floe

A Vancouver real estate developer is making an unprecedented move to offer a liquidation sale of $350 million worth of its condominiums throughout the Lower Mainland.

The marketing strategy by Onni Group of Companies is aimed at selling off hundreds of condos in its inventory.

About 375 unsold condominiums in cities such as Richmond and New Westminster will be offered at 20 to 40 per cent off...
link

There goes the neighbourhood. Pity the fools who bought at full price. I caught a brief news clip, and the condo "owner" was flipping out. The poor bastidge probably thought that he would be selling at a tidy profit in a year, and now his condo is worth at least 20% less. This flo development is more like an ice floe that people were cast off on to perish.



In my not-so-humble opinion, the suckers buying at the sale prices will also be finding that they have bought depreciating assets. Then comes the earth quake that will literally put them underwater.

After a 20 hour "emergency session" of the Legislature, Vancouver has received the go-ahead to borrow the money to finish the Millenium (Under) Water fiasco. You, nor I, will be consulted. That will be at least $456 million, and the latest is that it could be as much as $750 million. The limit imposed by the Leg. is to be found somewhere between the Sea and the Sky. In other words, there is no limit. I don't know about you, but I don't think that a billion dollar decision should be made after 20 hours of deliberation. I know that my own head is not very clear after an hour of debate, let alone 20 hours. The silver lining is that the City of Vancouver can borrow the money at "around 4%", while the developer (and us since September) pays 11%. So how is it good that I can borrow money cheaper than you, to cover your arse?

Who did the 52% that voted for the Olympics think was going to pay for this? Who got a Senate seat? Why do we have to have a 60% majority to have proportional representation, but only a 51% majority to put on a party for the rich, that costs us untold billions - directly and indirectly - disrupts our city and lives for 7 years, fuels an RE bubble that sucks in tens of thousands of slogan-addled believers into a lifetime of servitude to own a decaying, poorly built, and over-priced condo.

After 21 years in Vancouver, I have finally had enough. I don't want to pay for this. I'm going to buy a windmill, some hens and a rooster, hand tools, ammo, seeds, some goats, a few dogs, a few friends, a ukelele, an electric 4X4, 99 bottles of beer, buy a lease, build a sod house, learn to love potatoes, trade them for corn liquor, trade that for tobacco, trade that for dental floss and boots, and maybe a paper clip. What? You think that's crazy talk?, Yeah, well, real estate never goes down, you know.

This is going to be one of my last posts here, I think. I still have some photoshops that I just have to do, and a few comments to make, but let's face it, RE is dying an ignoble death. There is no joy or fun in that, and I am over taken by other, more pressing things. I just don't have the time to put in a decent effort anymore, and I'm just embarrassing myself now. Grin.

snakes, ladders, snow, snot

Image ripped off from Alaska education system

Grack! I, and the fambly have been sick as dogs...and you thought I didn't love you anymore... I'm still pretty sick, but the miniature ME is more settled, so I have a few minutes.

Did you hear about the guy who is renting condos from flippers, and hiding behind the RTA (Residential Tenancy Act) to rip off the condo "owners"? Seems that this snake on the property ladder is leasing condos from "accidental" landlords, renting them out to foreign exchange students, pocketing all of the cash, and telling the "owners" to go frag themselves. Ouch! Can you imagine? Rennie Robots, who were more than bold, bought pre-sales, that they then had to complete on. Faced with $3600/month mortgage payments, they desperately lease them out for $1800+/month to some scammer who re-rents them for $2400+/month, and pockets all of the cash. OMFG! The hairball, as interviewed by CBC, says that he only refuses to pay rent to landlords who "harass (him)".

Landlord: Uh, Mr. Jones-Smith-Brown, your rent cheques have bounced for the last 6 months, and my bank is freaking out on me because I am behind on payments. They are threatening to foreclose!

Mr. Snake-On-Your-Property-Ladder : Quit hassling me man! I'm never paying you now!

The cops say that they can do nothing, because it is difficult to prove "intent to defraud". Flippers in Paradise, indeed... Rule of Law, indeed!

So, how about those City services? Snow removal? Pshawww! The City's plan is to wait for the rain. Get out of your car and take public transit!

