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"Steadily rising prosperity of Canadians"


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30 minutes ago, CITIZEN_2015 said:

I agree with you that for the home owners it may appear as prosperity but even that is fictitious as their home value has gone up artificially and can come down back again any time. Home is not a kind of equity like cash in savings account that one can use to have prosperous life like travelling, buying furniture, appliances, eat in expensive restaurants, etc, unless they wish yo borrow against home equity and spend but as i said that brings over only fictitious prosperity as loans have to be paid back and when the crash comes then they will be in big trouble.

Yeah, I've got a townhouse that's gone up exponentially in value, but it makes me nervous and it doesn't feel right.  And, while on paper it looks good, what can I do with that equity?  I can't sell and trade up, because all other properties have also increased exponentially.  My mortgage is pretty low, even though I've borrowed against the equity for some renos, and I'd like to keep it that way in case of a severe downturn.   So it does kind of feel like false wealth; I'd be a lot more comfortable if the increase had happened more slowly and wasn't so high.

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25 minutes ago, dialamah said:

 I can't sell and trade up, because all other properties have also increased exponentially. 

No, it has very little to do with increase in prosperity for a regular citizen, can't benefit from it while at the same time the costs are rising. But it's great for companies converting small rental units with affordable rent to apartments at double and tripe the price. It was possible to find a studio or one-bedroom for 5-6 hundred, more than doubled since. Not only this is no longer an equitable society; but the level of inequality continues to increase at an accelerating rate. What would the country look like in 2090, do we even care?

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Thanks to inflation and carbon taxes, everything costs more.  These increases aren’t being offset by equivalent increases in wages.  Most of the middle class has been completely priced out of buying a home.  Saving for a down payment now takes 3 times longer.  

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9 minutes ago, Shady said:

Thanks to inflation and carbon taxes, everything costs more. 

Except for those of us, in great togetherness, whose entitlements are automatically tied to the inflation. What, your salary and / or pension isn't, that's just too bad but not to worry take joy in the number that says it's rising (somewhere... for someone).

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2 minutes ago, myata said:

Except for those of us, in great togetherness, whose entitlements are automatically tied to the inflation. What, your salary and / or pension isn't, that's just too bad but not to worry take joy in the number that says it's rising (somewhere... for someone).

Yes, it’s rising for Jeff Bezos.

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5 hours ago, dialamah said:

Yeah, I've got a townhouse that's gone up exponentially in value, but it makes me nervous and it doesn't feel right.  And, while on paper it looks good, what can I do with that equity?  I can't sell and trade up, because all other properties have also increased exponentially.  My mortgage is pretty low, even though I've borrowed against the equity for some renos, and I'd like to keep it that way in case of a severe downturn.   So it does kind of feel like false wealth; I'd be a lot more comfortable if the increase had happened more slowly and wasn't so high.

It is all a nasty game.  The properties age, their condition deteriorates and their value should (if any logic is to be applied) go down, not up.

But our government likes the game - putting people further and deeper in debt and then asking you to pay more property tax every year, because the value of your 50 year townhouse went up 100% in a single year.

Their whole appraisal system is a big joke or scam, whichever way we choose to feel.

Edited by cougar
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5 hours ago, myata said:

No, it has very little to do with increase in prosperity for a regular citizen, can't benefit from it while at the same time the costs are rising. 

There is one way to benefit.  Sell the property and move to Haiti or another similar republic, where property prices are low and cost of living is bearable.  (I know, I know, not that easy and doesn't work again)

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36 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

And everything is terrible so move to Haiti.  I understand completely.

Imagine if every (actually) working Canadian would move to: USA; Europe; Caribbean including Haiti and so on, one wouldn't even need to explain how they "restructured" and "indexed" their salaries and pensions so that they near doubled in as many decades? Wouldn't it be so great, let's do it!

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1 hour ago, dialamah said:

Structure value does go down; the land value increases.

Not in my case.  Land goes up 10%, structure goes up 95%.  They do not care about depreciation - if a similar unit sold for price X, this is the real value, the taxes are based on.

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37 minutes ago, myata said:

Wouldn't it be so great, let's do it!

I am really tempted, considering my parents were left behind and I have a place to live, actually a few places to choose from.  The only issue is work, as I am nowhere near retirement yet.

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13 hours ago, cougar said:

I am really tempted, considering my parents were left behind and I have a place to live, actually a few places to choose from.  The only issue is work, as I am nowhere near retirement yet.

Think how cool it would be though, can set yourself any salary, entitlements and pension (out of bottomless magic wishing well) and nobody cares, no questions asked no one around at all. Wouldn't it be worth working for?

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9 hours ago, myata said:

Think how cool it would be though, can set yourself any salary, entitlements and pension (out of bottomless magic wishing well) and nobody cares, no questions asked no one around at all. Wouldn't it be worth working for?

Thinking about those MP salaries again?  They can be disgusting, but there are tens of thousands of people like them - how long was the Sunshine list?  Those salaries wouldn't bother me, if I was doing reasonably well; if I felt cheated - a different story.    And I do feel cheated.

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11 minutes ago, cougar said:

Thinking about those MP salaries again? 

