novelty

What a week, huh?

The November RE numbers are out (as reported by CBC Newsworld a couple of days ago), and Vancouver is 70% down in sales, and prices (benchmark, if I recall correctly) are off 12.3% since May 08. Flippers in Paradise? More like a floppers with a pair of dice, and they've crapped out. Shucks.

OJ, oh, OJ. You are up shite creek now. Justice delayed is still justice - especially when meted out on such a cretin as you by your own doing. Up to 33 years. Try swinging the babes when you are 94, Old Jerk.

The picture up top is from here. If you want a trippy look at reality, check out (the Late) Terence McKenna. (the Late) Timothy Leary rated him as one of the six most important people alive. They are both toast now, and they both have, er, reputations, but if you have an open and adventurous mind, there are some interesting avenues of thought - far removed from benchmark prices, but strangely relevant to granite counter-tops (or counter-culture, at the least).

That vague reference is the best prologue that I can think of for a comment on what is happening to our poor, beleaguered, bewitched, and bewildered land of Canada. I've got to get away from that though, it only brings out partisanship and talking points, and sound bites from the six o'clock news. A great harm has been done to our country this week. Whether one supports this, or that, doesn't really matter. Precedents have been set, and we have no Parliament in what is about to become very desperate times. "The Big 3" have lined up at the trough, and asked for $6 billion, which they are going to get, with no Parliamentary debate what-so-ever. We just pumped $25 billion into the banks, and they reported profits of some 13.9 billion (needs citation) in profits. Down from the $19 billion of last year, and the year before, and the year before. My bank account is down to less than a grand (I spent a lot on lobster and cognac), can I have a top-up too?

We have not yet really noticed what is coming, but it is coming. Pay attention. Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best. How is that for a platitude?

Here is the best picture of Our Dear Leader that I have ever seen. What a clown whore. (no image credit, but I am pretty sure that it is from Image Factory, which is, I believe, of the CBC)



I loved Question Period last week when the Opposition was chanting "leader, leader" after Prentice got up and spoke (in reasonably reasonable tones - even if he is full of shite). Harper looked like he was having an aneurysm, and some painful haemorrhoids at the same time.

Christmas shopping will be a breeze this year for the recently laid-off, there will be no money to shop with. Sorry kids, but we will have to sell one of you for medical experiments. The malls will not be too busy for those with money.

We are giving li'l solipsist an empty can to collect rainwater, and a ruler. I'll make a fancy box for it, and call it the Lower-Mainland Mini Meteorologist Mean Measurement of Precipitation kit (patent pending).

I smell a new cottage industry that The Dragons might be interested in.

not nanos

put yer mouse over the picky, and clicky, and it will get biggy.

Thanks to everyone for voting. I am gratified by the interest, and the discussion. I am so, because it seems that more people are invested in our social futures than not. I hope that those who are not interested in this election are visitors from other countries, and not Canadians (but then again, I am always interested in their elections, so why not?). I feel everyone ought to take an interest, because so much is dependent on what our governments (and agencies, like Health Canada, CFIA, BoC, CMHC, EI, for starters) are doing. A new Free Trade Pact with the EU if Harper is re-elected? (I'll get to that)

I have to disclose that I made the first answer on the poll @ There is an election?. I put the question about Obama in for fun, and I don't know if the votes are from American visitors who are actually voting for him, or people having fun back. Both are totally cool with me. Overall though, it seems that there is an interest, and so I will rant on as I can. Mostly, it will be a deluge of links, with some commentary (I really don't have a lot of time!) I like that the comments have been measured and reasonable too. I don't mind what your brand of politics, it's great that you have them! I like debate, so I will counter stuff like "a tax on everything", "he can't speak English", "she's a fat American who worked for Brian Mulroney"... you get it. I admit to being facile with my photoshop, but that was just the artist in me. Plus, it was funny! Harper didn't look sinister at all, he looked like a kid - all dressed up. My point is, let's not make slurs and such. Let's talk about facts, with links. I am obviously not too keen on Hapless and his henchmen though.

I'll toss a bone to those who just want RE, and do my best to illustrate how RE and this election are joined at the hip. And I will intersperse it with Vancouver RE stuff - 'cause I still care. Besides, it's only 3 more weeks, so house prices will only slide $15 G's or so. Inventory will start to swell even more, Foreclosures will start kicking in. Employment will be down a bit. A couple of projects will go into receivership, or be cancelled... Further, more people are going to vote for Obama, and the other two that didn't know there is an election (unless of course everyone is pulling my leg!) beat out the Survivor fan and CTV.

And that is why this is not Nanos (but here is a link )

Tomorrow: Debunking the Green Shift Prevarications. And Turning The Corner - Only To Find a Washed-Out Bridge.

Oh, and farewell to summer. Tomorrow there will be more night than day, and it won't be equitable again until The Waters of March. Sigh.

updating utopia

I wrote in January 2007 that The crazy weather has the environment on everybody's minds, and gov'ts will react. Whether (no pun intended) they react with vision remains to be seen.

Since then, they have reacted with some vision; the provincial Liberals have enacted a carbon tax of 2.4 cents per litre of gasoline, which takes effect the day after tomorrow. Is it too little too late? We got our cheques (and cashed them), but rumour has it that there is a fair bit of backlash, and Campbell is wavering. I'm not giving my 100 bucks back! The federal Liberals have also proposed a carbon tax, and are taking it as an election platform.