"Ooops! Sorry! The buses can't run because one of the two plough operators is on
holidays, and we can't afford to pay over-time".

My sister-in-law observed a City truck driver, with a plough, and a hopper full of sand and salt, snooze on her quiet corner for over two hours.

I saw the first taxi cab on my street in three weeks last night. He got stuck. I went out with a shovel to help him.

ICBC reports a 30% increase in claims since this weather has started. My question is; how many hundreds of millions of dollars in property damages, personal injuries, lost productivity, etc., has the City's lack of response cost the citizens of this city? I heard Raymond Louie last week going on about how this is a "40 year event". Horse shoes! This is the second year in a row, and is a building trend. Climate change is upon us (forget about the Global Warming BS, Climate Change is the reality).

And, all of a sudden, our Federal Transportation Minister is concerned about the 2010 Games, and how we will deal with it if it snows. We will get 4 more trucks. Yee haw!

I could go on, and I will, but is this really The Best Place on Earth? Hummph!

थे gleaners

The Gleaners - by Millet

There is weird stuff happening with Blogger these days. I keep getting Sanskrit-like font, and I don't know why. I kind of dig it though.

So yeah, here we are - back in much the same position (politically) that we were 5 weeks ago. A record low participation rate, which is very sad. I put that down principally (and ironically) to a lack of civics education in schools, and a break-down of the family structure. I really sound like a Conservative in writing that, wot? But I think that it is at least partly true. I gained an interest in Canadian politics by spending a lot of quality time with my Grandmother. We were "ideologically" opposed, but had great, respectful discussions and debates about those differences. In the long run, we agreed on the same principles of fiscal conservatism, and social progressiveness.

Another problem is the lack of proportional representation. The Conservatives won the Government with 20% of the votes of eligible voters. Some 10 million people chose not to vote. Why? Is it because people don't believe that their voices count? (they do, and they don't, but...) To put that 20% into perspective, the Greens got ~20% of the votes that the Cons got.

It was an election about "leadership", and then, by default, became about leadership/economy. The Conservatives knew that this shit storm was coming, and that is why they triggered the election (well, plus the Cadman thing coming to a head, the In-and-Out scam coming to a head, the Couillard book coming out - what a flop - etc.), but they had no plan. Sadly, ironically, Harper's plan is Dion's plan - to call together the Premiers, heads of banks, have meetings with global leaders... - which Harper dismissed as "a plan to make a plan". Dion is a singularly decent man, in the words of Rex Murphy, and that is a rarity these days. He had a vision for something new, but was unable to articulate it to Canadians. It was not just the accent, but he had a battle against the impression that two years of Harper's negative advertising cemented into peoples minds, and he does not have the support of the Liberal old boys' club. That is too bad, in my view. He reminds me of Joe Clark in 1979 in some ways (decency, sincerity, etc.) - just before we ended up with Trudeau, who paved the way for Mulroney. That was a grim decade and a half.

Just a week ago, Harper was saying that everything was a-ok, and that there would be no "bail-outs" for banks. Then, we "found out" that everything is not a-ok, and that the guv was pumping $25 Billion into the economy (banks). That does not instill confidence into me.

I have read most saying that Dion is finished, and that the knives are out for him. He has done nothing to dispel that rumour. The thing is, who will replace him as leader? Ignatieff? He does not have the party, or Parliamentary experience. Plus, he is a goof. Rae? Too much baggage, too old, and he is creepy in the same way that Clinton is creepy. It seems to be a common trait amongst Rhodes Scholars. Manley, in a come-back? No thanks. Frank McKenna. Frank McKenna. Wherefore art thou, Frank McKenna? I'm not holding my breath.

I don't think that there can be a coalition betwixt the Libs and NDP. Jack wants to be PM, and would settle for nothing less. The ideologies are a fair bit different too. Further, it looks as if the Liberals are going to be in a mess for a while. Harper doesn't really need a majority, he will continue to stress the Liberals, and will continue with his incremental dismantling, and sale, of Canada. We will wake up some day 10 years from now, and wonder WTF happened while we were watching American Idol, American politics, and whinging about those damned Americans. We will be those damned Americans. (Disclosure; I have American uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends. They are all good people, just like us.) Harper said that we "won't recognize Canada when (he is) done with it", and it is true. I already don't recognize it.

