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The automotive sector is one of the largest and oldest industries. Due to its importance in our society and the overall economy, investors might be looking at this market to find potential businesses to own for the long haul. Perhaps Ford Motor Company ( F 0.27% ) , which has been around for over a century, has caught your attention. Is this auto stock a smart buying opportunity right now? Here are three factors interested investors should think about to help guide their decision-making process. Growth potential Businesses posting surging revenue get a lot of love from investors. Ford doesn't fall into this category. In fact, its growth prospects aren't anything to write home about. In the last 10 years, between Q3 2014 and Q3 2024 (ended Sept. 30), this company saw its sales rise at a compound annual rate of just 2.8%. And based on Wall Street estimates, Ford's projected revenue in 2026 will be less than 1% higher than the expected total for 2024. That's not an encouraging outlook. It partly comes down to the industry, which is very mature. The number of passenger vehicles on the road in the U.S. has increased by only 13.9% between 2012 and 2022, according to the Auto Care Association. There clearly isn't any growth spurt that will occur, even with the wave of electric vehicles (EV) being pushed to consumers. I believe it's reasonable to assume car unit growth to trend as it has in the past. This does not give Ford a robust backdrop to boost its sales over the long term in any significant way. Ford's profitability Another area that investors should analyze is profitability. Companies generating positive earnings are generally preferable to those that post ongoing losses, as it indicates a financially viable business model. To be clear, Ford is consistently profitable. But not by much. It generated $880 million in operating income in the third quarter on $46.2 billion in total revenue, translating to an operating margin of 1.9%. In the past decade, it's been the same story, as the operating margin has averaged an extremely disappointing 2%. I'll also call out Ford's return on invested capital (ROIC) of 1.8%. This is substantially lower than the 10% average of the S&P 500 . A weak ROIC figure indicates the lack of an economic moat, which is a trait all investors should look for in the businesses they might own, in my opinion. Maybe it's just the nature of the auto industry that doesn't lend itself to having many businesses that are thriving financially. Expenses are high, particularly for research and development, labor, and manufacturing. And competition is fierce, from both domestic and international rivals. This unfavorable setup makes it difficult for Ford to stand out and produce outsize profits, something that should discourage potential investors. Investor returns If you're considering making an investment in Ford, it's important to also think about the possibility of earning an adequate return on your initial capital outlay. Historically, buying the stock has been a poor use of capital, as Ford has generated a total return of 20% in the last 10 years, trailing the S&P 500's 246% return by an incredibly wide margin. The company's 5.27% dividend yield can be a draw for income-seeking investors. But this sizable payout is masked by the stock price's poor performance. The current valuation also doesn't help. As of this writing, shares trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of 13. That multiple is double that of General Motors and more than 4 times as expensive as Stellantis . The potential for disappointing shareholders returns, supported by weak growth prospects and subpar profitability metrics, means that Ford stock isn't a smart investment to make right now.Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen returns to a tournament after a dispute over jeans is resolved
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Tesla investor Ross Gerber doesn't think Elon Musk's ties to Donald Trump will benefit the EV maker. The longtime Tesla bull thinks the car company has a number of problems to sort through. Gerber says Tesla stock should be trading around $200, about 40% lower than current levels. Elon Musk spent immense money and energy helping Donald Trump retake the White House, but the Tesla CEO's new political influence may not do much to boost the fortunes of his carmaker, one of the company's longtime backers said. Ross Gerber, a Tesla bull and the president of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, thinks the electric vehicle maker faces big challenges ahead, even as optimism about Musk's ties to Trump has excited investors and sparked a sharp rally in Tesla stock since the election. Traders are hopeful that Musk's close ties to the president-elect — which ultimately landed the Tesla CEO a new government role — could sway important policy decisions in favor of Tesla. But that doesn't solve the problems Tesla has been struggling with for years, Gerber