Personally, I don't understand all the crying - energy prices have sky-rocketed beyond imagination all by themselves (thanks to speculators?), and it is just going to get worse before, and if, it ever gets better. I figured out the other day that we spend 8.73% of our gross income on fuel for our vehicles. Ouch. We need the one gas pig for business, but my 17 year old 6 cylinder pig could use replacing with something of greater efficiency. Can someone spare me $40K for a Prius?

So what does that mean for the city? Less cars on the road (or more energy-efficient cars...), less pollution - lower insurance premia? It will probably mean more densification as people move back into the city and the emptying of suburbia. Back to small, self-contained towns. But what about employment? Vancouver has been hollowed out as far as jobs are concerned - fewer office buildings in the core as companies have moved out, and condos replace them. So what kind of economy will we have? Tourism is returning to the ambit of the affluent, so low-paying service jobs will be lost too. If it wasn't for the pending lack of employment, I would venture to say that property values would actually increase as people move into the cities.

Things are going to get harder before they get easier. With escalating food prices, more people will be turning to produce their own food in their gardens, so we may well see the end of manicured lawns, and litle-used streets may well be turned to food production, infill housing, etc. The only comment on that January '07 post was someone who said that my utopian view of the Vancouver of the future could not happen because of all of the sewers, fibre optics cables, power, water mains etc., that run under the streets, but those are quite deep for the most part, so tearing up the asphalt and planting corn will have little to no effect on that aspect. What about police, ambulance, fire services? We could keep the alleys as they are and tear up the streets for infill housing, gardens, etc. Condo dwellers are going to face a bit of a challenge to grow their own food, so maybe more community gardens in parks? Allotments are old hat in Europe, why not here? The skies will be quieter with much less air traffic (and less chemtrails?!).

It looks like the USA might not be wanting the dirty oil from the tar sands very soon, so it will be interesting to see what happens to Alberta, I suppose China may want to buy it though.

Speaking of China, with the rising cost of transportation, it will soon be uneconomical to import everything that we wear, computers and electronics, etc., so there will be opportunities to start producing what we use here, and that will recreate jobs that have been lost to globalization.

There is a time of transition ahead, and that will not likely be smooth, but in the long run, we will likely be better off, and living much simpler, and hopefully, more meaningful lives. I read a good book some years ago called The Fifth Sacred Thing. It was an interesting and idyllic look at how we would live post-oil economy. It sounded great.

From that January 2007 post, here is a link to some of the ideas for a more livable city. It is a good start, and was produced before energy prices went hay-wire.

just thinking

Sorry, but no time to elaborate. Draw your own conclusions. As the NASA motto goes - "Don't let your pre-occupation with reality stifle your imagination"

(Clicky to make biggy) source

What if there never is another boom, but a steady decline to...well...who knows?

Life is changing. "Peak Oil" is a driver of that change (pun intended). Greenhouse gas(p) emissions/Climate change are another. The "Liberals'" carbon tax (or whatever) is 2.4 cents/litre this year, and by 2012, will be 7.8 cents/litre. Gas has gone up by about 70 cents/litre in the last couple of years, and will go up even more, so the "carbon tax" is comparatively negligable.

Tourism and travel will soon be out (as we know it). The 2010 boongoggle will be just that.

I recently read (sorry - no link) that Chinese manufacturers are no longer accepting USD, and our dollar is tied to the USD (soonly, even tighter). Iran is trading oil in Euro and Yen now. Time for another invasion, errr, liberation. Then you have our current lack of governance here at home.

There is a whole new paradigm forming, and it is one that we, as a society, are completely unprepared for. The future will not be like the past.

There is no bottom.

red pill, blue pill

I came across this article, and found it to be "very interesting". The comment below is something that I have alluded to here (and elsewhere) before.

'Bush Caused the Financial Market Meltdown'
Washington ignored the lessons of the bank failures of the 1930s

Not a mistake, not incompetence, its the plan.
"It also ignored the lessons of the bank failures of the 1930s"

I would say "It learned from the lessons of the bank failures of the 1930s"

A crisis of this magnitude is not accomplished by ignoring history, but by learning from it. The Plan is to destroy the US dollar, to bankrupt its citizens forcing them to abandon or sell off their property, and to allow those who designed this collapse to buy their property at discount rates.

This is not a mistake, this is not incompetence, this is the Plan.

Have you never noticed that successive governments at all levels do as much as they can to take from the citizenry's pockets only to line those of their friends, and their own? Let us eat cake, or caka...

Governments are quite good at orchestrating all kinds of complex operations, why not one like this global bubble? Politicians tend to be lawyers and business people for the most part. It may seem to have a tin-foil wrapping as an idea, but really, corporations exist for only one reason, and that is ever-increasing profits. Problem is, we live in a closed system. Everything is finite.

Are we being marched back to feudalism? We might not notice as we sit and watch our favourite idol show (right after CTV/Fox news), load up the IPod, yell at the kids playing with their Wii-Wiis to keep it down while we watch food, fuel, housing, and all of our costs directly related to survival sky rocket. Meanwhile, the cost of all of those distractions keeps falling.

The Matrix written by Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski

Morpheus: I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice. Tumbling down the rabbit hole?
Neo: You could say that.
Morpheus: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he's expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: 'Cause I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind -- driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The Matrix?
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
(Neo nods his head.)
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. (long pause, sighs) Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.

