Most Canadians say Canada is Broken

[Dougie93]

1 hour ago, Zeitgeist said:

 No winners and losers. Grow the pie. 

But this is the impulse that crushes the little guy in the end.

When you politicize it, you create distortions.

The wealthy know how to exploit those distortions, they make out like bandits

But eventually those distortions cause a crisis, and then that blows back on Joe Q. Public.

[Dougie93]

3 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Fuck that.  Break the bank.  Print the money.  Float all boats.  Information Age.  It’s all fake news.  

Well, whatever, like I say, I make out like a bandit, you're basically handing me free money, but you're not helping the middle class.

[Dougie93]

 I sleep well at night, I don't feel bad for people, because they vote against their own interests,

they cut their own throats, and they just wont listen to reason, even when you tell them.

The government is not good for much,  trying to run the economy by government intervention, that just helps the rich and blows back on the little guy.

Big government central planning just leads to private profits with public losses, it's the worst of both worlds

It's not hard to exploit, because it's basically free money from the government. Inflated stock market by taxpayer purchased bonds.

Short the crash, buy low, sell high, wash rinse repeat, while the middle classes and the public purse go deeper into debt.

Then when the middle class and public institutions finally go bankrupt, the vultures come in and pick their bones clean.

This is what government interference in the markets does for you ; sunny ways.

This is what the people vote for, they can't resist the impulse to have someone pulling on the levers, even if the cure is worse than the disease.

Liberalism is a pathology, it's a disease of the mind, but you can't save these people from themselves.

You can however save yourself, by going your own way.

Edited December 1, 2019 by Dougie93

[SpankyMcFarland]

Globalization, automation and immigration have kept interest rates down and property prices booming in places like Vancouver and Toronto. Who knows when a trend based on such massive forces will end? Could be next year or decades away. 

[Moonlight Graham]

16 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

Canada comes with us, even if we have to nuke your priggish free riding lazy asses.

If the US sank into the ocean they'd have no reason to nuke Canada lol.  They'd nuke Russia, Iran, China etc if they wanted to go out with a bang.

[Moonlight Graham]

6 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Globalization, automation and immigration have kept interest rates down and property prices booming in places like Vancouver and Toronto. Who knows when a trend based on such massive forces will end? Could be next year or decades away. 

People have been predicted a housing correction in those markets for a decade and a half.  Nothing yet.

[SpankyMcFarland]

37 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

People have been predicted a housing correction in those markets for a decade and a half.  Nothing yet.

Economics has a large retrospective element to it. I have no understanding of these things but I can appreciate that when one brings in billions of new people into a market outcomes may change in a fundamental way. We’ve seen the prices in places like Walmart stay low year after year on all those items made in China. 

Edited December 1, 2019 by SpankyMcFarland

[SpankyMcFarland]

I saw the flip side of this in Britain in the Nineties and Ireland in the Noughties where property prices did crash. In Ireland, Dublin, a market favoured by the high tech firms, recovered but the rest of the island has lagged way behind. That may be the model globally for the future. 

[Dougie93]

17 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

If the US sank into the ocean they'd have no reason to nuke Canada lol.  They'd nuke Russia, Iran, China etc if they wanted to go out with a bang.

Yeah, well, Canada is in no man's land, and downwind to all the fallout, so again, Canada goes too.

[Zeitgeist]

The economic model has been engineered by the central banks, particularly the Federal Reserve:  Maintain reasonable inflation at 1-3 percent, so that the value of all things rises gradually without putting too much upward pressure on wages.  That way the value of the assets you buy today will rise and the mortgage with which you bought them will grow cheaper over time.  What we don’t want is deflation, because then the value of assets decreases and people are afraid to buy anything.   Investment plus time plus inflation is the secret to personal wealth.  

However, if inflation gets too high, the cost of borrowing is too high and consumers stop stimulating the economy.  Then it pays to save.   Once again, you want inflation to hover around two percent most of the time and for wages to rise reasonably with inflation.  Low interest rates have certainly raised debt levels too high, but we’re stuck with that, as raising rates substantially would destroy the economy.   As long as the central banks can maintain liquidity without devaluing their currencies too far, we’re okay.  

Canada’s property market attracts too much foreign investment, even with the foreign buyers’ tax, because our currency is cheap and our property is still cheaper than Hong Kong.  Basically rampant population growth in Toronto and Vancouver plus foreign investment has driven up housing prices and there’s no end in sight.  

Edited December 1, 2019 by Zeitgeist

[Moonlight Graham]

1 hour ago, Zeitgeist said:

Canada’s property market attracts too much foreign investment, even with the foreign buyers’ tax, because our currency is cheap and our property is still cheaper than Hong Kong. Basically rampant population growth in Toronto and Vancouver plus foreign investment has driven up housing prices and there’s no end in sight.  

Plus cheap mortgage and overall credit post-2008 recession, plus when prices were rising domestic speculators also started buying buying properties en masse.

It's a joke.  Foreigners buying property where they or a family members aren't living in it should be banned completely (but then it's a matter of how do you enforce this?), and if they are a foreign buyers tax should be increased.  Developers are making out like bandits, so are the banks, they all have a ton of money, they can give money to and lobby our politicians.

[Moonlight Graham]

9 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

Yeah, well, Canada is in no man's land, and downwind to all the fallout, so again, Canada goes too.

blah blah blah more anti-Canadian balogna.

[Dougie93]

24 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

blah blah blah more anti-Canadian balogna.