said, pointing to concerns surrounding the success of Tesla's car business, and whether its new ride-hailing platform or artificial intelligence projects will amount to much. In Gerber's view, Tesla shares should be trading around $200, implying 40% downside from the stock's closing price of $338.23 on Tuesday. Gerber said his fund, which began cutting its stake in Tesla in late 2023, continues to sell the stock in small amounts, keeping Tesla's concentration in its portfolio to just 2%. The fund sold nearly 16,000 shares in the third quarter, though the total value of its remaining stake rose to $71 million, regulatory filings show. "We're still selling it," Gerber told Business Insider. "I used to have a 10%, 12%, even 20% stake in Tesla at some point in my life where it was like, Tesla was taking us to the moon kind of thing. And I just think its best days are behind it." It's worth noting that Tesla handily beat third-quarter earnings estimates, soothing some investor concerns after a tough start to the year. Countering Gerber's views, some also see Musk's new political influence as a big win for his companies. "The biggest winner from a Trump White House remains Tesla and Musk which made a strategic big bet on Trump that will pay major dividends for years to come," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote following the election. Skeptical of the tech Gerber believes Tesla's technology has plateaued in recent years, and Musk's ties to Washington won't help that. He pointed to issues with Tesla's full self-driving technology, which he's been using nearly every day for the last three years. "So the ultimate reality for full self-driving is it doesn't work, and the precision isn't good. And vision-only systems have flaws that I don't think Elon wants to admit." Gerber thinks the tech issues will persist, partly because Musk looks poised to devote more of his time to his role in the Department of Government Efficiency. Beginning with the acquisition of X, Gerber, in recent years, has been a vocal critic of what he sees as Musk's neglect of his core companies, primarily Tesla . "He doesn't work at Tesla. I mean, let's be real, "Gerber said. We all know where Elon is right now, and he's at Mar-a-Lago. So he hasn't worked at Tesla for a long time." Gerber is also concerned about some of the projects within the company. He pointed to Tesla's ride-hailing platform, which will be competing with more established companies like Uber and Waymo. "Why does it deserve this premium?" he said of the stock. "I get that Elon is now vice president of the United States, but that doesn't necessarily help Tesla." Trump's transition team has signaled that it would end the $7,500 tax credit for EVs— a move that Musk supports —but even that's unlikely to be a bullish catalyst for the company, Gerber said. Musk has said that repealing the tax credit would be more harmful to Tesla's rivals, but Gerber's firm has estimated that Tesla sales could drop around 25% if the tax credit was no longer available. That would be "devastating" to Tesla's business, he said, given that the company has already slashed prices on some of its models in the face of uncertain EV demand in recent years. "If the EV tax credit goes, that would be an extreme negative I would have to react to," Gerber said, adding that it was his biggest concern at the moment. Previously, Gerber told BI he would consider completely closing his position in Tesla by the end of the year if its business didn't improve, or if Musk didn't refocus his attention on his companies. Gerber has since adjusted his view and said he would continue to hold Tesla as a small investment in his portfolio, mostly out of bullishness on EVs in general. "Certainly if you want to get out of Tesla, it's a great opportunity," Gerber said, later adding that he was in "wait-and-see" mode. "And if you're a buyer of Tesla, boy, you're paying a lot for hope." Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Essex Property Trust Inc. stock rises Wednesday, still underperforms marketVolunteer Janet Lee (right) has planned a Christmas party for palliative care patients at Kang Le Day Hospice. SINGAPORE – It is that time of the year again, when most people gather their nearest and dearest and sit down for a meal in familiar company. But for every flat filled with laughter, there may be another shrouded in silence. Separated from their loved ones by death, disputes or distance, many are marking the close of another year – alone. Loneliness can feel especially acute when everyone else seems to be having the best holiday ever. According to a 2023 American Psychological Association poll, the stress levels of 41 per cent of adults increase during the holiday season. Such festive social and emotional isolation afflicts many in Singapore too, which is why some residents are trying to stem the tide, one party at a time. This year-end, The Straits Times speaks to the people who are choosing to celebrate not with friends and family, but with those who