Red pill, Blue pill.

of chickens and eggs

I managed to bust my head out of the box ever-so briefly this afternoon, and wondered what really drives the RE market.

There are lots of boffins - be they economists, policy wonks, finance ministries, schools of business, etc., and we hear from them all the time. But what justifies their positions? I did not hear many of them predicting price reversals in London or San Diego, or Paris, Texas for that matter. I don't really remember anyone saying that prices would ratchet up so much before it began, either.

I really doubt that people who bought in 2001-2003 really thought that they would see the values sky-rocket as they did. Few who bought in 2004-2008 were likely see the impending correction in values either.

Seems that the market may have a mind of it's own.

Corporations are considered as "persons", and are afforded rights and privileges commensurate to actually being a living human being. Of course, corporations are made up of a bunch of people, all performing more or less correctly, who are made up of a bunch of mindless cells that perform their functions more or less correctly. Those cells are in turn made up of atoms made up of protons and electrons, which are made up of sub-atomic particles.

So, back to the macro - All of those corporations seek growth, and the RE related companies do likewise. Pretty soon it is rolling on it's own, and all of we perform our functions more or less correctly to keep it going. The problem is, the market is feeding on us, rather than feeding us. Pretty soon, the cells are not able to function correctly because of the stress on them, and they turn bad. The body becomes tired and ill, and ceases to function correctly. Then the vultures and bugs come to pick over the carcass.

So, does the market drive "us"? or do "we" drive the market?

taxes & interest

In the last post, Larry questioned whether our savings from renting over owning were net of tax. I found it an interesting question, as I've never really thought about it, so I did.

Firstly, the principle of savings is tax free - the money itself is not taxed, but the interest is. The tax on the interest would be relatively little. Putting aside appreciation in my example, we still saved more than we would have paid on the principle of the mortgage. Then there is the thirty odd thousand that we would have paid in interest. We make about $500/month in interest on our capital, so in the last 3 years we have made about $18,000 on that, less maybe $5K in tax (to be honest, I have never paid any attention to what percentage I pay in taxes, but it doesn't seem any where near 25% of gross. I don't really mind paying taxes, as long as they are spent wisely. They seldom are, but I don't have to pay thousands of dollars a day to stay in the hospital, and Canadian universities don't charge 30-40 thousand a year for tuition, etc.). Add that $13K to the $24K in rent/own savings and we are up at least $37K.

OK, I have to address the appreciation. I thought at the time (2003-2004) that prices were due for a haircut (as did many of you). I was wrong. But what if prices had retreated by 10%? There would be no appreciation, and that $400K house would be worth $360K - maybe less because of it's problems. The $18K in principle pay down would mitigate things a bit(?), but... There would also have been about 6K in property taxes over that time, plus PTT, agents' commissions, etc.

Then I thought, wouldn't that $30K in interest paid be a kind of taxation in the truest sense of the word?

Oh well, I have always recognized that you have to spend money to make money, unless of course, you are a money lender. Then you get your money for nothing, and your chicks for free.

I take some solace in the idea of a 50% correction, which would put that house back to about $350K. Our down-payment will be bigger, and our mortgage will be smaller.

melting into lorem ipsum

Or, orem ipsum, as the case might be (pun intended).

So, I was thinking of the slow melt-down that is going on (behind the oblivion of the masses), and was/am going to write about it, though, I resist because so many, with a greater understanding than I, have already expounded on it so well. Because I am very visual, and like to have a pikshur with my posts, I did a Google image search for "melting". As expected, I saw quite a few icebergs, glaciers, and other global warming pap, but through serendipity, kismet, fate, or whatever (my life seems to go like that), I came across the pic' below.



WTF does that have to do with the price of RE in Vancouver?, or, the price of tea in China? I think I hear you ask. If you forgive me my loquaciousness, I will elucidate...

I love language and languages, and Latin, being at the root of so many languages, has always fascinated me. I do have a rudimentary understanding of it, but I like to know. I have come across lorem ipsum quite a few times, but never was motivated to understand its meaning, so I did a Dictionary.com (and ancillary) query, which led me here.

"Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? "

OK, so that is a bit esoteric, but to me the key word is "dolorum" (pain), and that is what I see in the future for many.

I beg your pardon if this makes no sense, I am juggling my time between posting, making dinner for Mrs. solipsist, and getting li'l solipsist to bed. The constant interruptions have shattered my train of thought. A kind of melt-down as it where...

I think that the graphic above also illustrates the relentlessness of this RE market, and the loud cries for sanity.

One last bit of Latin for you all - caveat emptor (buyer beware).

property rights through copyright

I realize that some of my posts are overly self-indulgent (the bitch-slap post being a case in point), but ultimately, I am writing, and fiddling with photo's, for my own amusement. I still want you, the reader, to take something away though...

A year or so ago, there was a lot of talk about oil and gas and mining companies staking private property, and making resource claims on same. A lot of people found this to be outrageous, and I certainly did. There was the guy out in Vernon exercising these staking rights, and was very busy traipsing over people's lands and there was nothing the property owners could do about it. Then there was the ranch up near Ashcroft that had a company mining kitty litter, and generally destroying the land. Again, the property owners had no legal recourse. It gave me pause for thought in buying raw land. Most of the province is being staked, and it would be difficult to protect against such intrusions and trespasses.

Perhaps one could stake claims on any land one chose to buy, but the "companies" have already staked most of it. How to deal with that? I read an article in Canadian Art magazine about one artist's way of protecting his land...he copyrighted his property as an autonomous piece of art.

