if the cap fits,

let him wear it



Wowza!

Did I hear someone say;

- The TSX closed at 9600 - down 4.5% on the day? That is just a measly 1/3 from the peak. Oil down, and the dollar down.

Batten the hatches, this is just the leading edge of the storm. The market was as over-valued when flirting with 15,000 as the RE prices were last May, so it is no big surprise. I feel that if things hadn't been messed with so much by scoundrels and fools, the TSX is about where it should have been. But it will see 6,000 or less before it turns back. (It might not ever do that.)



- Harper say to Peter Mansbridge that there are good buying opportunities in the stock market? For who? His mother? Does he not read newspapers? Have advisors? If he does read a paper, it must be The Stars and Stripes. His advisors must want to see him fail. Who calls an election without having a platform?

Harper is completely out to lunch, and it seems to be showing in the public sentiment. What foolishness will he utter next? Let them eat corn flakes!? His narcissistic nature leads him to believe in the Noble Lie, and that he is smarter than everyone else. He is clever, but that ain't smarts. Duceppe pinned him down in the debates. So did May. Layton openly laughed at him. Dion made him look like a chump.

When Mansbridge interviewed Harper, he swallowed hard a few times when Mansbridge threw the truths at him. Harper forced this election because he knew that the sheet-storm was coming, but it caught up to him, and he has blown it. $300 Million so that he could have an even smaller minority than he had, and my bones are starting to say that he might not even get that (so are some other commentators, I believe). There are around 20% of voters undecided the last I read, and I doubt they will go Cons. A coalition of the left is starting to look like a strong possibility.

- That 230 Canadian economists, teaching at Canadian universities, say that a carbon tax is what is needed at this time - even without the tax cuts? The Greens' plan would be even better, in that case.

What a sham. Harper looks the complete fool in this one. Cold, hard irony. Whap!

bleak monday

Yikes! Ouch! The TSX gave up 840 points today, DJ took it's biggest single-day loss ever. Tokyo closed down 340-something just a bit ago, Hang Seng down over 400 with an hour or so to go. Stephen Harper said today that the Canadian economy has "good fundamentals", and that what is happening down south, well, we are insulated. It's different here. Jeebies, doesn't that sound familiar? I might have felt better had he been wearing a cardigan when he said it.

The TSX is down 9% today, and my memory bank echoes with the words that the losses were $104 B-B-B-Billion - out of Grampa's retirement pension fund. Out of those Mutual Funds that were sold to you so adroitly. Market-linked GIC's? They did not sound good to me, and I didn't buy 'em. Oil down 10 and a half bucks on the day. What else?

The meltdown is upon us. I made sure today that all of our cash holdings were spread out to be covered by CDIC. I would advise you to do the same. I have to say though, that I do not even trust CDIC solvency if this keeps going. This is historic. Remember it. Oh, never mind my admonition, you will remember it. Alberta's boom may be on hold for a while if this continues (and I am sure that it will).

I'm looking forward to buying a house in Shaughnessy for $300K when this is over.

Still want a Harper majority? A Dion majority? Forget it. The only hope we have is for coalition gov't. A co-operative government, where decisions are made by consensus amongst the parties that represent the majority of Canadians. Don't want to see Young People Fucking? How about All of Us are Fucked? Pardon the vulgarity, but it is that stark.

There are those who say that this is a manufactured crisis, and I lean toward that. Here we have right-wing governments - under Bush and Harper gutting our treasuries, cutting taxes while increasing spending. Harper's gov't has turned a 14 billion $ surplus into a near deficit in 2.5 years. Some say that the only reason we are not in deficit, is the sale of frequencies to cell phone companies (reaped about $3.4 billion, if I remember correctly. We would be a billion-seven in the red else). That was a one time deal. Kinda like when Campbell sold BC Rail, and tallied a surplus. And look where that got us. 400,000 jobs have disappeared under Harper's regime, with plenty more to be lost.

Watch The National on CBC tonight. It is worth the watch. There is a very good interview with Elizabeth May. The Greens are the most centrist party of all of them, but they don't have the vicious experience of the House. I think that May could tame the Liberals, and pull them back to the centre in a coalition. That is what Canadians really are. We also pull together in difficult times.

Here are some vids to relieve you from my rantings - which will continue manana. Some of the vids are amusing, some stark. A good few have tunes. I hope you like at least one. There is some really heavy schtuff to come.

funny

amero

joking?

hitting on harper

editorial cartoons from here

I have made it clear that I don't like Harper - perhaps too clear, as I have taken liberties with photoshop, and with word play with his name That has provoked at least one commentator from Calgary - who incidentally, was much more vituperative than I - in alluding to Obama as a "nigger", and Dion as a "frog". That is unacceptable here. many franks pointed out that it was all getting over the top, and distracting from the issues at hand, and I agreed. I will do my best to keep my own dispeptic ranting under more control, because this is not about my feelings on Harper, it is about the futures of us all.

Harper's 1997 speech to the Council for National Policy, a right-wing U.S. think tank, while vice-president of the National Citizens' Coalition (opens up a Google page with many links).

A few choice lines from that speech;

...your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world... like most Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians. (Is he talking about the same Canada that we live in?)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. (Does he think that Canada is in Northern Europe?)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In terms of the unemployed...don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance. (I really enjoyed my times of unemployment, how about you? That 60% cut in income made me really happy.)

Isn't that a nice thing to say about Canada, and Canadians, by a future Canadian Prime Minister? He said that it was humour. OK, and Gerry Ritz was being funny when he talked about 'dying of a thousand cold-cuts' (in reference to the listeriosis outbreak, which has killed at least 17 people, and is arguably a result of the de-regulation of food inspection last April), and said that he hoped that it was Liberal Wayne Easter who had died of it in PEI.