I read someone - whom I have great trust in - that we will live in totalitarianism for the next 200 years, and I think that he was correct. "We" "have given" Harper a "new, stronger mandate" to "implement his agenda". Some 20% of eligible voters have, anyhow. His agenda is in the public domain, although not enunciated at any point during the campaign, and it is tragic. Codex Alimentarus (control of your food). North American Union. Supplantation of our sovereign dollar with the Amero (some day - I predict just months before the Olympics, we will have 60 days to trade in all of our dollars for Ameros.) We will have American military providing security in Vancouver and Whistler during the Olympics. Even though we have a decent copy right law, and a levy on all blank DVDs, CDs, cassette tapes, etc. that goes to the recording industry, it must be harmonized with the American laws. We will have more pesticides as we lower our standards to the US's, we will be de-regulated left, right and centre. Prisons will be privatized to meet the demand as our drug laws are harmonized, and we import the war on teen-agers, hippies, people with chronic diseases, etc. who smoke a little weed. We will have wistful memories of a publicly funded health care system.

They say that you get the government that you deserve, but I have to wonder - what did I, or my 19 month-old son do to deserve this?

I have much more ranting to do, but it is fruitless, and pointless. And, I am trying to keep my screeds to under 10,000 words.

There is a lot of ill wind coming. House prices are down ~6.5% nationally, and "the most expensive markets" (like Vancouver) are faring worse. The Infinity project sounds as if it is dead. The stock market rallies of the last couple of days were suckers' rallies - as I suspected. The global economy is totally flacked, no matter what we do. All of those billions - nay, trillions - that the governments are pumping in is just a huge theft from us all. Last week's bail-outs put every single Canadian some $3,600 further into debt. Your Social Insurance Number is a chit for that (and all) government debt. I heard today that the Finance Department is forecasting a $10 Billion deficit at year-end March 2009. That is 5 months from now, so are they going to be borrowing $2Bill/month, or have we been in deficit all along? (as I forecast last week) Inquiring minds (mine, at least) would like to know.

Did you get what you voted for?

talkies

BREAKING NEWS - 12:56 PM Monday,Sept. 29, 2008

The bail-out package has been rejected in Washington. TSX crashed 900 points today.

Make sure that all of your deposits are covered by CDIC. The shite is hitting the fan - now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to testerday's post...

There are lots of media to speak, so I'm cutting short my rants, and will try to entertain you instead.

First viddy is Rick Mercer on the Cadman scandal. (2:10 in length)

The second (2:52 in length) is Stephen Harper, in his own words, regarding the "financial considerations" that were offered to Mr. Cadman.

Mr. Ignatieff asked: "Is it the prime minister's position that the people close enough to Chuck Cadman to know are lying, and if so, how are Canadians going to believe that he alone is telling the truth?"

CPAC-Nanos Tracking CP 36, LP 27, NDP 19, GP 9, BQ 9

With their 15 point margin last week, the campaign was looking like a runaway freight train for the Harper Conservatives. However, a number of new factors have diminished the Conservative lead, which is still comfortable, to 9 points.

First, Harper’s culture comments renewed BQ support in Quebec. Combine the Richardson comments related to immigrants causing crime and Harper’s comments asserting Dion wanted the economy to perform poorly and the gap narrowed from 15 to 9 points. These two comments represent a tenuous lifeline to the Liberal campaign.

I hope that trend continues.

Harper tried to ridicule "the arts" and cut funding. The CBC was once a great Canadian institution, and now is just a shadow of what it was. We have tens of thousands of people directly employed in BC's film industry. A lot of our clients work in it, and are already hurting. They (and we) won't be turning on the TV and getting pissed off with elitist galas, because things like cable are the first to go when money is short.

Speaking of elite galas;

Harper at an 18 course dinner (just hours after a 14 course lunch) at a conference on the global food crisis (exacerbated by ethanol production). (Too bad he doesn't have the class to keep his elbows off the table. My Grandma would straighten him out!)