Peter von Tiesenhausen, in 2005

"...set a legal precedent by successfully claiming copyright of his land as an autonomous piece of art, thereby protecting it from encroaching oil and gas interests." Again, one might view such legal safeguarding as the politico-legal incarnation of the romantic desireto parcel up and control the landscape. But really, when urgent and large-scale legal reforms seem like a pipe dream for environmentalists and concerned artist-citizens alike,how can one resist the legal system by operating in it's extant, if flawed, strictures? Von Thiesenhausen's legal success offers a glimmer of hope in an ever-more-hopeless world. His paintings,like totems salvaged from a fire in the studio of his beleaguered mind, stand as a bittersweet celebration, a small victory for art over the big murder of economic progress.

That same small victory could be claimed by whomsoever would make a mineral claim on Gordon Campbell's land on the Sunshine Coast, and proceed to quarry it for gravel. It was after all, the Campbell government that made it so easy for big business interests to lay claim on the private lands of British Columbians... And since property rights were omitted from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we must protect those rights in any way that we can.

Hurrah for Peter von Tiesenhausen!

the slowpokes and the pompous

I suspect that a lot of what I write here may not make a lot of sense, n'or even seem contextual. I tend to think in very broad swathes, and pick up little pieces of information, and junk thought, and imagery, and so on, and try to build a diorama of sorts to understand the world at large. This is a part of trying to understand myself, and my own place in the big picture. Writing is a kind of leavening of all that disparate noise for my own understanding. Ultimately, it is a kind of Unified Theory, and as such, the ideas are ephemeral, and building of that understanding is very slow going.

It is something that I think that we all do, on different levels, and in different ways. How can the RE market reach such unbelievable levels of stupidity? What is really behind it all? How do we end up with the governments that we end up with - who implement legislations so contrary to what we, the people, are really aiming for? Why do people prefer granite countertops and stainless steel appliances? What makes people think that Vancouver is the Best Place on Earth(TM)?

I think that maybe people want Vancouver to be the Best Place on Earth, because they came here, and would not want to think that they had made a mistake. Maybe that is where all the comparisons to NYC, London, Paris, etc., come in. But we are none of that, and ironically, we have destroyed the Vancouver that we loved when we came here. High class in borrowed shoes, but still an unsophisticated street urchin. It amuses me to read on some fora the views of the newly escaped from the Big Smoke called Torrono, who want to turn Vancouver into the very thing that they have fled. Handles like "The604", and such, bely the origins of their holders. As do their writings.

Kevin Potvin, over at The Republic of East Vancouver, posited that;

We tend to think here, in chronically self-congratulating Vancouver, that everyone who comes here was motivated to come to this place rather than to go away from another place. The truth is Vancouver is a refugee camp for dissociated, abused, and discarded people from all over Canada

, and being one of those "dissociated, abused, and discarded people" myself, I would tend to agree somewhat. I never really had an interest in Vancouver until I came for a two week sojourn in 1988, and once here, I liked what I found, and never left. That was 20 years ago though, and that Vancouver is gone. Now, the "dissociated, abused, and discarded people", are looking to Grand Forks, Castlegar, Roberts Creek, etc., for what they once found here.

I lifted the above image from here, because it just seemed so pertinent. The Cafe Pompous - situated at the corner of Malaise and Ennui - where the observation is: Everything is so banal. It makes my lack of context somehow...contextual.

I also just had to lift this quote from the same place:

The name “Slowpoke” comes from an appreciation of the need to slow down to appreciate life. Slowpokes, according to the author, “value quality over quickness” and so don’t always fit into the modern world. The four-panel strips elaborate on that theme, whether presenting personal character insights or larger cultural commentary.

I would have approved more of a quality evolution of Vancouver over a quick one, myself.

black gold standard

black gold museum

I think that I may have mumbled something about this somewhere in the context of the Gold Standard, Bretton-Woods, foreign exchange, fiat currency discussions (most of which bores me to tears - so no discussion on gold will be tolerated This is about oil).

Since "They" don't like gold for some reason, why not use a barrel of oil (or a gallon) to back our currency? OK, oil is not quite as durable as gold (evaporation, rapid oxidization, etc.), but it is certainly more useful, and becoming just as "scarce". I also recognize that They don't really want to back the currency with anything materially tangible. Electrons and fantasy will suffice.

(Just to keep this in the realm of RE, we use oil to heat our homes, take the garbage away, bring the building supplies in, etc.)

Our dollar certainly has been riding the oil wave. Oil up = $ up, so in essence (pun intended), we are backed by petroleum, and lots of it. An unintended, but beneficial side-effect may be the hoarding of oil (less burnt/global warming blah, blah, blah), and the recognition and respect of it's real value.

Black Gold. Y'see?

regime change

picture link

This topic was somewhat pre-empted in the comments on the last post, but I have been thinking about fleshing it out, so here goes.

Much ado about nothing regarding parity with the US$, there is a much bigger story brewing just under the surface.

Some of you more interested types may have already read this, but I have redacted it below for your edification.

The dark cloud? The U.S. economy
BARRIE MCKENNA

From Saturday's Globe and Mail
September 21, 2007 at 11:04 PM EDT

WASHINGTON — If the United States were a patient, a doctor might look at the tumbling dollar like a sudden drop in blood pressure. It's a symptom...of a binge.

