Boges

There's been a thread about this since Monday.

BTW Flaherty didn't pass down an edict saying Manulife was not allowed to offer that rate. He just made it clear he wasn't happy with it. Manulife knew that they may want to stay on the government's good side regarding setting rates. Because the government can set rates with the BoC rate. So they took it back.

You don't see how a ridiculously low rate makes failure more likely? If you can get 2.7% and buy what you can afford based on that rate then when and if rates do have to go up again suddenly you'll find people going into default. It's happened before. On most mortgages you'll be renewing 3-5 times for the house is paid off anyway. I took a mortgage in 2008 at plus 5%, now the 3% loan is a nice relief but I know I can afford a higher rate in 4 years when I have to renew again. I don't think you can say that about everyone that takes on a mortgage.

Except when private enterprise like banks and idiots who take on more debt when they can handle fail where do they turn? The gubiment!The Feds are protecting their future interests. If 2008 didn't happen and banks pretty much blackmailed the public inorder to bail them out perhaps you'd have a point that the government should stay away from private transactions.

You pay for CMHC insurance if you can't come up with 20%. Nothing wrong with that.

Last year I renewed at 3.10%. I thought I was getting in really low. Now you can get a 5-year fixed at sub 3%!!!! I think this is a good compromise. If the BoC raised rates a half a percent people would freak out. This is government intervention BUT!!! so is preventing 40-year mortgages and not allowing people to borrow 100% of the loan plus the closing costs. These are measures to protect people from themselves.

I just heard on the radio that they're looking to exempt people with less that 20,000 euros in their bank accounts. Makes sense.

It depends. In Greece it was found that a good number of people avoided paying taxes but demanded services from their government that we would find laughable. If that's the case in Cyprus too, then yes it is the public's fault as well. This measure seems like forced tax collection. In reality the CRA can do similar stuff if they believe you owe them more than you've paid. What's galling about what Cyprus is doing, is that it's across the board. You could be struggling to save and be living pay cheque to pay cheque and you'll take a massive hit to the money you need to live.

Yeah but they're losing like 6% under 100,000 Euros. If one is fortunate enough to have $100,000 or more in savings, they are daft if they just have it sitting in a bank account. Wouldn't it be more prudent to have that money secured in a RRSP/GIC or something like that? Even a Mutual Fund. That's assuming they have stuff like that in Cyprus. Now if Cyprus is also raiding people's retirement savings and investments, then that's horrible!

If you were Canadian you could probably go to a Human Rights Commission over this.

You mad bro?

Perhaps Madger can't pay the legal fees. Why else would they want to go All-In and appeal to the Supreme Court? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/clayton-ruby-to-appeal-rob-ford-conflict-of-interest-decision/article9808543/ By the time this case gets to the court (if they agree to hear it, which is a big if) The 2014 campaign will be in full swing. This is an absolute waste of time and money.

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/03/18/cyprus-tax-levy/ I guess tough times lead to tough measures. I would want to riot if banks raided my accounts automatically taking a certain percentage to my savings but Canada isn't begging other countries for bailouts. If these countries were more prudent about how they collected revenues and spent money these drastic measures may not have been necessary. It still sucks though.

Why does the US have far cheaper telecommunications then? They also have cheaper hydro. In Europe hydro is lots more expensive but telecoms are cheaper. When I was in the UK recently LTE mobile speeds were just starting to appear. They've been available in parts of Canada for years now.

I remember one poster from BC on this site telling me what he/she paid for auto insurance, where the system is only public and it's a lot more than what you can get in Ontario. You just have to be willing to shop around a bit. BTW regarding power, my bill comes from one company. The only real choice I have is to go with a private provider that fixes your rate for 5 years in a contract. That's a bit of a gamble. I don't really see much of a choice in how I receive power. Going back to cell phones, cable and Internet. If you're a smart consumer, there are many ways to play companies against each other to get a pretty good deal.

I'll agree with you about cell phones, however, the Feds did allow new low cost carriers like Wind to compete. The problem is they have to piggyback the signal the big two paid billions to create. I put the blame of increased Hydro rates in Ontario on the shoulders of the provincial government. The green energy initiative has made hydro exponentially more expensive. You also have a government that plays musical chairs with power plants to win votes at a cost of hundreds of millions. You can't blame the private sector for that.

So your contention is that contracting out costs more because the company is greedy and does stuff like this? Again if you're getting money from the government you're ultimately public sector. These people are defacto civil servants even if the Province of Ontario isn't on their cheques. A true contracting out situation would be like garbage removal where said government would accept bids for the service and that would be the amount of money given to the private sector. What's happening here would be akin to what doctors do. They try to make people come in as many times as possible so they can keep billing the government. Having a quota system for Family Services is immoral and whoever came up with that idea is a pretty immoral person.

Well if they were taking public money they aren't really privatized. And that was equally as wrong. You could say the same thing about Defense contractors in the US. This branch of CAS didn't care about families it might have ruined, it just needed it's fix of public funds.

This is absolutely despicable! http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/15/province_in_talks_with_peel_childrens_aid_society_over_strategies_in_leaked_memo.html So it's good news that child neglect cases are down but it's not good for the civil servants that want the money. So they are risking breaking up families in order to maintain funding. The memo also suggests there's a quota system! What immoral people.

Suck it Apple! http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/03/14/business-samsung-galaxy.html Apple, this week, went on the bitching circuit. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57572151-37/spin-control-apple-goes-on-offense-against-android/ He also apparently said that you need "9 accounts" to get a similar experience as Apple. Which is a blatant lie. When I was in the Best Buy where I bought my phone I just needed to sign in on my gmail account and I'm set. Also now that I have Google Now (comes with Jelly Bean) Things that I do on a desktop while signed on to Google can retrieved on my phone". For example if I check a route on a desktop computer, that rout will show up on my phone. I don't plan on buying this phone, yet anyway. But that's the thing about the cell phone market, you have to keep your phone 2 or 3 years to make it worth it.

Columbus moves out of the West too. Quebec is doing what Markham, Ontario is doing. They think if they build it they will come. There are enough struggling teams that could move up north in the coming years. Seattle is a possibility. They have to get an NBA team back first though.

It is extraordinarily silly that the Winnipeg Jets play in the Southeast division therefore they've changed the Conference/Divisions in hockey for next year. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=418167 It would be nice if they go back to naming the divisions after people. The Gretzky, Roy, Orr, and Lemieux Divisions anyone? I like the Wild cards but I don't like that the East has 16 teams and the West has 14. Also when Phoenix moves to Quebec, what happens? Who from the East moves back. The paradox is that everyone thinks it'll be nice to have Detroit in the East but geographically Columbus should be in the East before Detroit.

The New Testament largely threw out the Old Testament. There are some on this site that would say Nuhuhh! But Christian's believe that Jesus formed a new covenant with God's people.

Actually, even Thompson said he was acting differently than he normally does. He doesn't have a reputation of being a womanizing creep as far as I know.