Out of the mouths of babes and fools, wot? Shucks, can't you take a joke?

Harper will open up a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union Not a good thing in my view. NAFTA is not a good deal for us, and this would be worse. It is also another increment in the movement to a World Government.

Described as a negotiation of deep economic integration, “the proposed pact would far exceed the scope of older agreements such as NAFTA by encompassing not only unrestricted trade in goods, services and investment and the removal of tariffs, but also the free movement of skilled people and an open market in government services and procurement – which would require that Canadian governments allow European companies to bid as equals on government contracts for both goods and services and end the favouring of local or national providers of public-sector services.”

Read; Health Care, Education, Correctional Services, etc., etc. - the privatisation of our institutions. Do you want such a thing? Have you even heard of this plan?

Read The Harper Index, and get a good synopsis of who this guy is, and what he is doing. Read up on The Security and Prosperity Partnership too. To be fair, Paul Martin signed the first part of the agreement, but Harper signed the second part in the spring - which allows American troops, Black Water, etc., to take command and control of you and me 'in the event of an emergency'. Guess who will be on the streets of Vancouver, and all points between here and Pemberton for at least a few months before, during, and after the Olympics.

Leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico have been meeting to secretly expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with “deep integration” of a more militarized tri-national Homeland Security force. Taking shape under the radar of the respective governments and without public knowledge or consideration, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)—headquartered in Washington—aims to integrate the three nations into a single political, economic, and security bloc.

The SPP was launched (by) Presidents George W. Bush and Vicente Fox, and Prime Minister Paul Martin, in Waco, Texas...The SPP is not a law, or a treaty, or even a signed agreement. All these would require public debate...Canada’s...Department of National Defence;...on board as well. They’re committed to ramping up the nation’s military spending and linking with America’s “war on terror.” (All of Harper's military spending - a half trillion dollars- is to enjoin us in the never ending war on terror, drugs, and your human rights.)

The SPP created the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC)...composed of representatives of thirty giant North American companies, including General Electric, Ford Motors, General Motors, Wal-Mart, Lockheed-Martin, Merck, and Chevron. (That is how Lockheed-Martin got the contract for the Canadian Census)

Elizabeth May on Harper and Health Care We know the horror stories on American Health Care. Do you want that for your family?

On Harper's assertion that the Liberal Green Shift would lead to a recession

...Harper never produced any research to support this assertion,...Harper has made attacking this levy a cornerstone of his election campaign, warning it would tip Canada into recession by raising fuel prices.

"It [would] wreak havoc on Canada's economy, destroy jobs, weaken business at a time of global uncertainty," Mr. Harper told a Montreal crowd during the first week of the campaign.

But University of Calgary tax economist Jack Mintz, whose expertise the Harper government has previously praised, says he can't see the Liberal plan leading to a recession.

So, besides the lie that government was dysfunctional, a cornerstone of his campaign is also a lie!

Ottawa Citizen/Harvard economist on the carbon tax

Stephen Harper says the Liberal "green shift" proposal -- a carbon tax on most forms of energy with matching cuts to income, corporate and other taxes -- could do "catastrophic" damage to the economy. He is proposing instead to cut the federal tax on diesel, which will, he says, reduce shipping costs and the costs of goods in stores. (this is really meaningless - a half-cent/litre cut per year over 4 years...)

But Gregory Mankiw suggested something considerably different when I called him at his Harvard office. Gas should be taxed much more, he said. So should lots of other energy-related products. But be sure to off-set those taxes with cuts to income and other taxes.

"Harper a threat to democracy"

A former Conservative candidate who was sidelined by the party after he refused to participate in a controversial in-and-out financial transfer in the last election, is warning that a Conservative majority government could pose a threat to democracy in Canada.

In a sharply critical attack on the party he once supported, David Marler, says he has come to realize that candidates who stand up for their ideas and speak their mind are not welcome in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's party.

"The pattern emerging from the Harper Conservatives' control of the selection of the candidates makes one wonder if Mr. Harper would not prefer to be the top guy in a presidential republic," Marler writes in a book he has self-published on his website. (Another Conservative candidate had stolen this man's name, and when you tried to go to his website, you ended up on another Conservative website. That has been remedied in the past few days. Marler is running as an Independent.)

He has written a book about the In and Out Scam here.

There is so much to write (for me), and so much to read (for you - here, and in the links), and I must stop here. I have been burning the candle at both ends doing this, and it is taking a toll on me. I just ask you, please, if you are thinking of voting Conservative, make sure that you know what you are voting for (and that goes for any other party too). Both the Cons and Libs have us down a road to the SPP, and I am dreadfully afraid that there is little we can do about that now. These Conservatives are not the Progressive Conservatives of your Grandparents, nor the ones that I have voted for more than once in the distant past. This is an overwhelming lot of information, but you still have a bit less than three weeks to read.

I am going to scale this back a bit now, and get back to RE and economics, and such. I have been so busy gathering links, and writing, that a war could have broken out, and I wouldn't even know about it. I am going to post more links, and try to keep it brief, but this should give you an idea of who Harper is.

Take care of yourselves and your families, and get some sleep. Thanks for reading.




Steve Harper - before he became Stephen Harper.
Steve's wikipedia page



On Elizabeth May (compliments of saskboy). There is a little video clip of her. I like her, myself.

As promised, a look at the plans the various parties have on carbon taxes (yes, they all have them, in one form or another - even the Conservatives).

There are a lot of lies being spread by the Conservatives (Well, by Stiff Heartless, anyhow. The clones that keep opening their mouths just reveal the vindictiveness and small-minded nastiness of the whole party, and it is a top-down party. Those clones "lose" their jobs, or Snide Humpler backs them up) about "A Tax on Everything", (Herplex Attacks Everything!) - that the other parties would raise the GST, cut the (taxed) child care pittance, throw the country into recession (aren't we there yet?), and so forth. I will address those lies first.

