the grab bag #3

I'm just grabbing lines and more that I have come across having some relevance to my notions.

Regarding the MSM - and marketing (one of my biggest peeves!), I came across these lines on Discover Vancouver Forum (by way of RE Talks) - in reference to a recent Bollywood screening. An (apparently) East Indian girl wrote about how "white" people outnumbered "EI" people, and wondered why. Bollywood and White Folks was the thread.

El Duce Posted - 1/20/2007 4:57:16 PM
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It's trendy right now, and we live in the biggest bandwagon town on the planet. There's been a lot of mainstream press on Bollywood in the last year or so.

Trendy. Like dot com and NorTel stocks, beanie babies, granite, and investment properties.

I think there is a "bubble" of people looking for new experiences.

This nugget from The Republic goes well with my
posts about RE opportunities on the Moon.

I am looking at it as a business investment, but the ultimate dream is to go and live there, without the baggage of the past. I’d like to open the first Israeli restaurant.

Tsiki Nasftaly, Israeli computer programmer, who bought a square kl of land on the moon slated for future settlement

And you thought I was guffin'.

And this, also from The Republic, regarding the expansion of the aquarium at Stanley Park. It catches a few things of interest to me - including a lack of public consultation, and the main industry in Vancouver - tourism. No mention of baristas and burger flippers (not to mention condo flippers), but I think they got a few things right.

I wonder if Kirk and Company asked Vancouverites if they'd favour their taxes going to subsidize a tourist-related service that was too expensive for many of them to attend.

Public subsidies, private profits

With an international reputation, about 750,000 paying customers in 2005, and an income of around $24 million, the Aquarium is an essential part of Vancouver's tourism-industrial complex. As Vancouver has evolved into a resort city, its primary industry is tourism. The only rival to the tourism complex is the real estate development industry, and in many ways they are related (many of the largest real estate investments are simultaneously investments in tourist related projects, e.g., the new "Shangri-La" investment downtown, among many others). There are massive public subsidies to the tourism industry in the form of government grants to the Canada line, designed to transfer tourists from the airport to downtown; the Convention Centre, designed to attract large business groups to Vancouver; and, of course, the underwriting of the 2010 Games.

I have not gone into my rant about the Olympics, and I don't think there is much point. I'm preaching to the choir here, so to speak.

And from Mohican's blog - something that we are all thinking, I think.

dingus said...
Great post, great blog. A great evolution from the housing blogs for those that have been around and around on the discussions there on the lack of value in that market and are trying to figure out what to do with funds they have if they don't have a mortgage to pay down.

I can only make so many crappy jokes, I'm not into whining, so I've been thinking of where to go from here. I can't even begin to imagine what will transpire. Over the last year, it seems like all bets are off (except the one that freako won over at VHB).

I have a growing feeling that things are going to unwind quickly. I thought that a year and a half ago, but I am reminded of hunters' anecdotes of making heart shots, and the prey continuing to run - not realizing that it was already demised. A chicken without it's head is another analogy.

Beware the Ides of March?

Finally, looking at Rob Chipman's numbers, it is starting to look much more like a buyers' market. But we can guess and guess and guess until spring. We will have a better idea then.