Well, This Could Be Embarrassing -- October 4, 2023

Locator: 45639NOBEL.  

 And to get our mind off McCarthy:

Nobel Prize in Chemistry: link here. Rumors are that Steve Harvey had nothing to do with this. The names named for the Nobel Prize in chemistry, though still subject to change: Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus, and Alexei I. Ekimov.

• Bawendi: MIT; born in Paris; grew up in France, Tunisia; post-doc at Bell Laboratories under Brus
• Brus: Columbia University; began his career decades ago on a US Navy scholarship;
• Ekimov: Nanocrystals Technology, Inc. -- born in the Soviet Union (no longer on the map); moved to the US; in 1999 named chief scientist at Nanocrystals.

Now, twelve minutes ago, it's official? It's all about your holiday lights?

Auto manufacturers, global: I had never seen this graphic before. It's really quite astounding when you think about it. 

And again, one has to ask, how did do many companies get so much wrong. Ferrari with a market cap greater than both Ford and GM (individually, not combined). And Mercedes Benz with a larger market cap than VW, the biggest auto company in the world (by other measures) -- needs to be fact-checked. This graphic is nice to have for the archives. We can check market cap again after the UAW strike is resolved, and again in five years.

Little by little, getting this done: student loan relief --

• President Biden
• an additional $9 billion for 125,000 borrowers
• that works out to $72,000 for borrower
• comment: I'm not in favor of carte blanche debt relief but if economists say that the $200 billion price tag will destroy the entire $7-trillion US economy, by all means, go the full Monty. This seems like a no-brainer.
  

High speed rail: largest project not just in the UK but in the entire EU -- wow! Link here.

• decision soon on the "north leg": Birmingham to Manchester
• original plan: London to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds
• I have a special spot in my heart for Leeds, Yorkshire, England, UK -- I flew into that city numerous times when deployed to a remote air base 
• my most visit memory of Leeds: four Starbucks cafes at one intersection -- one on/near each corner
  
• the plan: Brits would no longer need regional air transportation -- net-zero emissions
• but, like California's bullet train, spiraling costs could de-rail (no pun intended) the project
• scrapping the link to Manchester, and all we have is high-speed rail between London and Birmingham
• cost projections:
• 2015: 56 billion pounds ($68 billion)
• 2019: 98 billion pounds
• 2020: 106 billion pounds ($130 billion)
• just in: scrapped. So, we got a train between London and Birmingham. 
  

Gobsmacking: link here. These guys weren't living in Newell, SD, in 1936, were they? Whatever. We'll just appreciate October that much more, won't we?

Cattle: why I don't worry about the price of beef, either. From Bloomberg today. It begs the question, though: what are Australian ranchers doing differently than American ranchers?

UAW strike: update -- 

Ford and GM: argument to "drag their feet." Previously discussed. From Barron's: