having his fingerprints as Trudeau’s adviser on the Liberals’ disastrous economic policies, he will have to slug it out with the younger and way more dynamic conservative Pierre Poilievre. All polls indicate a very tight race, but if you break down these down it is quite interesting to note how the parties are doing across different age groups.

The conservative Poilievre is now the candidate for change and in particular the young have good reasons to look for someone with fresh ideas who can give them hope moving forward. The resume of Carney however may sway those who fear the trade war with America warrants more expertise.

That said, Carney is a somewhat aloof bureaucrat, not a politician, and has the disadvantage of having to fight out it out with Poilievre who is way more adept in connecting with Canada’s pulse. The conservative leader has been working hard for years with rallies across the country whereas Carney is a sort of late ‘top-down’ candidate with no connections to the grass roots level.

Canada is sailing into uncharted territory and neither candidate has the magic bullet to deal with the problems caused by the damaging trade war that Trump has unleashed. So it will come down to who is able to offer a bold and new direction that not only enables Canada to fix its immediate economic problems, but which also provides an optimistic view of the future that will put the nation’s lost decade behind it. Whoever manages that, wins.

Divided

Israel can fight multiple wars, Israel can even deal with serious economic setbacks. But if the legal framework that governs the nation is being tampered with to the point that deep fissures divide Jews in Israel and abroad, the country is in trouble. In particular at a time when its wars are far from over. The war in Gaza is in full throttle, Houthis missiles keep entering Israeli airspace, and the IDF remains very active in both Lebanon and Syria. And there are still hostages to be returned, 59 of them.

Nethanyahu’s moves last week to not only fire his domestic security chief Ronen Bar, but now to also trying to rid himself of the country’s attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara, brings the country into different and challenging territory. The moves to rearrange the power structure - largely to remove obstacles to the prime minister’s power - resulted in massive protests in Israel last week. Even many right-of-centre and religious Jews took a stand against a government that seems out of control and still has not been able to bring about an end to the war while evading responsibility for October 7th. If you scan the news you will see terms like ‘civil war’ and ‘overthrowing the government’ but the most viable route forward should be fresh elections. Israel needs a political reset in order to bring the hostages home and end Hamas rule in Gaza.

Home Front

I am still in The Netherlands where last week was a lovely spring week with sun and temperatures north of 20 degrees celsius. Amid work, meetings, family time and a high school reunion (thanks new subscriber Anita!) it was great to just wander around my old neighbourhoods, this is the central village square in Vlaardingen.