First, the GST. I still think that the GST is a good tax, and think that 8-10 percent is not unreasonable. It could be tweaked to a table of necessity, so that home new purchases, renovations, etc., could be at 5%, but cars over a certain engine displacement, emission level, whatever, would be taxed at 10%. Eliminate the GST on other taxes, which is a big scam.

Elizabeth May says that she will raise the GST by 1%, and give that to the cities for infrastructure (I have seen and heard her say so). That would be $6 billion a year. The transit in Vancouver is appalling, and we are already paying more than that for hokey "Gateway Projects". The car, as we know it, is on the way out. Just think what it would be like if we had electric cars that would top out at 70k. We would save billions on insurance pay-outs to victims of vehicular crashes, auto thefts, etc. (it wouldn't be much of a joy ride in a Zenn that tops out at 50 km/h).

Read about the Greens' carbon tax here. It is comprehensive, and succinct (much more so than my ramblings). I like their plan the best so far - easy to absorb, and the middle class Vancouver household will have a Total Impact as % of Household Income - 0.3%. Oh, ouch. Rural peeps will be hit with 0.7%, (that hurts a bit more). High income households will be hit with 0.8% (I think they can a handle that, don't you?), and unemployed people will see -2.6% (and there are 90,000 that have lost their jobs this year). Is that so onerous?

People need to stop thinking about what they will pay, and start thinking about what they can save. It's a mental paradigm shift. It really involves getting over the me-me-me that is pumped into our heads by manipulative advertising. /end rant

Dion says that he will not raise the GST (I have seen and heard him say so) unless fiscal circumstances require it to stay out of deficit. That is an extreme likelihood, because The Loathsome One has spent the cupboards bare, but intends to have a $50 billion tax cut to corporations. Those taxes are already down to 14 - odd % (before Paul Martin got onto it, it was 29-odd percent), but still, corporations off-shored everything, and don't have much presence in Canada itself. Our jobs went with them and their capital. It is our government, and it can no more live on credit cards than we can. Harper repeats his lies every time there is a radio ad, TV ad, interview, scrum. There is no truth in him. Harper does have a hidden agenda. I'll get to that tomorrow.

From Dion's Green Shift pdf;

...in a revenue neutral way – putting it in law that every dollar that is raised from carbon pollution will be returned to Canadians in tax cuts. The Auditor General will ensure the Green Shift’s revenue neutrality on an annual basis.

The price will begin immediately at $10 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions and steadily rise by an additional $10 per tonne each year, reaching $40 per tonne within four years. Since the existing excise tax on gas at the pump is already at the equivalent of $42 per tonne of carbon, the tax at the pump will not rise. Likewise, because there is already a tax on diesel and aviation fuel of four cents per litre, the tax on these fuels will see no increase in the first year.

The NDP plan is a "cap-and-trade as the carbon pricing system that targets big polluters best—in line with the European Union, all US presidential contenders,..." Firstly, I don't think that cap and trade is where it is at. Secondly, I'm not big on the mess that is the EU, and third, why does Layton want to be just like the Americam contenders? No original ideas? The page that his "outline" is on starts with a few paragraphs attacking the Liberals, then moves on to attacking the Conservatives. That does not show much confidence, or leadership to me. Chump. Where are Tommy Douglas (ok, he's gone), Ed Broadbent, Bill Blaikie, Alexa McDonough? Sad.

The Conservatives also have a cap and trade plan, but it looks like a bunch of voodoo bullshite to me (you try reading it!), and is likely deliberately obfuscating, and ponderous. Their cap and trade program means that above a certain level of emissions, the tax will kick in @ $65/ton. There is no tax relief whatsoever to us, just $50 billion to the corporations so that they can pay that tax, after we pay for the "increased input costs".

I do ramble on, so I hope that I am not putting anyone off, but the links to all of the parties' plans are above. Please look at their truths, and lies.

It is notable that the Liberal plan is basically an adaptation of the Greens' plan (the Greens had it first).

I had a meeting tonight with someone who knows some key Liberals on a very personal basis, and I asked her to put the plea for a Liberal/Green coalition into their ears. I am hearing rumblings of a Lib/NDP coalition, but I like the former. The NDP will hold the balance of power for a while to come though, and I think that would be a very difficult marriage. Layton is going on about being Prime Minister, so I think that will be his demand for the dowry.

Our election is much more exciting than the American one, in my view. Obama will win that. I want to write more - my very innocent musings - but the Secret Service has Internet access too, and I do not want to be misconstrued.

We are in critical times. Pay attention. This election is more about the course of this country than any since the FTA and NAFTA. I want my kids to be sovereign Canadians, and to make their purchases in Canadian dollars, and travel on Canadian passports. Don't you?

Tomorrow - Harper's History: Revealing the Man Behind the Lipstick. (and some more about how the Green plans came about. A teaser, Harpier's buried, government commissioned report says that the plans are the way to go. Most economists agree.

curb appeal - humble houses

I reckon it's time to move the San Andreas Champagne engagement ring love shack grow-op down on it's way into the memory hole, and good riddance.

Call me crazy, but I have always liked this little house near Trout Lake. Nothing ostentatious about it, just a simple little house with some character, on a fairly quiet street. It's the kind of place that I would be willing to pay $250k for, plus another $50k, plus some sweat, to fix it up and live in it.

But alas, I'm sure that it will be bull-dozed, and some hideous Vancouver Specious will take it's place. That monster will have a bunch of suites in it, and the area will start on a slow decline.

It's all about "eco-density" (TM - Sam Sullivan). There's not much ecological friendliness in sending hundreds (if not thousands) of these houses to the land-fill, and bringing in machinery to tear things apart, and more machinery to haul it away, and more machinery to make it look "pretty" again.