have no one else. Lonely Christmas no more Married couple David and Esther Loh are hosting a party for strangers who need company this Christmas. PHOTO: COURTESY OF DAVID LOH When 29-year-old David Loh sits down for dinner on Dec 24, he might not recognise anyone at the table, apart from his wife. The gallery manager and his wife, Mrs Esther Loh – a 28-year-old creative strategist at a social media agency – are throwing a party for people who might feel lonely around this time of year. It will be the second such gathering they have hosted, following a similarly-themed get-together in 2022 that went viral on TikTok. That video, viewed more than 100,000 times since, attracted close to 300 responses from people eager to attend. To minimise disappointment, they capped party sizes at 15 people and organised three gatherings over the Christmas weekend and Chinese New Year, over and above the sole session they had planned. For 2024, the couple have a new venue – a friend’s event space and pottery studio in Chinatown that can accommodate 30, twice as many attendees as two years ago. They still hope to keep things small and intimate, with numbers capped at 30 a gathering. Mr Loh says: “It would be a tragedy if a 200- or 300-strong crowd shows up, and lonely people leave feeling the same way. We want to create a place where we can be more intentional with hosting, where people can talk to one another and be heard.” For Mrs Loh, it is important that everyone feels seen and heard. “When people think of Christmas, they think of celebrating with friends and family. They might not think about those on the outskirts who don’t have that. It’s a period when the lonely get lonelier,” she says. Her husband knows that feeling all too well. The social work graduate used to spend Christmas on his own, tending a gallery in Millenia Walk over the holidays, with no celebrations to look forward to. He says: “I’m a pretty positive, mentally healthy individual, and still I felt the weight and loneliness of being alone. I’d take the bus home and feel sad that I had nothing on that night. So, I wanted to make space for people like myself.” The couple, who are Christian, will sponsor pizza and side dishes – halal, to cater to as many guests as possible – as well as gifts for the Dec 24 party. They have set aside a $1,000 budget for this. The Lohs organised a similar party for strangers in 2022, which received nearly 300 responses. PHOTO: COURTESY OF DAVID LOH In 2022, 45 people of all ages and religions turned up across their three parties. There was an empty nester in her 50s, whose sons had moved overseas to study; a woman in her 30s spending her first Christmas without her late husband; and a man who had been on the brink of suicide. Despite their differences, these strangers were able to open up to one another and conversations ran raw. To the Lohs’ surprise, some attendees kept in touch after that night. “Everyone there sort of knew the other attendees were also lonely, so there was a sense of empathy and solidarity,” recalls Mrs Loh. The couple hope to inject more joy and excitement into their 2024 programme with activities like pottery painting. “We’re not trying to change someone’s life. We just want to change someone’s night. If deep friendships happen, that’s great. But we don’t have lofty ideas. We just want to make them feel like they had a good Christmas.” YOU’RE INVITED!!!! Drop us a DM to rsvp so we can plan for the food 😛🍕🍕 When: 24 Dec 22, Sat Time: 730pm-OTOT Where: City Hall (DM for more info) #christmas2022 #fypsg #youareinvited More information will be released on the couple’s TikTok account ( @davidandesther ) in December. I’ll (not) Be Home for Christmas Coliwoo senior operations manager Javier Lim is hosting a party for residents who are spending the festive period away from home in December. ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM This will be Mr Javier Lim’s 15th Christmas away from home, so the 38-year-old Malaysian senior operations manager at co-living operator Coliwoo knows how his clients must feel. A bittersweet melancholy settles over Coliwoo’s apartments at this time of year. Most of its residents are expatriates, international students or digital nomads, whose families are thousands of kilometres away. “It’s sad seeing people in their rooms during the festive period. They’re lonely, they miss home. Sometimes, they’ll come to the management office just to have someone to chat with,” says Mr Lim. To lift their spirits, he started throwing Christmas parties for residents two years ago. The 2024 bash will be held at Coliwoo’s Orchard residence, and he is expecting 50 to 60 guests. Sponsored by Coliwoo, a buffet of Western dishes – such as prawns with garlic aioli and sauteed garden vegetables – will be catered, and prizes will be up for grabs. As part of Mr Lim’s eco-conscious aims, game booths will be built out of recycled materials such as cardboard, egg trays and plastic bottles. In addition to organising the party on Dec 20, Mr Lim is