For too long, Americans have been gorging on cheap credit and foreign oil, and all things that go with the lifestyle – monster homes, big cars and big-screen TVs. For 15 years, the U.S. economy has been a magnet for global products and credit.

Now the patient is overindulged; his credit card maxed out.

The dollar is falling in large part because foreigners are no longer willing to pay for all this excess...And this week, Ben Bernanke and the U.S. Federal Reserve injected a new concern into the mix – that cutting short-term interest rates could fuel inflation.

This is isn't a story about the Canadian dollar...it's all about the United States.

The greenback is tumbling against virtually every currency that isn't pegged to the dollar...

“During this period of extreme turbulence, when our attention is riveted on near-term events, it's easy to miss the startling fact that since Bretton Woods ended, the U.S. dollar has never been this low,”...

Over the past five years, the dollar has lost roughly a quarter of its value...the United States could even cede its role as the world's reserve currency...

This week, Saudi Arabia opted not to match the lower U.S. interest rates, even though...the riyal – has been pegged to the dollar since 1986. The move suggests the Saudis may soon abandon the peg, setting off a stampede out of the U.S. dollar by oil-rich Gulf states...

Two of Saudi Arabia's neighbours, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, have already said they want to cut their U.S. dollar reserves...
“Because the oil-rich nations are paid in an increasingly falling U.S. dollar, their purchasing power diminishes and their imported inflation surges,”...“Economic realities are making the current arrangement increasingly untenable.”

There is an estimated $3.5-trillion (U.S.) of Arab money parked in U.S. dollars. If Saudis and their neighbours decide they no longer need to hold U.S. dollars (or price their oil in dollars), the greenback's decline could become a rout.

In an ideal world, a lower dollar should eventually ease the U.S. trade deficit...But at more than 5 per cent of gross domestic product, the trade and current account deficits remain exceptionally high by historical standards.

...Together, China and oil account for roughly 80 per cent of the U.S. trade deficit.

So unless the price of oil falls substantially or China moves quickly to revalue the yuan, the trade deficit is fated to remain high – even as the dollar falls.

It looks like a deep pile of doo-doo for the US economy (and GM went on strike today), and there have been rumblimgs of pricing oil in Euros for some time (some say that that was a big motivator for invading Iraq), and it looks as if that might be closer to a reality every day.

The Iranian President addresses the UN today, Harper? Hmmm. North-west Passage. Alberta oil reserves. High loon. Over-extension of the US military. Blackwater kicked out of Iraq. Big history in the making?

helicopters

Saigon April 1975
Baghdad 2007

All of this hullabaloo about the Canadian $ at historical highs ($1.15 by Hallowe'en...) has had me thinking about helicopters lately.

The last time the dollar was this high, it was Afro's, bell bottoms, platform shoes, wide ties and the BeeGees The pundits crow. (guilty, but I despised disco). Gerald Ford (Republican) was President. The pundits crow. Then I thought, yeah, and the US was bogged down in a war against "insurgents" in Vietnam, and was doing it's damnedest to get out (and did in 1975). And Nixon was later impeached (though not in relation to the Vietnam debacle). To be fair, it was LB Johnson - a Democrat - who started it.

The Vietnam war was initiated on false "intelligence" - related to the US blowing up it's own ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. And it was against the heathen communists that threatened the American way of life. The Can $ was trading at $1.014*. They used helicopters to evacuate Saigon.

Today, the US is bogged down in an unpopular war in Iraq (going after the heathen Al-Qaeda that threaten the American way of life). Another war against "insurgents". Another war initiated on false "intelligence". People are calling for Bush's impeachment. It's Metrosexuals (or is it something else now?), latte frappuccino low-fat bourgeois biscotti, miniature dogs, and scooters. Bush is a Republican. There are also those who say that 9/11 was a false flag operation - just like the Gulf of Tonkin. They will use helicopters to evacuate Baghdad.

Going back to the high before that, we are in 1959 - when the Can $ traded at $1.042*. Wow! The US was bogged down in a Cold War and arms race with China and the USSR. Around this time, Canada bought it's first Sea King helicopters. It was duck tails, straight-leg chinos, The Big Bopper, and some jazz on the fringes. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, was president.

The high before that was in 1952 - when the Can $ traded at $1.021*. The US was in the middle of another war that they could not win in Korea. The Korean War was the first war that the US used helicopters in a meaningful way. There was no culture to speak of - beyond Mom and apple pie. OK, big bands. Whatever. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, won the presidency (though Truman - a Democrat started the war).

Interestingly, the Can $ was high against most other currencies during those periods as well. It has actually fallen a long way since then. Mind you, that data* is going back to early post- WWII, so a lot of the European nations (and Asian nations) were still in tatters, and rebuilding. and heavily in debt to boot.

In conclusion, helicopters and Republicans are good for the Canadian dollar. So are untenable wars embroiling the US.

One last thing about helicopters. Don't they call Ben Bernanke Helicopter Ben?


*Historical Foreign Exchange data from fx.sauder.ubc.ca

Article comparing Vietnam War to Iraq War.

selling houses

I was digging around on Google image search for some images for some CONdo marketing spoofs that I have been amusing myself with, and came across this below. The last paragraph really floats my boat in speaking of Interesting way of turning the real estate market upside down, letting demand nudge supply in the right direction, and moving the market from push to pull. This market needs to be turned upside down (though I do believe that is starting - thanks to the "credit crunch"?) The original page can be veiwed here in it's original context.