There will be trees and shrubs and hedges torn out, and the yards will be paved with concrete. Painters will dump their paints and solvents down the sewers, and the streets will be littered with screws and nails that will find their way into our tires.

I'm sure that a lot of people would be glad to get a place like this for 300 - 350K$, but the more voracious have their eyes on it as a vehicle of profit, and they will build some junk on it.

I really hope that this madness ends soon.

paradise to purgatory

This is a great picture lifted from somewhere. The graveyard of the city.

I've had the Joni Mitchell refrain - they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot - going through my mind a lot lately.

When I first came to Vancouver, I found it to be very pleasant. It was a small city, and I well remember being on the West side in the morning and seeing someone, and seeing that same person on the East side the same afternoon. Traffic was relatively light, and the city had a kind of sleepy feel to it.

20 years later, the traffic is choked up practically 24 hours a day, development has run rampant, they have blown up the paradise of Eagle ridge bluffs and paved it, Grouse Mountain has extended at least three-fold, Vanoc has taken over half of the dictionary, and the city that I grew to love has changed oh so much for the worse.

Whose idea and/or want was this? What kind of benefit or prestige do the Olympics, and corollary development impart on the denizens of Vancouver?

The city seems smaller than it did then, just twice as busy/packed. A lot of Vancouverites have gained massive wealth on paper, but it is next to useless unless realized.

I think the answer to the question of benefit is that "rich foreigners", greedy speculators and developers have benefited. I suppose that those that arrived from choked cities elsewhere, more recently than I, still find the city small and pleasant in contrast to whence they have come. I also realize that I am a nostalgic, and a romantic fool who dislikes change, but oh, woe. I find it a shame.

I wonder how many would have voted for the Olympics if they could have seen past the stars in their eyes?

breakdowns

I've written before about the madness of man, wondered at the disconnection from "reality", and mumbled about a depression coming. Some might say that I am bedecked in a shiny metal haberdashery, but there is a real strangeness going on.

Why did the US stop reporting M3? Why would CMHC fuel this madness by dropping to 20% the down payment required to avoid mortgage insurance? Why do "they" jig the way that inflation is reported - leaving it understated?

I was at my bank the other day and was discussing mortgage qualification with the manager. I mentioned to him that his bank had qualified me for $600k, and that I would just not be able to afford those kinds of payments. He told me that "everything changed, and disconnected from sound lending practices a couple of years ago. He agreed with me that those practices are dangerous, and plain crazy. We discussed the RE market, economy, education, etc. for a while, and he didn't know much. He almost offered me a job, saying that I should work for the bank. Me? I know things are bad now.

Where I'm going with all this is that I think we are in for some serious economic meltdowns in the very near future. I read that Cameron Muir said that things are cooling, and a more modest increase in housing prices is expected for this year, and into 2008. I believe he said 8% for this year. How could that possibly be? The Chipman Report indicates that prices are declining very marginally (1%-2%) - as I read it. I am really beyond caring anymore. It just doesn't merit reporting on.

I can't for the life of me figure why the BoC did not raise rates. The prices of energy and housing have become so daunting that something needs to give. I've always had a good feeling about David Dodge, and am wondering what comes next. Being that our dollar is closing in on the US$, it can't but indicate that the US is in very rough shape. Those who don't make the connection to our own economy are in for a rude surprise.

We are heading for a major breakdown. As freako so eloquently described it - 'humming down the Autobahn, and all the warning lights on the dash are blinking furiously, and nobody notices (or something like that). Just wait until the costs of whatever the guvmint comes up with to "battle" greenhouse gases start to crush us. There is already talk of upping the GVRD gas levy, hydro rates going up, property taxes up, food costs, pay per use this and that. Something's gonna give. There is just not that kind of money around. Not real money, anyhow.

Those who "steer" the economy (and us with it), should have put the brakes on a long time ago, but they didn't. In the US, it was purportedly to avoid recession, but the situation is so exacerbated that a recession would be the kindest of fates. The whole thing is like swerving to miss running over a chipmunk, and going head-on into an oncoming truck. It's crazy.

Below I have pasted a few quotes from an article that I read, that spurred me to drag this rant out again. I read the article as broadly contextual, and recommend the reading - with the economy, and RE (and so much more) in mind.

Conflagration coming link
System breakdowns are normal, but complete collapses can be permanent
By Michael Nenonen

By now it’s clear that our world faces a series of unprecedented ecological, economic, and geopolitical challenges. Too often, we look at these challenges in isolation from one another, perhaps because we don’t have a theoretical foundation to help us understand how they interact. Thomas Homer-Dixon’s The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (Knopft Canada, 2006) provides just this sort of foundation. His work allows us to see past the sizzling trees to assess the direction and scale of the fire that’s consuming the forest.

It’s dangerous to prevent breakdowns. The longer we delay a breakdown, the more likely it is that it will occur at the same time as breakdowns in sub-systems and macro-systems.

Our woods will soon be ablaze. Our actions will determine which seeds, if any, will survive the fire.

What me worry? I have a tin foil hat!

no more heroes

off topic/on topic, vhb, cap'n america and dyspepsia

Captain America assassinated by sniper after 66 years of comic history

NEW YORK (AP) - Holy home-icide, Batman!

Captain America is dead! Assassinated, in fact, as he walks into a federal courthouse in New York, under arrest and in handcuffs, headed to his arraignment for refusing to sign the government's Superhero Registration Act and forcibly revealing his true identity.

It's eerie! Is there a connection to the Legend of VHB?

A sniper, firing a high-powered rifle from a rooftop, hits the famed red, white and blue leader of the Real Estate Avengers with three bullets and escapes the scene, leaving the weapon behind Oswald-style, as bears and Captain VHB's military escort cope with chaos in the streets.