Summit that's hard to swallow - world leaders enjoy 18-course banquet as they discuss how to solve global food crisis

Laureen Harper at the Gala Juno Dinner


Then there is the elite Conservative caucus, and Laureen Harper rubbing shoulders with every-day Canadians at a literary gala; H/t to James Curran
Laureen Harper at literary gala with Minister of Environment John Baird in background

Minister Jay Hill (and House Speaker Peter Milliken) at the same gala with Julie Couillard (she sure gets around...)


Minister Jasob Kenney and his "date" (well, he doesn't have a girlfriend, or wife.) He seems to like terrorists too. Tory MP attended rally for group on terror list


And here is the very elite Vic Toews (and his son - who's evening you paid for!) at that same gala.


In my riding (Van.-Kingsway, it looks as if the NDP candidate is the only one who actually lives here, and is involved. It looks as if the Con. candidate is not attending - he needn't bother anyhow, he hasn't a hope in hades. I have some questions to pose at the all-candidates' meeting. Are you going to your local meeting? Ask them how long they have lived there, and whether they were nominated by the riding association. I'll bet that most Con. candidates will not be present. Try sending an e-mail, or calling them. See if they will answer your questions.

Wake Up Canada!

I think that an anger management intervention is due for this double-speaking blow-hard. Just another of Harper's angry henchman. I'd much rather see Elizabeth May as Minister of the Environment, wouldn't you?

Short and sweet today. I am rather exhausted, and am having trouble typing - let alone thinking. Others can speak today.

I could write about Merrill-Lynch Canada saying that we are on the verge of a mortgage meltdown in Canada as bad, or worse as that in the US, but Garth Turner does a better job of that with his post Wake Up Canada, and more. (I am not a Turner sycophant - truth be told, he irritates me. I would likely vote for a Liberal for the first time in my life if I could vote for him though. He is MP of the riding that I grew up in.), but he has the nuts and bolts there, that I don't have here. My brain just is not functioning well - due to exhaustion.) He writes today what this election is really all about (mostly). There are a couple of very erudite people who comment there regularly too. According to M-L, Canadians will take it even harder than the US, as we have greater levels of personal debt.

The video below is from vote for environment.ca who is targeting ridings where the difference in the vote was 10% or less (in some ridings, it was by as few as tens of votes, and if I recall correctly, there was a Conservative who won by 29 votes).



This graphic is from the same site, and as you can see, a split vote strongly indicates a near Conservative majority. If that happens...I can't express it. Canada will be finished.



Forward the links, and get friends and family to vote - but not for the Black-Hearted Overlords in blue cloaks! Vancouver Quadra is a hot contest, and there are others. That is why the leaders are coming here.

Speaking of which, did you hear that Dona Cadman is running for the Cons, but is not taking questions, is not campaigning, and last night, fled with Harper and a police escort (he is doing a lot of that - with the RCMP keeping reporters away, not letting reporters off of buses so that they cannot film protests at campaign stops, etc. Sounds a lot like Bush tactics, non? I wonder what inducement he has offered Ms. Cadman to sell her husband's name. (that might be unfair, but...)

This is another site that targets key ridings. I know that there are readers from all over who come here (even Calgary!) - the photo at the top came from a reader in Kingston (Ontario, I presume), and I photoshopped it in my own wicked way.

So, if you live in one of these ridings, get out and vote, and drag every one you know to the polls with you. Then go have a beer and nachos party. It will be fun! And it is so important this time. In the last election, voter turnout was only 63% nationally, and Harper won with 36% of the vote! If they won't give us proportional representation, let's take it! And let's take Canada back.

I have doubts about a coalition (as I suggested, Layton would demand to be PM, and the Libs would never go for that. Wht would they?), but we could have a Lib minority, and I like minorities. The Cons would be unlikely to call an election any time soon after, and the NDP would keep the Libs honest, or bring them down with the Cons like they did last time.

the jean gibson fan club

It is still a buyer's market. The number of homes on the market has increased and the asking prices have adjusted to the market. Now is a great time to buy, while Vancouver homes are at rock-bottom prices.