Canada has always been no man's land in between the Superpowers.

Gwynne Dyer can explain:

 

[Argus]

23 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Half of all Ontario college students are international students.  Even though these students pay higher tuition than Canadians, the spots are still heavily subsidized by Canadian taxpayers, and ultimately, Canadians are being squeezed out of the programs they need.  English language standards have dropped in an effort to appease and pass these students.  Who does our government and education system serve?

That is an excellent question.What does it do to the quality of education for Canadians when half the class is made up of foreigners with imperfect English? What does it do to the college experience? And why are we allowing such immense numbers in?

Partly it is low funding by the provinces, but I think the great majority of the problem is the explosion of salaries and administrators.  Colleges and universities simply have too many administrators pulling down six figure salaries and too many professors not teaching to afford to pay them all on the tuition Canadians pay. No one has ever made the position that I can see that all these new administrative positions have added anything good to the quality of education or that they are needed when they weren't before.

The colleges say they need the money from international students, but at what cost to the quality of education? And what would their costs look like with a lot fewer high priced administrators and the requirement that professors do more teaching instead of leaving that to TAs?  There are over 1000 people earning over $100k per year at Carleton University, which has 30,000 students. There are also 4,000 teaching assistants. Meanwhile at UofT there are at least ten people pulling down close to half a million a year.

[cannuck]

Our elder daughter was the ONLY student in her department grad school with fluency in English.  As a result, she had to vet EVERY paper written by the others.  Her duty to the department, but also my understanding is that they greatly appreciated this contribution.  My concern is several of these students would be TAs, and not just linguistically challenged, but culturally many only interested in their own situation and specialty.

[Nefarious Banana]

Our dumbf'k 'leader' flying to London to answer to his NATO masters . . . . 

[Dougie93]

NATO has but one master, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe,  reporting up the National Command Authority to the POTUS.

[Argus]

On 12/1/2019 at 10:56 PM, cannuck said:

Our elder daughter was the ONLY student in her department grad school with fluency in English.  As a result, she had to vet EVERY paper written by the others.  Her duty to the department, but also my understanding is that they greatly appreciated this contribution.  My concern is several of these students would be TAs, and not just linguistically challenged, but culturally many only interested in their own situation and specialty.

I think if I was young now I'd try for a British or American university rather than be in polyglot Canada where most of the student body would ignore you for not being of their culture.

[Dougie93]

It's just as bad in American and British colleges, the difference in loonie leftist Canada is that academics are far more influential in government and there is no real opposition,

All universities in the English speaking world are going loonie leftist, but broken Canada in particular is vulnerable to succumbing to it off campus.

In Canada, government policy is made by the Liberals,  and they just take their lead straight from the college academics.

Some far leftist quasi Marxist screed written by a kook college professor today, is the legislative policy of the governments in Canada tomorrow.

Edited December 3, 2019 by Dougie93

[SpankyMcFarland]

On 11/30/2019 at 4:54 PM, taxme said:

It would seem that there are quite a lot of so called Canadians that have dual citizenship in Canada. Apparently, there are approx 36 MP's in Ottawa that have dual citizenship. Why are these people allowed to be MP's? Where does their loyalty lie? The Canadian MSM liberal media made a big stink about Scheer having dual citizenship but for some n/k reason, they seem to have forgotten or purposely ignore the fact that there are many MP's in Ottawa that have dual citizenship. Personally, I think that if one is a Canadian, especially an MP, then if they have dual citizenship, they should either drop their other countries citizenship, and be Canadian, or go back to that country, and give up their Canadian citizenship. Canada appears to be so broken up in everything  it seems to do. I know that if Trudeau had his way, he would open up the border gates and let the whole world walk right on in and get rid of citizenship. Liberalism??? 

MPs should not be dual citizens for obvious reasons. Scheer should have known that and should have immediately proceeded with the renunciation of his foreign citizenship at the very latest when he became party leader. Even today, do we know what his citizenship status is? It’s a comical situation.

[Dougie93]

Canadian citizenship is totally useless, doesn't protect you, doesn't protect your property, doesn't protect your rights, any Canadian not holding a second passport is a fool.

[SpankyMcFarland]

Quote

Half of all Ontario college students are international students.  Even though these students pay higher tuition than Canadians, the spots are still heavily subsidized by Canadian taxpayers, and ultimately, Canadians are being squeezed out of the programs they need. 

In the medical schools I know, the international students subsidize the locals. If the fees are too low to do that then the school is doing it wrong.

[Nefarious Banana]

I wear a moccasin and a cowboy boot . . . . both fit, both comfortable.  I cross the border at will . . . citizen of North America.  

Edited December 4, 2019 by Nefarious Banana

[taxme]

16 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

Canadian citizenship is totally useless, doesn't protect you, doesn't protect your property, doesn't protect your rights, any Canadian not holding a second passport is a fool.

Well, I would not mind owning an American citizenship and passport. I may need one to have to get quickly out of this gawd forsaken country before I totally go bankrupt. The only ones that are protected under their constitution are the liberals. What they say and do is all okay under their constitution, and of course the Charter of Rights or Wrongs. What I say and do is all unconstitutional, and as a conservative I am not covered under the Charter of Rights or Wrongs.  Canada has truly indeed become a very sick and pathetic liberal country. Yuk. 

Bloody sad, isn't it?  

[Dougie93]

1 minute ago, taxme said:

Bloody sad, isn't it?  

I've gotten over it.  Eventually you just have to write loonie leftist Canada off and move on.