What does this mean? Can the pulverizing patriot really be dead, shot down on the courthouse steps after years of battling villains from Scameron S'more to the Red Velvet? Will the killer or killers be captured?

The only way to find out, says Dan Buckley, president and publisher of Marvel Entertainment, is to "read the book" as the story line unfolds.

Jeez-us. It is rumoured that VHB has left the city (I can't blame him for that), and Cap'n America has been assassinated.

I just can't take it any more.

I got into blogging on RE a bit late (the story of my life), and really enjoyed myself doing it. I am not giving up just yet, but changes in my life have certainly curtailed my posting.

Over all, I am quite jaded, disgusted, and just a little bemused. My wife and I have been muttering about going away after 19 years of living here, but as my daffodils bloom, the trees begin to leaf, the robins hop around for my amusement, and the news of the weather in the rest of the country is FRIGID, I wonder where we'll go. Brazil? Portugal? France? Victoria? I dunno... All I know is that I am a bit long in the tooth to sign up for a 100 year mortgage, and have too much sense to do so anyhow. I've got an accomodating downpayment ready to go, but I might as well have nothing - prices here being what they are.

I'm disgusted by the Olympic crap, the Olympic toilet ring, the Olympic ring-around-the-collar, Flash, the traffic, the transit, the municipal guvmint, the provincial guvmint, the hubris and stupidity, the federal guvmint, mossy cars, Cuban exiles, avian flu and beeswax. I oughtn't be feeling so, but I am. The assassination of Cap'n Amurikkka just tears it for me though.

I will continue to post here, but it will be at a much slower pace. Once or twice a week... I may get more excited if things change soon.

the pope seems to be weary of this sordid spectacle too.

The laughs here have become hollow, forced, and much more rare. I'm not so sure I want to live in such a wanton place as Vancouver anymore.

My apologies to the original author for the hack job.

EDIT: the pope does not plan on packing in his blog any time soon. I regret the mis-representation.

frothing at the fingertips

What's he so happy about? Did he get a free kite? Or is he the nephew of the Chairman?

Thanks to the pope for the cool picture! Read his rant.

Thanks to black'n'brownedout for this link.

Inflated by the Olympic spirit

THE transformation of China's capital over the past few years has been astonishing. This year the effect will be giddying...Amid an Olympics-fuelled frenzy, Beijing's economy is booming and its house prices soaring. Many fear their return to earth will be bumpy.

Ah. What me worry? You can't lose. And I'm so giddy, I can't think straight anyhow.

Olympic cities usually experience an economic surge before the games. And with under 18 months to go before the games open in Beijing, China's economy as a whole is growing nearly as fast as Beijing's: 10.7% last year compared with the capital's 12% (its eighth consecutive year in double digits). Central-government leaders worry that the pace could be reckless, but are loth (sic) to apply the brakes hard.

I'm too indolent to look up the stats for how much our economy has grown, but it seems to me that I heard that it was in the neighbourhood of 3%. That's crazy growth in Beijing!

Communist Party ... leaders will be trying to stress how much in sympathy they are with the suffering of ordinary citizens.

Oh, so solly full you! Throw the dogs a bone.

For the past two years, the central government has introduced a series of measures aimed at cooling property markets in Beijing and elsewhere. These have included new taxes on property deals and higher mortgage downpayments. Last month new restrictions were imposed on property purchases by foreigners. In Shanghai, these moves have achieved some success (diverting speculative money to the bubbling stockmarket), but not in Beijing. Last year property development still accounted for more than half of all investment in the capital.

So where will the money go now? Off-shore. Vancouver sounds good. Golden Mountain. We buy it all. It's a global frenzy of liquidity. The only bright light that I can see is that the sub-prime market is melting down, and will take a lot more down with it. It's sad that the idea of a depression can seem like a bright light isn't it?

Speculators are betting that property prices will benefit from the tightness of land supply

Oh fulak! The land shortage thing. It had to be there with the friggin' Olympics thing, didn't It? Can I even type Olympics without being sued for copy-right infringement?

Moreover, in order to keep the city clear of unsightly cranes and dust-billowing building sites during the games, Beijing has been discouraging new construction projects. This has reduced the expected supply of properties and helped to drive up prices. Last year the total floor space of new housing projects was nearly 6% less than in 2005. For poorer residents the outlook was particularly grim. The floor area of newly launched low-cost housing projects was down by nearly 57%.

I think that loathesome regime is doing better than our own loathesome regime regarding housing the poor. Slavery never really went away, but now people are proud to be mortgage slaves.

According to press reports this week, the central government recently called a special meeting to discuss ways to tame Beijing's property market. Among its suggestions was an increase in the housing supply.

Is it just me?, or does that not make sense? Just above, they were moaning about the shortage of land, but now they want to build even more. Look what happened here. Thousands of new condo's, houses and townhouses, and the market just keeps on exceeding itself.

Officials estimate that the Olympics have been contributing more than two percentage points to Beijing's annual growth since 2003. After the games, they insist, the city's new infrastructure and additional glamour (including the egg-shaped theatre, which hopes to attract international stars) will help keep the economy rolling. The flow of investment will be sustained, they say, by further infrastructure development, and by the pent-up demand for property, which will be supported by a continuing large influx of migrants from the countryside.

La la la. Guns and roses and sweet dreams in a shovel. Pent up demand, and glamourous peasants flocking to Beijing on their ways to Aurean Mountain to partake in our Aquarian Sporting Event, in the town between Pemberton and Squamish, in the year between 2009 and 2011. (That is as clear as I can be, because it seems that the season between fall and spring has been copy-righted - along with quite a few other words and place names - including that word for the distraction involving boards, cards and chance, hockey, basketball, head, etc.. The one that starts with a G, and has an A, an M, an E, and an S.)