This could blow craig's list, VOW, MLS, etc., out of the water if implemented here. Hmmm. Anyone interested in a .com startup? I just don't have the giddy-up-go these days. You can give me 1% as a finder's fee though (grin). Google Inc. is probably all over it already...

Igglo combines large amounts of real estate information into a customer friendly package that could alter how the housing market operates, by letting potential buyers 'pre-order' houses that aren't yet for sale.

The Finnish company has photographed every building in Helsinki, with more towns to follow, and combines these photographs with satellite images and maps. Every property is listed, not just those that are currently on the market. (Their tagline is: "Your house is already on Igglo.")

Potential buyers can earmark a building, street or neighbourhood they're interested in, and post offers online. This lets potential sellers find out how desirable their property is, even if they weren't actively considering selling. Buyers also receive an alert when a property in their earmarked building or area comes up for sale.

If demand and supply meet, Igglo handles the transaction for a lower fee than is charged by regular real estate agents (less than 2%). Lower fees are made possible by the fact the Igglo agents don't get involved until buyers and sellers have found each other. The company is looking to expand the service to other big cities.

Interesting way of turning the real estate market upside down, letting demand nudge supply in the right direction, and moving the market from push to pull. One to watch!

(emphasis mine)

blake, i'm not

Yesterday's post was a bit feeble, but what I meant to express, was that things are unhinged in all sectors. There are massive amounts of money-cum-credit floating around, and it is hard to tell the difference. I think that it tends more to be credit, and that is what I was getting at about "selling ourselves". I heard (or read) some time ago that credit is now the most dominant market and would continue to expand. As long as central banks keep propping up the sickness that pervades, that is easy to understand. Mutual funds, hedge funds etc. have been knee deep in extending credit, and trillions of dollars in bad loans got wiped out of peoples' portfolios. Who are the winners?

On another note, I wandered into charles hugh smith's - Two Irresistible Reasons Housing Will Retrace to 1997 Prices and ripped off what is below. I don't know just how he arrived at his conclusions, but the Japan graph is striking.

The one thing that is not often taken into account is world population. In 1950 there were about 2.5 billion people on earth, now we are heading for 7 billion. While billions of those are living in abject poverty, many are enjoying previously unknown prosperity. So, is it possible that historical ratios just don't apply any more? Is it really different this time? (Wikipedia suggests that in 1999 North America had 5.1% of the world population, and that will fall to 4.4% by 2050 - when the world population is projected to be 8.9B)

Nah. I don't think so. I don't reasonably expect 1997 prices before I buy (2017?), I want to watch trees grow, and I am not that cheap. I'll settle for 2003 prices.

Here's an excerpt of what chs has to say. Read the whole article at the link above. It's interesting.

Speculative bubbles in the stock market tend to shoot up and then plummet in relatively short time spans. Here we see that the dot-com era bubble in NASDAQ took a mere 3 years to reach euphoric heights in which risk was banished, and a roughly similar length of time to give up all the bubble's gains, and then some.

Real estate trends stretch out over much longer time spans, and as a result we can foresee a lengthy, painfully drawn-out decline in housing values over the coming decade.

Just as stocks break free of fundamental metrics of value in speculative manias, so too do houses. But just as stocks retrace to historical levels of price-earnings ratios, so too will housing retrace to historical levels of income-to-value ratios. Historically, this is about 3-to-1: long-term, houses cost about 3 times household income. Since the median household income in the U.S. is about $46,000, U.S. incomes would support house values of about $125,000 - $140,000.

As I have noted before, my parents/step-parents each bought houses in highly desirable locales in the early 70s (Honolulu and Pasadena) at 2:1 (twice annual income) and 4:1 (four times a schoolteacher's annual income to buy in highly desirable Manoa Valley in Honolulu.)

As recently as 1997, friends were purchasing small homes in very desirable S.F. Bay Area communities for $160,000 - $175,000--four times a modest (for this area) household income of $40,000.

In other words, to return to a normal trend line, one that was in place a mere decade ago, even the most desirable areas will command no more than 4 times median income. That would put house prices in Honolulu, the S.F. Bay Area, West L.A., Connecticut, Northern Virgina, etc. at about $180,000 - $200,000 -- not $600,000.

Thanks to cheap realty for the link to chs.

betting on winners

I think that sometimes we are all subject to tunnel vision, or worse, seeing only what we want to see. Here, and others' places, we focus on RE, and sometimes into the stock and money markets. But there is so much more in the big picture. I have believed for a while that there is a massive reallocation of cash going on, and have only little questions about who we are selling ourselves to. That's what a 40 year mortgage amounts to. I digress.

I scanned the images below from canadian art magazine. The first image is from Heffel Auction in Vancouver, and outlines recent sales of Canadian art. The results are as mind-boggling as the meteoric rise of real estate prices. A Lawren Harris that was estimated to sell for between $200-250K sold for $1.667M. Other paintings throughout the mag. sold for similarly astronomical prices. On the overleaf appears an advertisement for leveraging one's art collection for "Term Loans and Acquisition Financing", "Bridge Loans" and "Lines of Credit". It admonishes to "USE YOUR VALUABLE ART TO MEET YOUR FINANCIAL GOALS". Just like a HELOC.

It's all gambling and greed - plain and simple. I'm old enough to remember when the Irish Sweepstakes, Los Vegas, Reno, etc., were the only real gambling chances for the average Joe. Then came the Olympic Lottery in 1976, and suddenly we all had a chance to spend ten bucks to win a million. It went on from there. A bunch of fairy dust was sprinkled, and everyone wanted their money for nothing, and their chicks for free.

