villasv

villasv, 11 days ago (edited 11 days ago)

I’d say that would be fine in theory, if “retain its value” meant that housing would follow very closely but tailing local inflation. That won’t happen though. As long as “housing needs to retain its value” ideology runs the country, housing will be viewed as an investment and scarcity will cause it to push inflation upwards. Even trying really hard to quell these prices it might beat inflation, and even if it were a success it would take decades of nominal-growth with negative-real-returns to bring those prices to parity with incomes.

So no, even if “technically maybe?” the answer is still no.

villasv, 11 days ago

I think the plausible circumstance is them selling and moving out of Canada

Or moving to SK

villasv, 10 days ago

keeping returns below inflation will divert investors from the real estate market over time.

There are multiple types of Real Estate investors. We want to attract investors who build, who finance land development, infill, retrofits and so on. These will keep coming because the goal is to sell the labor of construction, and that can still be profitable. We don’t want to attract land speculators or rent-seekers, these provide little value to the market.

They will HODL however if not presented with exit strategy. If they are allowed time to divest and exit - they will IMO

Investors (i.e. institutional/professionals, not amateurs) don’t hold on to investments because they lack an exit strategy. It’s the exact opposite. Investors get rid of assets as soon as there’s enough information to say a loss is likely.

I know that the biggest chunk of real estate “investors” are amateur shops, people hoarding homes as their retirement plan, and these might hold on despite bad performance yeah. This happens all over the world because in most markets Real Estate is a bad investment, yet people are addicted to it.

But in any case, I was discussing the outcomes under the hypothesis that home prices are following inflation, so the hypothesis includes the assumption that there’s enough market transactions to put those prices under control.

villasv, 25 days ago (edited 25 days ago)

unstated: because government has abandoned social responsibility

Oh that is very much stated

so I hope the guy who explicitly shits on the government having any social responsibility wins

100% that’s the tone of the video, cognitive dissonance to the max. It’s amazing how immediately following the talking point about red tape and government intervention causing high prices on everything, they pivot to the case that the government should have stopped Rogers and Shaw merger.

villasv, 25 days ago (edited 25 days ago)

Lmao yes, and the rest of the video is “big corporations and foreign investors are screwing us over”, then hints at electing the party most likely to cater to the wishes of those with big pockets.

villasv, 25 days ago

I forced myself to watch this garbage because I think it’s important to know the talking points of the opposition. I’ve gathered the worst moments - spoiler, it’s the whole video.

That dream has faded

The Canadian dream has become a nightmare

This dream has become a fantasy

It is nearly impossible to buy a home in Canada

Who wants to spend 2 million dollars on a home like this? When you can get a mansion in Austin for the same amount?

Each application for an apartment is met with hundreds of competing applications

Rents continue to rise uncontrollably and will do so for years to come

All of this is compounded by the inability of the government to help

Many would argue [dumb shit]

Citizens who owns homes are often against development as it would lower the value of the properties

A part of the reason taxes and red tape continues to increase is the government is growing faster than the population.

The final nail for housing affordability? Foreign investment.

Money laundering is just as easy as ever

Canadians spend more on gas than any other G7 country [ and the whole section on carbon tax is so disingenuous ]

In most contries, such a deal would most likely be stopped or delayed

To startup a bank is nearly impossible in Canada

The US has low levels of market concentration [lmao]

7% of Canadians go out of the border

The US is much more dynamic

The way the video ends on a hopeful note for Poilievre winning, this is obviously propaganda.

villasv, 25 days ago (edited 25 days ago)

why people do videos like this and think that Poilievre is going to be able to “fix” all this.

Poilievre doesn’t have to come with solutions. If you look at the wave of right-wing election winners across the globe since the 10’s, the one thing in common is that they tune the voters into “things can’t keep going on this direction!” mode, and by presenting themselves as the ones bringing change, they funnel all the misguided fears and hopes.

In fact, I was surprised this video even got to explicitly advocate for the “smaller government” bullshit, because that’s veering into solutionizing a bit. But then again, it’s the oldest conservative talking point after trampling minorities so the audience will eat it like hot cake.

if it’s propaganda it’s just about sowing doubt.

100%, the whole video screams anti-Trudeau propaganda

villasv, 25 days ago

I think it does match the content because the whole video is disingenuous and sensationalist.

villasv, 10 days ago

Because he knows conservatives are coming, and this is yet another futile attempt to cater to these devils before election

villasv, 25 days ago

they need to open the code enough for fans to keep the game functional

That makes sense. Another commenter pointed out that even for defunct MMORPGs people were able to spin up their own servers to keep the game alive. If companies are forced to provide something to help that, it’s already a win.

I’m not hopeful Canada would be able to pass legislation forcing companies to open source things, though. Maybe if this was the EU lol our track record of fighting tech companies hasn’t been pretty.

villasv, 25 days ago

fans wouldn’t have to implement their own (which they did for those two games)

Wow, TIL. People are amazing.

villasv, 25 days ago (edited 25 days ago)

Parents that are overfeeding their child with tons of food everyday are immoral and they should be put in prison for that in my opinion because a child doesn’t understand the long term social ramifications of obesity.

It’s already “illegal” to be negligent regarding a kids diet to the point of causing health issues, and losing custody for making kids obese has been a controversial position riddled with challenging edge cases for a long time.

However if an adult is obese then they should pay more taxes, pay double bus fare and pay double the price for airplane tickets as a result of their unhealthy lifestyle.

Obese people already pay dearly for existing in multiple ways, from lower wages and employability levels to being forced to use transportation devices designed to not accommodate them, to having read shit like this on the Internet on a daily basis.

Yes, there is an expenditure burden due to healthcare costs, but so there is for pretty much everything. Having cancer isn’t illegal, nor is sitting with bad posture. People will suffer the consequences of their health issues already, we don’t have to fuck them up any more.

Side note: people are not obese necessarily because they’re lazy, there are multiple factors at play; and being fat isn’t a disease so comparing with cancer isn’t even necessary. Should we make being too old or anti-social illegal as well?

Because cardiovascular is number 1 cause of death in Canada and we should never encourage people to live unhealthy lifestyles that cause cardiovascular disease.

Sure thing, let’s ban cars before making having a certain body type a punishable offence.

villasv, 25 days ago

The original thesis is moot anyway. Anything politicians decide is political by nature…? How would it not be?

villasv, 10 days ago

I appreciate the Tyee squeezing every possible angle against this but…

trading partners take the threat of climate change seriously and use carbon tariffs to punish other countries they see as free riders

The US and they would be happy to see the carbon tax go away, so they don’t have “communism” nearby, and we know that “trading partner” for Canada means mostly the US. The odds of Canada getting sanctioned for backtracking a 1 yr old tax is negligible.

This is addressed in the article (A greening American leviathan), but I won’t be holding my breath. Even if carbon tariffs has bipartisan appeal for now, let’s see what happens when the time comes.

villasv, 15 days ago

About 30% of voters apparently

villasv, 11 days ago

The guy must think himself a genius

villasv, 11 days ago

The thesis is so obvious, probably true for any country at any point in history.

villasv, 9 days ago

NDP has been doing a good job with Ravi Kahlon on housing. I don’t even vote by elimination, I think they’re doing a good job. Folding on decriminalization and the blind eye for LNG has been my biggest disappointments but still overall satisfied with the last 2y of provincial government.

villasv, 12 days ago

Both are united in their hate of those who help people, so it’s only a matter of time really. The alt-right will inevitably eat the right-of-center.