But some observers are worried. ...two Beijing academics...said the end of the Olympics would coincide with a cyclical downturn in China's economy, exacerbating the risk of a post-Olympics slump in the capital. Beijing's Olympics-related spending of around $35 billion, they calculated, would make up more than 43% of the total for all the games since 1976. This could make the post-Olympics investment downturn all the more pronounced—especially if the speculators are busy bailing out.

No worries here though, that kinda shite does not happen here. And, there aren't that many speculators...

So, I think that we are competing with the City of Beijing for the place that everyone wants to be. And we don't have no stinking French-designed, egg-shaped theatre to attract international stars. We couldn't even give the Ford Theatre enough business to keep it going. Beijing is building a mag-lev train system for it's festival, and the network is planned country-wide. We get the RAV, lose BC Rail, and watch almost weekly derailments. Third World Class.

Excuse my cynical rant. I'm tired. I will have another rant for you in the coming days.

making deals with the devil

I have scoffed at Bob Rennie in the past, and even got creative with his name. I never saw him as the anti-christ, or such, but his marketing stance always irked me. I feel better that he is Vancouver's "Condo King", and Brad Lamb, Toronto's "Condo King", is not, after I read this article at the Glum and Malcontent. What a piece of work this guy seems to be. I am going to give some exerpts below from the article.

When Brad Lamb was 10, he used to steal the small national flags that adorned military graves in a cemetery near his house and sell them to neighbouring kids.

The celebrity condo salesman, developer and aspiring reality-TV star tells the story without a hint of shame. “I would gather them up and sell them for five cents outside my house,” he says in an interview. “It always amazed me that the kids didn't realize where they came from.”

Not a hint of shame... Stealing flags from military graves and selling them. I began to despise him right away. Too bad there is a statute of limitations. The little bugger should have been to reform school.

He and a childhood friend would put on summer fairs in Beaconsfield, Que.,...“Kids were bored,” he recalls. “The same suckers would come very time.”

Now he sells condos to the same type of suckers...

Now, at 48, he's a multimillionaire whose Toronto real estate brokerage has sold $2-billion worth of condos since 1988

And that's the problem - scumbags selling inferior (or stolen) product to suckers. Is this the mind-set that you would buy property from? No wonder real estate agents and developers are often seen as sleazy, when guys like this trumpet their sleaze in national newspapers, and are proud of it.

From the tax man's point of view, someone who buys and sells a lot of properties in a year is a real estate trader and subject to the full force of income tax...

But those seen by Revenue Canada as investors will pay only capital-gains taxes...

“People overthink it. But there's a lot of dumb people making a lot of money in real estate.”

True enough.

Mr. Lamb has a personality made for TV: he's...vain (he always wears a crisp suit and gives away his shoes after wearing them for two months).

La-de-da. I like what Aesop said - 'clothes don't make the man, his talk dives him away'.

He's given to colourful rants on unexpected topics, like coffee.

On the show, he blasts a couple of sales associates who want to pick up some java, saying coffee is “for the weak.”

His irritation is directed at the inordinate power of one little bean, he explains in the interview.

Is this guy scared of beans? especially little ones?

“It bugs me that somehow this one bean has a monopoly on the world's morning beverage market. It bothers me that it's got such a hold on our cultural life. . . . People think they're more productive on it but they're not. They're dreaming of the next cup.”

I guess he might want to monopolize that. Maybe he can just steal kool-aid from the kiddies, market it, and change his shoes every month - instead of every two.

His friendships, he notes, are based on getting rich together.

Who are his friends? Satan's Choice MC? The Diablos?

If you're one of the 50 or so people he knows as friends or regular investors, you'll get the chance to pay the lowest prices and have the best selection of suites in the roughly 40 condo projects in which he's currently involved, either as exclusive broker or as co-developer.

By the time suites are offered to the public through official launches, two groups of people will have had a chance to buy at more favourable prices — the regular investors he knows, followed by real estate brokers and their preferred clients.

There you go. The public gets the dregs at inflated prices, and if you are "in the loop" you get filthy rich. That's part of why I call them CON-do's. What blows me away is that this guy is so in-your-face about the fact that we are all chumps. Good grief. You can bet your last dollar that a lot of those friends are politicians. Hey, isn't Gordo a developer? Was Jean Chretien not involved with some real estate deals?

Go and read the whole article. It is quite outrageous.

Addendum - I forgot to add this little nugget from VHB's place -

alpha bear said at vhb

I hear many youth refer to "appearing successful", and spending money they don't have on expensive clothes and flashy cars. Whatever

happened to BEING successful? Perhaps the latest RE boom has been all about inflating egos?

Well put alpha. This wolf in Lamb's clothing is successful, but he has no shame. I'd rather wear rags and walk, than be a scammer.

brain function as related to RE prices

Some may be (and have been) questioning what is so great about Vancouver (besides the balmy winters). I know that I have been questioning that myself, and decided to look up housing prices across this great land - just to see if Vancouver prices have a modicum of rationality. Nope. They don't.