The smart ones got very rich (Buffet, ET AL), while the rest of the poor slumps are about to get very poor. This decadence is a pestilence, and a cleansing is in order.

Rant complete.

cartoon culture & funny money

I think that I might know what part of the problem is. A big part.

We do not value money, or what it represents.

What the fletch am I talking about?

Think about it - what do you think of when you think of the coins in your pocket? Dollars? Dinero? Monedas? Loons? No, you most probably think of them as loonies and toonies (or would that more properly be two-nies?). Yes, that's right - cartoon money! And when the banks will give someone like me $600G's at 4.2% (that was a couple of years ago), money is too easy to get. But it's not really. It's easy to get "credit" - which is just a polite term for debt - but the "real" money to pay that debt back, is not so easy to come by.

Our national currency reduced to a joke. How sad a mind-set is that? There are jokes to be had, but... I saw Ric Mercer Talking to Americans, and he talked to them about loonies and toonies (or is that more properly tunies?), and that we are to have a new, five dollar coin - to be dubbed The Woody. The Americans congratulated Canada on getting it's first woody. Ha!

I have little against coins (I still pick up pennies) - they are probably worth more intrinsically than notes, and cost more to produce. It's funny though, because notes were originally introduced to lighten the burden of carrying gold and silver around. That's a whole other discussion in the offing.

Anyhow, I always call my coins Loons and Doubloons. I just think it's more classy. A five dollar coin ought to be called a ducat, and we could call the $8 coin a deux-quatre (doo-catra).

I was just looking for some Loony Tunes imagery, and made some astounding discoveries. You can get loony tunes cheques, wallets, and Hasbro games cheques - including Monopoly cheques! For real. That is unflagging ridiculous.

Am I on to something, or what?

I will leave you with these disturbing images;


Our National Currency?





Warner punishes Canada by reducing the currency to a cartoon. The cheques (or "checks" in the US - there are no balances) are for real. You can get them yourself!
Don't forget your handsome checkbook (sic) wallet!


Here - print some of these up, and buy a couple of CONdo's, or get that address in Shaughnessy.





I wonder if that disc, offered by these Warner execs, is a copy of Matrix?

Hope you liked our show!

Disclaimer:
I have modified and used these images for entertainment and illustrative effect only. My use of them is under the Fair Use Policy - as described by Wikipedia. I have no affiliation with Warner Brothers, and they have not endorsed, n'or agreed with the content of this article or site.

flailing

Not Li'l solipsist

I read an interesting article over at The Republic relating to forecasts of economy, human behaviour, triggers to calamities, etc. It is redacted below.

The conclusion that I drew was: don't listen to the boffins! They are just flailing like little babies.

Theoretical physicist Mark Buchanan’s Ubiquity: The Science Of History . . . Or Why The World Is Simpler Than We Think (Phoenix, 2000), is a book whose implications are so powerful they’ve given me vertigo. Buchanan makes a very strong argument that, despite all appearances to the contrary, human history may be governed by very simple mathematical laws. Unfortunately, those laws would guarantee history’s complete unpredictability, and they would also fundamentally contradict the economic and political theories informing our decision-makers.

The study of non-equilibrium statistical physics shows that critical states seem to emerge whenever systems are kept far from equilibrium in conditions where the forces of chaos and order are in constant flux, and where the components of the system exert some influence on each other’s behaviour. It seems that at least some features of our collective behaviour can be reasonably explained by these concepts.

Might as well just guess

Research suggests that both stock market fluctuations and the distribution of global wealth follow power laws. This is an unnerving finding, as it flies in the face of traditional economic theory,...the effects of a relatively minor economic variable may produce anything from unnoticeable effects to such calamities as the 1929 stock market crash and the collapse of the “tiger” economies of Southeast Asia in 1997.

This helps explain why economic forecasts are so consistently proven wrong. Buchanan writes that in 1993 the OECD “analyzed forecasts made between 1987 and 1992 by the governments of the USA, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, and Canada, as well as those of the International Monetary Fund and the OECD itself. Their conclusions? Not only were each of these organizations’ predictions abysmally inaccurate, but they would have made better predictions for inflation and gross domestic product if they had scrapped all their sophisticated economic models and simply guessed that the numbers in each year would be unchanged from the last.” Similar studies have produced the same results. This has grave implications. Given that the study of economics presupposes equilibrium, and given that our nations’ powerbrokers rely upon economists for their understanding of the world, it seems that our leaders’ most basic assumptions about the economy are dangerously wrong-headed.

Indeed.

riot vancouver 2010 - responding to the schmolympdicks

I received this unsolicited e-mail yesterday. It is a press release from Vancouver's Only magazine (formerly Terminal City). I did not object too much to the "spam" - some spam is ok, and I liked the subversive tone of this one. They are offering up a free "Riot 2010" countdown widget as antithesis to the Schlonglimpdicks' countdown crock o' shite.

With regrets from them (elitist schmoes) the widget only works on Mac.

Feel free to spam Chuck Ansbacher though, he did include his e-mail address. Be nice - it is a fairly cool on-line mag. And, they are pissed off with the Schmo-limpdicks too. I am hearing more and more disgust about that every day. I'm gonna finally pop, and write a manifesto on that some day.