working the holiday shift on Christmas Day. He will be stationed at the company’s Boon Lay property, where he will oversee operations and manage requests from residents. “I find the festive shift very rewarding,” he says, adding that because he is so familiar with the staff and some of the residents, it feels almost like he is with friends. Staff also share drinks and desserts with residents in the lounge on days when they work late. “Here, you get a lot of these value-added activities that help build a strong community spirit, so people feel at home. We don’t just provide them with a roof over their heads.” The bachelor, whose two sisters also live overseas, sees his parents in Kelantan only after the festive season. But texts, video calls and knowing that they are just a four-hour flight away in Kelantan away help temper his homesickness. Last Christmas Volunteer Janet Lee will dress up as Santa Claus to spread festive cheer at Kang Le Day Hospice. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY The elderly patients of a palliative care centre look on in amusement as Ms Janet Lee struggles with her Santa Claus costume. “I must be the skinniest Santa Claus ever,” she quips with a wry smile, strapping a beard across the lower half of her face. “Maybe I should stuff a pillow under the top.” The 59-year-old volunteer is testing out the costumes she plans to don on Dec 9, when Kang Le Day Hospice celebrates a cross-cultural Christmas with an Asian buffet and Western carols. She expects around 30 attendees. It was the housewife’s idea, and one of the many contributions she has made since she started volunteering with HCA Hospice, which runs the centre in Marsiling, in June 2023. Moved by the care and compassion its team showed to her late mother in her final days some four years ago, Ms Lee decided to reciprocate by helping out. The memories she has made have stuck with her. In particular, her friendship with her very first patient – an elderly man she refers to as Mr N – continues to shape the work she does. Mr N suffered from dementia and anxiety, which made it difficult to interact with him at first. But Ms Lee eventually won over the former postman with her rendition of the Carpenters’ Please Mr Postman. He shared his life story with her, while she entertained him with games and activities, keeping him company until his death in August 2023. “I was very sad upon hearing the news, but I was also thankful for the opportunity to have created some happy moments while he was around,” she says. Thus was born her idea of organising parties to spread that joy to more patients, most of whom have only six months to a year left to live, and are likely celebrating their last Christmas. Ms Lee preparing a bunny costume ahead of the Christmas party at Kang Le Day Hospice. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY Though to many of these seniors, Christmas is not as culturally significant as Chinese New Year or Hari Raya, Ms Lee – who usually does not celebrate Yuletide herself – believes in seizing any opportunity to get everyone together. “I enjoy doing the work. I’m happy to see them relax and have fun. If not, usually they just sit here and say, ‘All I do here is eat and wait for time to pass.’ It’s quite negative,” she says. To inject some energy into the room, Ms Lee, who describes herself as “quite a serious person”, busts out her goofy side. She will lead a singalong in her Santa Claus outfit, while her 35-year-old anaesthesiologist daughter, who is helping her, will tower over the party in a 2m-tall bunny suit. The festivities cannot stretch beyond two hours as the patients tire quickly, but she says it is heartening to see their energy return, even momentarily. Mr Lee Fatt Ping (left) leading seniors St Luke’s ElderCare Serangoon Centre in an arts and crafts activity. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY At St Luke’s ElderCare Serangoon Centre, 71-year-old retiree Lee Fatt Ping is also keenly aware of the needs of his fellow merry-makers. Though the seniors here are not terminally ill, many have conditions that might hamper their ability to participate. The volunteer, who visits the centre on Tuesday mornings, has prepared a simple arts and crafts activity to spread cheer this festive season. It comprises four strips of coloured paper that can be folded to form a heart, representing peace, love and joy – sentiments the Christian associates with Christmas. “It’s a way for them to come together and stamp their identity on this place. It gives them a sense of ownership,” he says, explaining that the completed paper hearts can then be hung up as decorations. However, he also has to take into consideration those with weaker psychomotor skills and poor eyesight. In such cases, Mr Lee will encourage one of their friends to help them, or get them involved through simple questions such as “What colour is this?” and “Is this pretty?”, to which they can respond with a thumbs up or down. “We have to adjust to their capabilities and make sure they feel included. The important thing is not to discredit them but encourage them to try again, if they want to.” When it comes to the more reserved seniors who do not want to participate, he will approach them as a supplicant, asking for assistance or help – a move that is guaranteed to flatter. “They’ll say, ‘You don’t know how to do meh?’, but it gets them involved.” Mr Lee Fatt Ping (second from right) will be one of the few volunteers on duty during the year-end festive period. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY The former civil servant-turned nursing home executive, who completed a master’s degree in ageing at The University of Melbourne in his late 60s, will be one of the few volunteers on duty at a time when most are away on holiday. He says: “If I can be around, I’m happy. This is a very meaningful time for me. I want to spread my blessings during this time when we’re reflecting on the year, and being grateful for all the good and bad, the highs and lows.” Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads. Read 3 articles and stand to win rewards Spin the wheel nowEvery Attack Makes Us Stronger: Gautam Adani's First Reaction on US Indictment
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TikTok is challenging the federal government’s order to shut down its operations in Canada, claiming it will eliminate hundreds of jobs and potentially terminate a quarter of a million contracts that it has with Canadian advertising clients. The company filed documents in Federal Court in Vancouver on Dec. 5, seeking to set aside the order to wind-up and cease business in Canada. The government ordered the dissolution of TikTok’s Canadian business in November after a national security review of the Chinese company behind the social media platform. That means TikTok must close its operations in Canada, though the app will continue to be available to Canadians. TikTok wants the court to pause the order while it argues its case on why the government’s decision should be overturned. It claims the minister’s decision was “unreasonable” and “driven by improper purposes.” “TikTok Canada provides hundreds of Canadians with well-paying jobs, and contributes millions of dollars annually to the Canadian economy,” the application says. “Through the TikTok platform, Canadian businesses and content creators can reach a global audience of over one billion monthly users.” The review was carried out through the Investment Canada Act, which allows the government to investigate any foreign investment with potential to harm national security. Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said in a statement at the time that the government was taking action to address “specific national security risks,” though it didn’t specify what those risks were. TikTok’s court application says Champagne “failed to engage with TikTok Canada on the purported substance of the concerns that led to the (order.)” The company argues the government ordered “measures that bear no rational connection to the national security risks it identifies.” It says the reasons for the order “are unintelligible, fail to reveal a rational chain of analysis and are rife with logical fallacies.” TikTok Canada also claims it “participates in important Canadian public policy issues at the federal and provincial level, including those related to online safety, elections, and culture.” The company’s filing says TikTok Canada “worked with Elections Canada and the Privy Council Office on partnerships to support election integrity on the TikTok platform.” TikTok claims the foreign investment review and economic security branch of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada “abruptly” finished the company’s national security review at the end of October, and ordered the company to wind-up its Canadian operations a week later. The company’s court application says there were “less onerous” options available than ordering the shut down, which it claims “will cause the destruction of significant economic opportunities and intangible benefits to Canadian creators, artists and businesses, and the Canadian cultural community more broadly.” The company’s law firm, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, declined to comment, while Champagne’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement that the order would “eliminate the jobs and livelihoods of our hundreds of dedicated local employees — who support the community of more than 14 million monthly Canadian users on TikTok, including businesses, advertisers, creators and initiatives developed especially for Canada.” This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2024. Darryl Greer and Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press