Here are the average resale prices, how much they have moved (either way), and average rents in Canada's major urban centres. House prices are looked at November 2005 - November 2006, and rents are looked at October 2005 - October 2006. (Resale prices of homes are from MLS stats, and rental stats are from CMHC link)

Vancouver - average resale price - $519K (up 16.5%)
- average rent - $1,045 (up 4.4%)

Calgary - average resale price - $360K (up 36.4%)
- average rent - $960 (up 19.5%)

Edmonton - average resale price - $282K (up 42.5%)
- average rent - $808 (up 9.9%)

Regina - average resale price - $123K (up 11%)
- average rent - $619 (up 2%)

Saskatoon - average resale price - $167K (up 9.6%)
- average rent - $608 (up 4%)

Winnipeg - average resale price - $153K (up 14.8%)
- average rent - $709 (up 3.4%)

Toronto - average resale price - $355K (up 4.2%)
- average rent - $1,067 (up 1.1%)

Montreal - average resale price - $218K (up 3.2%)
- average rent - $636 (up 2.8%)

St. John, NB - average resale price - $141K (up 13.8%)
- average rent - $556 (up 2.1%)

Halifax - average resale price - $194K (down 1.2%)
- average rent - $799 (up 3.5%)

NFLD (all) - average resale price - $135K (down 3.4%)
- average rent - $635 (up 0.4%)

Talk about regional disparities. Vancouver % increases pale in comparison to Edmonton and Calgary, but in those cities, houses are still affordable. Further, all of Canada has been heading to Alberta because of the oil boom. There are very well paying jobs there. Even burger flippers and Tim Horton's workers are fetching in the neighbourhood of $20/hr, and could entertain the idea of buying their own home. In Vancouver, even the best paid (Dr's. lawyers, etc.) are hard pressed to come up with the money to buy the crappiest of places (and I include brand new 500 square foot condo's in that assessment).

Anywhere east of Alberta (with the exception of Toronto), I could buy a place pretty much outright. In some places, I could do so and have money left over for a new car, a few holidays, etc. And, Vancouver has some of the lowest median earnings in the country. In a lot of those cities, one could buy a place with 0% down, and the rent would cover the mortgage payments. Here, one would need 50% down and still fall short of the rent covering payments. We have had the hardest winter weather of any city in Canada so far too, so don't tell me about how great the winters are here. We don't even have the equipment to keep the streets free of snow and ice here. Montreal spends $50 million per year on snow removal. I would be curious to know how much ICBC will be paying out to motorists who crashed into each other on our snowy/icy streets. I'd bet that it is in the tens of millions.

So what is it about Vancouver? I think I have an idea. The soil in BC has very low levels of selenium, and hence, low levels in our food (even food from California, etc. Selenium levels fall drastically west of the Rockies). Selenium is crucial for brain function (I take supplemental selenium - so I'm ok!).

There you have it - the brains of British Columbian residents are operating in very low gear. That explains so much - poor driving habits, self-centredness, buying unaffordable real estate, the gov'ts that keep getting voted in, etc.

We are collectively brain-dead. Vegetative. Stunned.

I'm outta here!

feeling pugnacious

Billy Speary, Pugilist

I heard the news today, oh boy, RBC has raised it's rates, and the other big boys are gonna raise their's too.

Yawn. A fifth of a point. They didn't raise them enough, and the variables didn't change at all. BOC is sitting on it's hands too. A commentator on CBC today likened it to Goldilocks. Everything is just right - except the dollar is falling. Is that an issue? I would think it would be good for Central Canadian manufacturers - who are hurting a bit.

Low interest rates and marketing are what drove this insanity. When I step back and look at the big picture, I wonder who really benefits. Hmm. Banks have increasingly record profits - obscene ones. Oil companies are making like profits. Bub Rainbladder is doing well. The developers are getting obese. There is a lot of money floating around, but it's not homeowners that have it. It's an enormous Ponzi scheme. When they do hike rates meaningfully, it will crush many.

I wonder why they did not hike variables. Is it another manipulation to catch those last dregs of those "afraid of being priced out forever"? (I do understand that variable mortgages are linked to Prime BTW)

I say bring on 6%, 7%, 8% discounted rates. Let's get this over with fer crassness sake.

I'll take it on.

clippings

I am posting some clippings from The Republic of East Vancouver newspaper that reflect some of my feelings about the Olympics, the changes foisted upon this city by corporate kleptocrats, self-serving politicians, etc. There are some strong statements, but if one doesn't shout, who will hear?

These writings (albeit some of which are a bit out of context, and edited to my own purposes) reflect how we came to where we are. This insanity did start shortly after the announcement of Vancouver's 2010 bid being accepted. I foresaw where that would take us, but no one seemed to care. I am not entirely sure if the Olympics are 100% causative though, because there is a global RE boom, it's just that things have really gone off the rails here.

We live in a nation dominated by salesmanship (commercial, political, religious). The salesman's credo is: a facile mendacity trumps a stubborn truth, because an honest mode of being would cause the buyer to become wary of the giddy lie of the pitch.

and -

We've become ... a land of suckers and criminals with a cultural landscape peopled by corporate scam artists

and -

All human beings have a talent for denial, but we ... have turned denial into genius. There is no need to burn books if the public is ignorant of their existence. link

From another article in the same publication;

Like America’s commander in chief, BC’s elected premiere is a privileged, nepotistic, drunk-driving, beady-eyed corporate crony. But the similarities don’t end there. Though it is beyond Gordo’s purview to wage war on foreign nations (that’s Harper’s job), the Work Less Party’s brave new documentary, Five Ring Circus, exposes the myriad ways that our government is using the 2010 Olympics to wreak havoc on BC itself.

The movie centers around the well-publicized mandate to make this the greenest, most sustainable Olympics yet. With pinpoint precision, the film goes through the specific promises, one by one, and reveals our government’s vicious mendacity in filling the pockets of real estate, construction, and hospitality interests under the absurd guise of showcasing Vancouver to the world. But the movie makes it clear that the insidious logic of this operation is that we have to ruin North America’s most livable city in order for it to have its dubious day in the sun.

Who would have guessed that the construction firms that lit up their cranes with YES 2010 signs didn’t have our best interests in mind? The ugly truth is that the construction and real estate tycoons care about Vancouverites about as much as Boeing and Halliburton care about the troops and taxpayers.

and -

There’s another dimension to the hideous Yaletownification of Vancouver that the film astutely addresses. As Vancouver’s affordable housing is converted into condos and the cost of living in this already expensive city continues to rise, a gulf is opening up between the haves and the have-nots. And this is having all kinds of hitherto unthought of repercussions on Vancouver’s vitality. link

I have been wanting to rant about the Olympics for quite a while, but I become apoplectic when doings so, and I don't think you are interested in hysteria. Just slightly less than 50% of Vancouverites voted against the Olympics, and interestingly, the divide was between the West Side, and the East Side.