Good grief.They must have started adding mind-addling fluoride (or something) to the water when I was not looking. The above quote is from the Kerrisdale Real Estate blog. The picture is a screen-shot of the blog page.

The previous article, entitled Buy The Dream has seven things that jean (the realtor/author) has learned about Real Estate. They sound to be from Ozzie Jurock's latest $1599 RE Action Week-end, or maybe just from his Insider Alerts.

Now, I'm not usually vindictive, or even nasty, but I am feeling a bit ornery lately (I have my reasons). Jean looks to be a nice, grandmotherly type (In a W.A.S.P.ish way), but how can she believe the crap that she is writing? Will anybody else believe it?

I would like to see every person, who reads this, own their own home. Preferably using me as their realtor.
I hope I have nudged you to go out and buy that dream!

Now, that is just elitest. She wishes every person who reads her article will own their own home. What about the other 3.999999 million people in BC who will never read those words? Too bad. And I love the plug to use her as your realtor. (She forgot the capitalization, and TM. I am more deliberate)

I don't get a huge number of comments here, and I appreciate the ones that I do get, but this lady had ZERO comments until today (other than spam), when a bunch of readers of Rob Chipman's blog trooped over there and started laying on a bunch of snark for her. So, why not join the jean gibson fan club, and mosey on over to leave your good wishes? I am sure that she will be gratified by the traffic.

Just be nice, she is, after all, someones Grandma.

i pick the ending

I have not been posting so much for a number of reasons. l'il solipsist is the biggest one, but I have been engrossed in other areas of study besides. I wrote a post over two days (many, many interruptions), and was just finishing, when blogger crashed it, and it was gone. I will try to reproduce it...

Politics are very interesting these days. I don't fixate on US candidate nomination races - that is all part of the "look at the pretty bauble", or the "lay back and think of England" type of distractions. Canada is a rudder-less ship over-taken by pirates who drink from lead tankards (it is the Canadian politics that have my attention lately).

I picked up a little snippet of curious information; the various churches, of various denominations, own 7-8% of all inhabitable land on Earth. That is a lot of land, and you can bet that those holdings are not mortgaged. Talk about cornering the market...

Driven to distraction by gas/energy prices? (pun intended) Do you think that it is "Peak Oil"? Hurricane Katrina? All those emerging economies like China and India? Horseship! This article on the Oil Pimps might have you revisiting those ideas. And you thought that price manipulation on a vast scale was unlikely...

This article entitled 20 reasons new megabubble pops in 2011 might have you thinking that all we "bears" who refused to buy over-priced Real Estate are actually pretty prescient, if not down-right genii. Those who bought in the last few years will be under water for a very long time, and may never recover their "investment". I smell a lot of foreclosures and bankruptcies in the pipe. I'm glad that I have respectable savings while the rest of the hemisphere has negative savings.

Still excited about the Olympics? An article over at The Republic has a few things to say about that. A couple of excerpts; (emboldening mine)

...the Olympics is not just the two-week show that happens on television in February 2010. It is a decade-long preparation process that includes real estate deals at a ferocious pace, road and rail and venue construction through zones that would never be allowed under normal, calmly-considered circumstances, and of course there is the ubiquitous security preparations comprising the biggest single expense item in the whole expensive affair.

...the IOC’s rules that insisted that publicly-released cost estimates for games preparations borne by the citizens of host cities cannot include allowance for inflation during future years of construction, even though all normal and routine budget plans for all projects public and private include calculations of the future value of today’s dollars over the course of multiyear construction projects. The purpose of this rule can only be to obscure the true costs for cities thinking about making bids to host future Olympic games.

Kevin Potvin goes on to explain that the only Olympic experience that Vancouverites will have is through television, and a city carved up by security perimeters (he neglects to mention the property tax increases and the years of living in a city under construction - with the concomitant traffic snarls, noise, dust, etc.)

My wife and I, and li'l solipsist are planning on being in Mexico for that time in 2010. We can't really afford it, but I won't be able to take running into military road blocks, etc. - especially as we can expect to see an American military presence here (thanks to Harper/Bush deal on that). I am likely to be shot, or at the very least arrested, in such a scenario.