(Bloomberg) — Jimmy Carter, the former Georgia peanut farmer who as US president brokered a historic and lasting peace accord between Israel and Egypt in a single term marred by soaring inflation, an oil shortage and Iran’s holding of American hostages, has died. He was 100. Carter died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family, the Carter Center said Sunday in a statement. Public observances are planned in Atlanta and Washington, followed by a private interment in Plains. The longest-living former US president ever, Carter had opted in early 2023 to spend his remaining time at his home in Plains receiving hospice care. He was there alongside Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years, when she died in November 2023 at age 96. And he lived long enough to fulfill a final wish — to cast a ballot for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. A Democrat who rose from running his family’s peanut-farming and seed-supply businesses to serving as Georgia governor, Carter won the White House in 1976 over incumbent Gerald Ford by promising to bring honesty to an office tainted two years earlier by the resignation of Richard Nixon in the culmination of the Watergate scandal. Ascetic, humble and deeply religious, Carter was skeptical of the pomp surrounding the presidency and came to Washington with fewer allies and fixed positions than most who hold the job. His allegiance to an inner moral compass, his vow to support societies that “share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights” and his tendency to speak his mind collided at times with political realities during his four years in office, from 1977 to 1981, and served as a preview of what was to come in a service-filled post-presidency that lasted decades. Carter “assembled a new front line on nearly every issue, with no inherited party game plan or ideological playbook to fall back on,” Jonathan Alter wrote in a 2020 biography that painted him as often right in his instincts but flawed in executing government responses. The book was among several in recent years that offered a revised and sunnier view of Carter’s crisis-plagued tenure. Though Carter “left the White House a widely unpopular president,” his achievements “shine brighter over time, few more than his unique determination to put human rights at the forefront of his foreign policy from the start of his presidency,” his chief domestic policy adviser, Stuart Eizenstat, wrote in a 2018 biography of his former boss. The signature achievement of the Carter presidency, the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, led to peaceful co-existence between the Middle East neighbors even as it fell short of resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. That and other foreign policy breakthroughs, including a treaty granting Panama ownership of the US-built Panama Canal, were overshadowed by the plight of American hostages held in Iran during the last 444 days of his presidency. They were finally released the day Carter turned over the Oval Office to Republican Ronald Reagan. On the domestic front, the Carter presidency was dogged by economic woes. Inflation reached 13.3% at the end of 1979 compared with 5.2% when he took office in January 1977. The Federal Reserve’s actions to stem price increases pushed home-mortgage rates to almost 15%, and Carter had to take emergency action to stem a slide in the dollar. There were energy shortages, and oil prices more than doubled. Malaise Speech A speech to the nation in on July 15, 1979, became emblematic of Carter’s presidency. With fuel prices skyrocketing and lines at gas stations lengthening, Carter told Americans that solving the energy mess “can also help us to conquer the crisis of the spirit in our country.” He said many Americans “now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.” Though Carter never uttered the word, the address became known as the “malaise” speech and contributed to a sense that Carter was powerless to change the nation’s course. “Our memory of the speech comes from those who reworked it, who twisted its words into a blunt instrument that helped them depose a president,” historian Kevin Mattson wrote. Carter’s words, he noted, “received immediate applause and yet wound up ensuring his defeat” to Reagan in the 1980 election. Just weeks after delivering the speech, Carter tapped Paul Volcker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to take over as chair of the Federal Reserve, replacing G. William Miller, who became Treasury secretary. Volcker made it clear to Carter that he would deal head-on with inflation by pursuing tighter monetary policies than Miller. Volcker’s policies — which sent interest rates as high as 20% — came at a high price, the fallout contributing to Reagan’s landslide victory over Carter in the 1980 election. Though some of Volcker’s policies “were politically costly, they were the right thing to do,” Carter commented upon Volcker’s death in 2019. Nobel Prize Carter made some of his biggest imprints on the world in the years after he left the White House. He “reinvented the post-presidency,” observed Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton University and a Carter biographer. In four-plus decades as an ex-president — the