I have no problem whatsoever with people making money, any amount of them from their own resources, ideas, time and efforts, and within law. The problem is then some of us begin to cut shares and entitlements for themselves out of someone else's pocket, our public pocket, and without free consent. Just so, we're entitled and here's the bill. There's no way I would agree to pay all these outrageous compensations if I had any choice not to - it's just nothing I'm interested in thank you, and no, not even next time. Taxation is fine as long as it's reasonable and pays for common good. This is not how the story reads here though, and has not been for a while already.

Maybe we should go back to voluntary contributions for representatives, without quotes? One works well, represents citizens maybe they'll notice. These are just employees though, of some obscure corporations that are working mostly for themselves perpetuating their prosperity not mine, so why should I have anything to do with it, or be paying for it?

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5 minutes ago, myata said:

The problem is then some of us begin to cut shares and entitlements for themselves out of someone else's pocket, our public pocket, and without free consent.

But this happens in any organization, no matter which one it is.  It is wrong, but this is how capitalism works, I guess.

For example you will have a manager who can successfully manage a company to the point of generating millions of dollars of net income for the company.  You work in the company, he is an owner.  He can and does keep all for himself, leaving you just enough to get by.  He thinks this is the fair way.   He may evade taxes, inflation, cheat all other company employees within the limits of the law.  He goes up, you, the supporting person, go down.

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I figure my groceries are up 30% in the past year but I’m on a fixed income. I keep swallowing it everywhere and I have little left to give. Forget a social life. That was gone long ago. Now the new condo fees are coming. That includes gas, power and water. Gulp.

I’m terrified. This is not what I had in mind working nights and weekends to meet ad deadlines much of my life. I haven’t had a vacation in eight years. It’s all been a big lie.

I would suggest the “prosperity” is more like EZ credit. Kids being driven 4 blocks to school in financed $75,000 SUV’s and living in homes with 3.5 bathrooms is not prosperity but living beyond one’s means and needs in a fake illusion.

Edited by RedDog
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15 hours ago, cougar said:

But this happens in any organization, no matter which one it is.  It is wrong, but this is how capitalism works, I guess.

There's an essential difference: one, I, you don't have to work for any given capitalist's company. But nobody's asking us about whether we want to hire and pay MP, GG, etc. it's a one-way street, and here's the bill with annual indexation. Capitalism may have its own problems but they aren't necessarily the same as those of a dysfunctional, facade, democracy.

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5 hours ago, myata said:

There's an essential difference: one, I, you don't have to work for any given capitalist's company. But nobody's asking us about whether we want to hire and pay MP, GG, etc. it's a one-way street, and here's the bill with annual indexation. Capitalism may have its own problems but they aren't necessarily the same as those of a dysfunctional, facade, democracy.

I see it this way - you can't escape a capitalist company in a capitalist country, even a non-for profit organization operates as a capitalist entity - seen it with my own two eyes.

The only difference between a company owner and an MP is that if the company owner wants to get pay inconsistent with the company's earnings, they go bankrupt and need to start a new company, build a credit rating again before they can borrow again.  With the MP's , they can simply run a deficit, put the country in debt and if it is 3 trillion or 5 trillion or 50 trillion, who cares after all.

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6 hours ago, RedDog said:

I would suggest the “prosperity” is more like EZ credit. Kids being driven 4 blocks to school in financed $75,000 SUV’s and living in homes with 3.5 bathrooms is not prosperity but living beyond one’s means and needs in a fake illusion.

Some people keep telling me this is how most people live these days.  But somehow I can't believe it.  One needs to be able to pay the mortgage and the lease on that SUV and still have money left for food, gas, clothes and a myriad of a other things.

When I see those new vehicles and those big new houses with young couples in them, I just assume those people make more than I do, or have lived in the country for a few generations.

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11 minutes ago, cougar said:

 With the MP's , they can simply run a deficit, put the country in debt and if it is 3 trillion or 5 trillion or 50 trillion, who cares after all.

That would be one essential difference. The other one is that however bad capitalism can be, you can choose not to buy from this company and to not work for that. That does not work with MPs and other democratic entourage pretty much devoid by now of most if not all meaningful function. There's no choice to not buy it, and to not pay for it.

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12 minutes ago, myata said:

That would be one essential difference. The other one is that however bad capitalism can be, you can choose not to buy from this company and to not work for that. That does not work with MPs and other democratic entourage pretty much devoid by now of most if not all meaningful function. There's no choice to not buy it, and to not pay for it.

You can switch companies or vote parties and MP's out, but I think you still end up with the same result.

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13 minutes ago, cougar said:

You can switch companies or vote parties and MP's out, but I think you still end up with the same result.

You can do a bit better if you had the choice to not pay for products, services and figureheads you don't need. It may not make you a fortune but still I would like that, even as a matter of principle. In a free society, one cannot be forced to buy, non negotiable and no questions asked.

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It was an interesting and very necessary social experiment. Plentiful land, very few people. Fish that can be taken with a bucket forests from ocean to the ocean. People free from prejudices, problems and strife. What else needed to start building solid, sustainable prosperity for everybody? Something novel and original, to be proud of and marvel?

No, let's do it the old way. Fish drained out forests and beavers cut and sold. Turkeys and bison all but exterminated. And just over a century on, back to the same old, those sitting on public money cutting themselves pieces and shares, no restraints, limits or shame, back to the business of cutting and sawing, bread vs. brioches.

Too bad, yawn. It could have been interesting and exciting. Why couldn't it?

 

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