This is all a bit of a pessimistic rant, but there is a bright spot; the neighbour who is flipping their house after 9 months are having an Open House today, and it is very quiet. Just a few tire-kickers, from what I can tell.

horse cookies

the pope already covered the issue of The Anvil being dropped on "unsuspecting" buyers' heads with a demand for $20,000 to $40,000 if they want to keep their units pre-bought in good faith almost two years ago, but (holding back expletives) ferchrysaches! Anybody who ponies up for that abuse deserves a good swift kick in the head.

The developer - United Properties -

is a well-known developer in the Lower Mainland with more than 10 recent developments, including high rises and low rises, completed...It’s unusual to see such a successful developer run into major cost overruns. linker

If they are that successful, let them eat the "cost overruns", and send them into receivership if that's what it takes. The Sophia developer may have found a bunch of fresh fools to sign on for future bankruptcy to save their sorry arses, but this is much later in the game (inventory-wise). I hope the sucke..., er, people who pre-bought refuse to pay more, and that the general masses are beginning to understand that it is all but over, and thus, will not buy. This company should be able to eat something - in light of all their successes. The sad thing is, the bankruptcies are being passed down to those who can least afford it. I bet the President of the company has a vacation home in Maui.

The Great Extraction is playing out.

"Leading Economists" are now speaking openly of a "Global Recession" in the works. I'm no economist, but I have been saying for at least 5 years that a Global Depression was brewing. If these guys are so prescient, why could they not see it?

Don't worry, buy away. Bob Rennie, Cameron Muir and the boys are predicting high, single digit increases.

This started out to be a good rant (up around the block quote), but li'l solipsist refused to nap, and I have been busy for the last 7 hours or so. He took the rant right out of me.

boiler plate

Jari sent me the e-mail below, as well as the picture above - which I photoshopped a bit more. I'm pretty busy, and you already know that the BoC dropped the prime again, and that they are saying that we will have a downturn that will last exactly two years, and blahbitty-blah-blah, so I will ask you to consider this a guest post.

Thanks Jari

This is only vaguely related to Real Estate, but I wanted to share this with you anyway.

I have to drive daily on the streets of Vancouver, and nothing pisses me nowadays more, than seeing all these vehicles with the Olympic licence plates. To me, the plate is symbol of greed, arrogance and ignorance: the real estate is more unaffordable than ever, there are more and more homeless on the streets and the city and the streets are becoming more and more congested and overcrowded. And the politicians’ solution to these problems is to issue this pretentious new provincial slogan and the licence plate to go with it!

I think that we really need a new licence plate, that reflects better the feelings of most people when they are driving on the streets of the city. Attached is a template that may be quite accurate. I believe, that this also represents more precicely the actual future of Vancouver.


I would love to see people typing their licence plate number on this kind of template, printing it and displaying in it in their vehicle. There are already 80000 Olympic licence plates on the roads. I believe this kind of new plate would balance things a little bit.

Feel free to publish this on your blog, if you find this suitable.


Best regards,

Jari

Here is Jari's template if you want to make your own.

good question, and a rant

David sent me the following e-mail:

subject: the elephant in the room

Still trying to puzzle this out.

Banks are failing, not due to lack of regulation (Mish). But the elephant of Fractional reserve lending.

Okay I get that, what I don't get is how can a bank lose liquidity when they never had it in the first place.

They make 'money' by typing it into the computer. Yes, that's simplified, but the money never was there, so how can they lose nothing?

And yet us the 'great unwashed' will 'bail-out' the banks. Would love to see a discussion on your blog around this, maybe someone can enlighten me.

David poses a salient question, that I cannot readily answer - but to say that so much of what we are taught about the world is a bunch of bullshit.

How can a private bank (The Federal Reserve) have such control over Americans' money, and their lives? They just pulled $200 billion out of their asses to "save" the American economy. Where did that $200 bill. come from? That's easy - from interest charged on the (imaginary) trillions that America owes, and so on - back to the days of JC and the boys.

Why did they kill JFK? Maybe because he was going to release America from the strangle-hold of the Fed. Reserve, and re-introduce a government-backed "green back"?