The Only Magazine Riot Vancouver 2010 Widget

Riots are nothing new to the Rainy City. Take, for example, the Victory Square "work camp" riot of 1935, the Gastown pot riots of the '60s, the Guns 'n Roses riot of 2002, and, of course, the Stanley Cup riots of '94. On July 2, 2003, Vancouver won the bid to host the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. An honour indeed, the city responded with celebration, but also with groans. Anyone honest with themselves admitted there were problems to overcome, but it was thought that these were just the growing pains of a developing city on the verge of becoming "world class." But Vancouver, a city with the most poverty stricken postal code in North America, could only celebrate for so long. It turns out five rings aren't enough to hold this glass city together. The cost of the Games are vastly over budget and diverting money from social programs. There is a constant worry the mountains won't see the kind of snowfall necessary for an Olympic host. Homelessness has increased and is projected to continue. Some citizens want answers. None have been given. Despite continued protests and lucid studies outlining how the Games are damaging the city, the Vancouver Olympics Committee decided to celebrate some more recently. They built a nice digital clock to countdown the remaining three years until the Opening Ceremonies. You may have noticed this monolithic eyesore, seemingly dropped from the sky onto the lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery, missing only a crowd of curious apes and a lobbed bone to complete the scene. There it sits, ticking away in its clean, tasteful glass case under the watchful eye of a hired security guard. Ticking along as the city surrounding it succumbs to the pressures of transition. Building construction rumbles from nearly every corner, marginalised citizens are turned out onto the streets in lucrative grabs for real estate, and money is being exchanged at a drunken pace. Under these circumstances, the countdown and the clock have many symbolic meanings, and Only Magazine sees a situation ripe for public opinion to boil over the edges of decency. Of course, we would never incite or even encourage anyone to riot. If you hadn't thought of it before now you're probably not going to be one of the people there. However, history has taught us that if (when) there is a civil disobedience, it won't be the issues that are blamed, and it won't be all the poor decisions made leading up to the Opening Ceremonies either. So if the police need a scapegoat, Only Magazine volunteers for the job. We love attention. In the spirit of being subversive without actually having to leave your computer, Only Magazine gives you a Widget so you can smash the state and read the Google at the same time. Dissent from your laptop. The Only Magazine Riot Vancouver 2010 Widget.*

Signed,
Only Magazine

*Seriously, Only Magazine does not endorse rioting.

- Official Press Release -
-- Chuck Ansbacher
Managing Editor
Only Magazine
#611 142 - 757 West Hastings
Vancouver, BC
V6C 1A1
onlymagazine.ca

feng-shui

machu picchu - good feng-shui



Most have heard of feng-shui (fung-shway) - the Taoist principle that the land is alive with energy, and that buildings can have good or bad feng-shui depending on how they are situated in the landscape.

Feng is translated as wind, while shui is translated as water. Wind is considered yang (male/light), while water is yin (female/dark). Gentle wind and smooth water are associated with a good harvest and good health, while harsh winds and stagnant water have been linked to famine and disease. Thus, "good" feng-shui has become linked to a good livelihood and fortune, and "bad" feng-shui has become linked to hardship and misfortune.

It is quite a bit more involved than all of that, and it is a study that requires years to master, but we all have an innate sense of it, I think. This may well be one of the great attractions of Vancouver, which abounds with good feng-shui.It definitely feels very different here.

Water is yin, and mountains are yang. Earth is yin, and sky is yang. When water meets mountains or clouds drop from the sky to embrace the earth, nourishing energy is generated. Mountains that seem to disappear and reappear because of shifting clouds are said to contain tremendous energy. source

That's Vancouver in a nutshell, but the pace is slower with the mountains disappearing for days, or weeks at a time, and then brilliantly exposed throughout the summer. Though, by these measures, this last few months of storms and lashing winds and rain have had some bad energy.

Is it perilous to ignore feng-shui? Some say it is. The Chinese are famous for wanting addresses with auspicious numbers, and are willing to pay a premium for them. Some deals are contingent on municipal approval to change those numbers.

Feng-shui is also an issue inside the house. A clear line of sight through the middle of the house is said to be a negative. There needs to be breaks so that the energy does not just flow through - leaving the dwelling less charged. A large tree outside the front window can also be negative. Bathrooms by the entrance doors are very negative. It is said that you flush your fortune out of the house. I have always been turned off places that have "powder rooms" right by the front door. Strangely (to me), a lot of people find this to be a desirous feature.

Feng-shui is not a superstition or a set of dos and don'ts. It is the art and science of understanding the forces of nature in order to design houses and workplaces that blend with the environment instead of clashing with it. It aims to help us live in harmony with the world by promoting the flow of positive energy and neutralizing or avoiding negative or destructive energy. source

As with so many "cliche" philosophies, there is a great amount of common sense to this ideal. It is not magical, but the difference between a good living environment and a bad one can seem so.

I have been thinking of all of this since I posted on the ROAR yesterday. That project seemed to have good feng-shui to me. Then, after thinking about it all day, I read some comments over at the pope's place by will and wg2c, and it was a confirmation.

Too bad this post has poor feng-shui. It just does not flow. I added the picture of North Vancouver shrouded in clouds to bring some balance to it (when I noticed that the tall buildings at the shore were blocking the flow from sea to sky...).

I don't have time to do it justice. Your expansions on the topic are most welcome. I'm sure that some of you are much more fluent (pun intended) on the subject than I.