longest such tenure in American history — Carter waged a worldwide campaign against war, disease and the suppression of human rights through the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which he founded with his wife. The center made particular strides against Guinea worm disease, a parasite spread through contaminated water that can render victims non-functional for months. Worldwide cases dropped to just 14 in 2023 from an estimated 3.5 million in 1986, according to the center. Carter was awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” His post-presidential causes were not without backlash. Fourteen advisers to the Carter Center resigned in protest of his best-selling 2007 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which compared Israel to the White governments of South Africa that systematically oppressed Black citizens. Carter’s longevity defied the odds. He revealed in 2015 that he had melanoma, a type of cancer, and that it had spread to his brain. He received treatment, recovered and on March 22, 2019, became the longest-living chief executive in US history. In 2021, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary. His Christian faith, he said, made him “absolutely and completely at ease with death.” Peanut Farm James Earl Carter Jr. was born on Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, the first of four children born to Earl Carter, a farmer, and the former Lillian Gordy, a nurse. He grew up in the nearby hamlet of Archery, where the family owned a peanut farm and a general store. He traveled two miles each day to Plains to attend an all-White school. Electricity and indoor plumbing didn’t reach the Carter farm until 1935. Carter attended the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, from 1943 to his graduation in 1946. He began dating a girl from Plains, Rosalynn Smith, when home on breaks. They married in July 1946 and would have four children — sons Jack, Chip and Jeff, and daughter Amy. While serving in the Navy for seven years, Carter worked on the development of the nuclear submarine program and rose to the rank of lieutenant. When his father died in 1953, Carter resigned his commission to return to his family’s peanut-farming business. In 1962, he was elected to the Georgia Senate and in 1970 was elected governor, having lost his first bid in 1966. His work to end racial discrimination in the state made him a symbol of the “New South.” At the start of his campaign for the presidency, Carter was not widely known outside of Georgia and was viewed by analysts as a long shot for the Democratic nomination. He began traveling the country before many other candidates had started their campaigns, pitching his outsider status to voters who had endured the revelations of Watergate and Nixon’s resignation. Carter emphasized his religious upbringing — he was a Southern Baptist who often described himself as a “born again” Christian — and promised the American people that he would never lie to them. He won the New Hampshire primary, proving his viability in the North, and defeated Alabama Governor George Wallace in Florida to establish himself as the strongest candidate in the South, on the way to clinching the Democratic nomination. With Minnesota Democrat Walter Mondale as his running mate, Carter narrowly beat Ford, with 50.1% of the vote, and was sworn into office in January 1977 as the 39th US president. Starting what has become a tradition for new presidents, he stepped out of his limousine during the inauguration parade and walked down Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. Billy Brew Carter’s family included colorful characters such as his sister Ruth, a faith healer, and brother Billy, a gas-station operator whose enjoyment of drinking led to the creation of the short-lived Billy Beer brand during his brother’s presidency. The president’s mother also grabbed media attention. A nurse who tended to Black and White families in the segregated South, she joined the Peace Corps at age 68 and always had a ready quip for the press. “When I look at my children,” she once cracked, “I say, ‘Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin.’” As president, Carter signed legislation creating the cabinet-level Department of Education. He appointed women, Black people and Hispanic people to federal posts in large numbers. He stunned the defense contracting industry by killing the Air Force’s expensive B-1 bomber project, a step later reversed by Reagan. He signed the law that created the federal Superfund program to clean up hazardous-waste sites. Carter won praise after his presidency for the steps he had taken toward deregulation, particularly of the airline industry, where the removal of government control of fares and routes promoted competition. One of his longest battles with Congress involved his proposal to scrap 18 dam and irrigation projects, most of them in the West and South. His “hit list” pleased many environmentalists while angering Westerners, including some fellow