We have had a $2.5 billions boondoggle shoved up our arses in the RAV line, when an at-grade LRT on existing rights-of-way would have cost as little as 1/10 of the RAV. Whose pockets are getting fat on this huge disruption of hundreds of businesses, and traffic nightmares while we meekly bask in our "good fortune"?

exodus - a gutted city

It's been all over the news lately(?), but as usual, it's over-simplified, but I think that this is a harbinger of things to come.

There are all kinds of trumpetings about the economy and such, but really, it's the same old guys making the cash while the populace at large pays. Ill-conceived mega projects, Gateway this and twin your P3 that. Sell that and surplus this. Double down and spin the wheel. The VSE never went away (except for poor ol' Murray Pezzim R.I.P.)

The smart money is getting the hell out of Dodge, and has been since before this housing market got going. There was a write up in BC Business about it exerpted below.

Our economy is booming. So why are head offices leaving and taking jobs with them?

...the head-office picture in Greater Vancouver is bleak. ...in decline for more than a decade, both in number of headquarters and, more importantly, in the number of jobs ...
In metropolitan Vancouver, head-office employment also declined by 29 per cent 1999-2005.

These are the types of jobs that make a "world-class city" - as opposed to a vacation destination.

...over the same time period, those employment numbers climbed by a whopping 64.4 per cent in Calgary, 19.1 per cent in Toronto, 15.5 per cent in Edmonton and 28.4 per cent in Ottawa.

So why are people still flocking to Vancouver? Residential and Olympic construction. It sure isn't the training wage.

Should we care? Life is good, the provincial economy is booming (for now, anyway), employment levels have never been higher and the Olympics are coming. Do we really need more head offices? PricewaterhouseCoopers senior tax manager Ian Heine, says yes, unequivocally.

The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming! Strangely, that refrain sounds identical to the sky is falling! in my addled brain. And life is good. Cool. I'm feeling better now. I did like the caveat (for now, anyway). Was the writer being cheeky?


Greater Vancouver has often been criticized for relying too heavily on its natural attributes as the main draw...

Rightly so in my view. Everyone knows that this is the greatest place on Earth, we just are not sure why.

“People come here...And they finally get our culture: they see all of Vancouver living the lifestyle that we’re promoting.”

Just what is our culture? Coffee on Denman? Shopping on Robson? Admiring our friends' granite counter tops? Sailing in the morning, golfing in the afternoon, and skiing at night? Who does that? Our culture is a brand that has been foisted upon us. Most residents of the city can't even see the mountains - even on a clear day.

...there are financial and logistical challenges to the Vancouver headquarters.

"Distance from the big eastern consumer base, the length of flights to the east and the eventual need for an eastern warehouse, and the need for an eastern office that could outgrow the Vancouver office"


Those same challenges apply to all the rich foreigners and retirees that are rushing here too. It has been asserted, by others before, that retirees are going to want to be close to their families, so why would they be interested in moving here. It's all a bunch of hooey.

Vancouver started out as a mill town out on the frontier, and it is still very much like that.

It's just like Oz.

branding vancouver

This has been bugging me for a while. It really set me off the other day when I read this article over at RET. One of the lines in particular rendered me even more apoplectic -

Baxter said the construction stimulated by the games is "the real issue . . . which brings a lot of people who would otherwise go to [Alberta's] oilpatch."

Then, more importantly, is the role the games' play in reinforcing Vancouver as a brand, because "the Olympics is not a destination event, it's a branding event."

Reinforcing a brand? To what purpose? If I wanted to live in a brand, I would go and live in the mindlessness of Celebration, U.S.A.: Disney's Brave New Town.

I didn't move here 20 years ago because Vancouver was a cool brand, I moved here because I found a laid-back little city that was unpretentious. Now everything is being branded - Science World becomes Telus Land, we have GM Place, what else did I miss? Coffee just isn't coffee unless it's Starbucks or Tim Horton's (it's all crappy coffee - no matter how much it costs you), people walk around with their Tommy Hilfrigger, DINK sweats, Nike this or that, and so on, paying huge money to advertise for rich cats.

Who wants to pay double what it's worth to live in Vancouver TM? I didn't vote for that. Who gains from it? All I do is lose from it. Bub Rainy, Gordon (Jail Bird) Campbell, the owners of IntraWest, and their ilk are getting filthy rich from the branding of Vancouver, and we are paying for it. And our children will be paying for it. It is so sad and ridiculous, it makes me laugh. But it's a nervous, embarrassed kind of laughter.

I voted against the Olympics, and I voted against the hundreds of millions of dollars to be borrowed by the city. There was a fairly clear division between East Van. and Van. West in that vote. East Vancouver voted against it by-and-large, with the opposite true for Vancouver West. The summer that Vancouver/Whistler's bid was accepted, I was in Ontario, and someone congratulated me on the award. Poor guy set me off, and I started railing about what it would really mean - higher home prices, higher taxes, deficits, and debt. I hadn't even considered the branding.

Humans are sickeningly stupid (pardon my misanthropy). A case in point is the water issue right now. People running out to buy brands of water. I heard that a couple of people actually got into a fist-fight because they both wanted the last couple of bottles of Whistler brand water. There was probably generic water from the same source d'eau right beside it for half the price, but it wasn't branded, so they fought over it. Here's a lttle brand trivia for you - Evian (a huge brand of water) spells Naive backwards.

Branding. Hmmph!