Why is our government - through the Bank of Canada - buying frozen ABCP? I wouldn't buy it, would you? Ah, but we are buying it, and we will be bailing out all the Fucked Buyers, and CIBC, and, and, while we are impolitely raped in many other ways - like carbon taxes, property taxes, and on, and on.

And you thought that feudalism, slavery, oligarchy, and royalty were dead?

Collectively, we are a bunch of under-educated, but over-inculcated idiots. I can never get the image of the deported-to-camps Jews, Communists, Artists, etc. during WWII, who carried their suitcases with them in the belief that everything would be ok.

Man's inhumanity to man has not lessened in any way, and the pendulum is swinging back to very dark days. The Depression was no joke, and we are headed to something much worse.

I hope that people can figure out how to eat granite.

the puppeteer - manipulating you and me

I came across this story over at coco's blog. It explains that "Developers are the Games’ real winners" (speaking of the 2010 Olympics). Yeah, no shite Shirley. I never had any doubt about that, and it has always pissed me off. Sure, a lot of speculators have been winners too, but they are more of a participating audience than players.

A former developer himself, Premier Gordon Campbell holds the purse strings to an Olympic-size sweepstakes payout.


The 2010 Olympics were still a gleam in Jack Poole's eye when he addressed a roomful of real-estate developers in the spring of 2002. Vancouver had been shortlisted for the Games, but it would be more than a year until the winning city was chosen.

The outcome of the race to win the Games didn't seem to matter to Poole, who headed the 2010 Vancouver Bid Corporation. Western Investor editor Frank O'Brien sat in on the talk and later editorialized that, according to Poole, "the real purpose of the 2010 Olympic bid is to seduce the provincial and federal governments and long-suffering taxpayers into footing a billion-dollar bill to pave the path for future real estate sales."

Indeed this was Poole's opinion. "If the Olympic bid wasn't happening," he told the developers, "we would have to invent something." Long-time developer Poole had it right. The Olympics are about real estate.

(emboldening mine)



It verges on criminality,in my mind, but "we" asked for it - if not begged for it. Now, the average citizen of Vancouver cannot afford to buy the lowliest crack-shack, while these rich bastidges get richer - at our expense.

B.C. premier Gordon Campbell knows well how taxpayers subsidize developers. Campbell was all smiles when he announced that Marathon would be glad to sell the land to the province at a good price. It was still worth three times as much as its value before the city rezoning.

Campbell...boasted that he got the property at a rock-bottom price before others became aware of what the stadium would do to land values. He built a hotel that was completed at about the same time as the stadium.

Twenty years later, Campbell holds the Olympic purse strings, and as Poole pointed out, it's payday for developers.

The whole article is worth reading. It demonstrates what g-damned fools the populace of this fair city are - sucked in to voting for the Olympics without a clue as to who would really pay for them, and who would benefit.


As you may have gathered, sometimes my postings are more about doing the photoshops, than any serious commentary, though this one is about both.

Do a Google image search for "Bob Rennie", and two of my photoshops come in in the top 9. One of them is the first. That makes me laugh. Let's see if this one shows up on a Google search for "Jack Poole, Bob Rennie, Gordon Campbell".

curb appeal - the teal townhouse

Here you are - the teal townhouse.

This one is just off Commercial Dr. I give them a "C" for the effort to spare the aesthetic of the neighbourhood, but there is something "off" with it. It looks as if it has been transplanted from the East Coast somewhere - Halifax or St.John's. That's not a bad thing, but I can't quite give it the solipsist seal of approval.

The dormer-on-dormer is interesting, even bold, but they could have more, and larger, dormer windows on the front - which would have made it look a little less stark IMHO. The entrance treatment on the left unit is a bit odd. It would have been nicer without the blind dormer (gable, whatever), and a big covered porch. Might as well tear it down and start over.

I know - I'm a nit-picker, but I just don't get the lack of imagination and attention in the construction of these new places. It is much better than the new Vancouver Specious (which I am dubbing manifestations such as the mandarin monster) though.

And what's with the ersatz rock everywhere these days?

Gack. This is turning into the Architectural Digest. It's kind of like a critique of the Hyundai Pony (easy to find fault with). The difference is - Hyundai Ponies were cheap, and these houses are really, really expensive.