Democrats. Congress restored funding for most of the projects. From his presidency’s earliest days, Carter sought to highlight and utilize energy shortages to raise support for his domestic agenda. The cabinet-level Department of Energy was created in his administration’s first year, and he had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. In a televised address to the nation two weeks into his term, Carter called for a new emphasis on conservation, mirroring the White House’s own push for frugality. At Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, Carter guided Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the 1978 accord that led the next year to the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country. The treaty committed Israel to remove its troops and civilian settlements from the Sinai Peninsula and led to billions of dollars in US aid to Israel and Egypt. The Camp David breakthrough didn’t lead to a broader Mideast peace, however, and Carter through the years didn’t hide his disappointment. In Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, he focused on Israel’s occupation of Arab land as the root cause of continued hostilities. In a 2010 book based on his White House diaries, Carter said the US had “defaulted in carrying out one unchallenged and unique responsibility: mediating a peace agreement between Israel and its neighbors.” Olympics Boycott In response to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, Carter imposed a trade embargo and organized the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow. Rosalynn Carter said she tried and failed to persuade her husband to wait until after the Iowa presidential caucuses of 1980 to impose the embargo, which hurt US farmers. “I am much more political than Jimmy and was more concerned about popularity and winning reelection,” Rosalynn wrote in her 1984 memoir, “but I have to say that he had the courage to tackle the important issues, no matter how controversial — or politically damaging — they might be.” The biggest external crisis of his presidency was precipitated by the Islamic Revolution in Iran that overthrew the shah and installed a theocratic government headed by formerly exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. On Nov. 4, 1979, radical students overran the US Embassy in Tehran and took more than 60 Americans hostage. Fifty-two of them were held for the last 444 days of Carter’s term. In April 1980, Carter gave the go-ahead for a military assault on the embassy to rescue the hostages. Of the eight helicopters from the USS Nimitz that headed to a desert staging area, from which the raid on Tehran was to commence, three had problems. The mission was aborted, and during preparations for retreat, a helicopter flew into a C-130 transport plane and exploded. Eight American servicemen died. Stymied by crisis on the domestic and foreign fronts, Carter lost his bid for reelection in a landslide, with Reagan winning 44 states. The hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, the day Reagan was sworn into office. One More Helicopter “Over the years, in various classrooms and public forums, I have often been asked if there was one substantive action or decision I made as president that I would have changed,” Carter wrote in White House Diary. “Somewhat facetiously, I have answered, ‘I would have sent one more helicopter to ensure the success of the hostage rescue effort in April 1980.’ But I truly believe that if I had done so, I would have been reelected.” The Carters returned to Plains after leaving the White House, and Carter taught scripture at the Maranatha Baptist Church as recently as 2020. In his brimming post-presidency, Carter helped arrange peace talks between North and South Korea and a cease-fire in Bosnia. Through the Carter Center, he helped monitor elections around the world to help ensure that they were fair. He traveled to Haiti in 1994 to negotiate the restoration of constitutional government, averting a threatened US-led invasion. Accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, as the US under President George W. Bush was preparing to invade Iraq, Carter made his disapproval clear. “For powerful countries to adopt a principle of preventive war may well set an example that can have catastrophic consequences,” he said. Carter attended the inauguration of Republican Donald Trump in 2017, the sixth and final presidential swearing-in he witnessed after leaving office. Days earlier, he had told congregants at his hometown church that of 22 voters in his family, none had voted for Trump. But he had been the first former president to accept an invitation to the inauguration, determined to show support for the new US leader. Trump “has never been involved in politics before,” Carter explained, according to an account by Voice of America. “He has a lot to learn. He’ll learn — sometimes the hard way, like I did.” —With assistance from Rich Miller. (Updates with statement from Carter Center in second paragraph.)