Canada going downhill in every major category

[blackbird]

13 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Price of homes is determined by supply and demand.  You don't have to build older homes since they already exist, and yet they are also higher in cost.  Sorry but more people bidding on homes because there's a lot of people wanting to buy them as investment properties is part of driving up the price because that increases the demand.  There are other factors involved in supply and demand for housing, but if you lower demand you will lower the price of homes.  IMO they should also lower the annual immigration intake that has spiked under the Liberals to lower demand.  The number of new builds is near historic highs, I see it as more of a demand issue than supply issue since demand has vastly increased while supply also has risen, just not enough to match the larger increase in demand.

Also, I am aware that capital gains hikes as proposed by the Liberals will very likely inhibit investment and economic growth, which is why I only agree with raising capital gains for 2nd properties besides cottages.  It will also make more people invest in the Canadian stock market rather than investment properties since they'll still want to invest their money somewhere.

I agree supply and demand affects the prices of everything.  But government interfering by taxing is not the solution.  You are asking for government to intervene in the economy and put higher taxes on people that invest in homes or rental properties as if that is a big sin.  That will not increase the housing supply or make lower prices for homes. 

Free enterprise has to be free, not government-controlled, i.e. Socialist.  You can't pick and choose.  The reason why the economy is in a mess and why there is such a shortage of housing is because of government intervention at all levels.  

I agree there is too much immigration.

But if you want lower priced homes, taxing people that invest in homes is not the way to do it.  That leads down the wrong road completely.  Government interfering and taxing is harmful not helpful to the economy in a free enterprise system.

Edited April 22 by blackbird

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

So people can buy them to live in them.  Homes don't need to sell for a million dollars to be profitable for developers.

well they do if that's what the land and labour costs to make them.

And we just hit upon a large hunk of the problem. .It takes ages to get land approved for development - and there's not enough workers to effectively stustain building at the rate necessary to support current immigration.

And the idea that you can bring in people to build more homes is as stupid as saying if you eat fast enough you'll get thin.

If we slow down immigration to a lower pace AND we make it easier for developers to build homes then we go a long way towards solving the problem.  As demand goes down, the land sells for less.  Which makes it cheaper to build homes. Which means you can sell them for less than a million and still make a profit. 

[Moonlight Graham]

3 hours ago, blackbird said:

I agree supply and demand affects the prices of everything.  But government interfering by taxing is not the solution.  You are asking for government to intervene in the economy and put higher taxes on people that invest in homes or rental properties as if that is a big sin.  That will not increase the housing supply or make lower prices for homes. 

Free enterprise has to be free, not government-controlled, i.e. Socialist.  You can't pick and choose.  The reason why the economy is in a mess and why there is such a shortage of housing is because of government intervention at all levels.  

I agree there is too much immigration.

But if you want lower priced homes, taxing people that invest in homes is not the way to do it.  That leads down the wrong road completely.  Government interfering and taxing is harmful not helpful to the economy in a free enterprise system.

Every successful economy needs some regulation where appropriate.    Laissez-faire economics doesn't work and the deregulation that led to the 2008 housing crash and recession is proof.  Regulation isn't socialism.

You're dealing in gross generalities based on ideology. Yes it is a sin if housing speculation is part of what is raising housing prices dramatically and people can't afford to live.  

[Moonlight Graham]

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

well they do if that's what the land and labour costs to make them.

And we just hit upon a large hunk of the problem. .It takes ages to get land approved for development - and there's not enough workers to effectively stustain building at the rate necessary to support current immigration.

And the idea that you can bring in people to build more homes is as stupid as saying if you eat fast enough you'll get thin.

If we slow down immigration to a lower pace AND we make it easier for developers to build homes then we go a long way towards solving the problem.  As demand goes down, the land sells for less.  Which makes it cheaper to build homes. Which means you can sell them for less than a million and still make a profit. 

We can always build more homes but we're at a near record fit be builds.  think by far the 2 biggest problems with the housing crisis is the huge increase in immigration and foreign audiences and students and the big increase in housing speculation by investors.  You go to any big city and every other person seeks to have an investment property.  That's a home that someone can't own and has to rent because they can't afford it.

[blackbird]

5 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

You're dealing in gross generalities based on ideology.

No, it is you that support the ideology of government intervention and taxation, which is Socialism.

You should have learned from the past number of years that the government has caused great harm to the economy with their policies.

They created the high real estate prices and now you trust they will fix it with more taxation?

  

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, blackbird said:

No, it is you that support the ideology of government intervention and taxation, which is Socialism.

If you're not prescribing an overt form libertarianism where there's no taxes and no regulations then what are you prescribing?

Something religious and militaristic, what exactly?

[blackbird]

49 minutes ago, eyeball said:

If you're not prescribing an overt form libertarianism where there's no taxes and no regulations then what are you prescribing?

Something religious and militaristic, what exactly?

Very basic services and very limited government.  Not excessive taxation and government control and intervention.  Let private enterprise do its job and let the people have their freedom as much as possible.

[CdnFox]

8 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

We can always build more homes but we're at a near record fit be builds. 

Well we can't actually. There's a limit to how many we can build or more specifically the rate at which we can build them.  We can't build a million new homes next year.  That's beyond us. And yet we're bringing in a million new people.  That means the demand for homes will be higher than the supply. And that drives up the price.

Quote

think by far the 2 biggest problems with the housing crisis is the huge increase in immigration and foreign audiences and students and the big increase in housing speculation by investors.  You go to any big city and every other person seeks to have an investment property.  That's a home that someone can't own and has to rent because they can't afford it.

Well, you started off okay but you kind of screwed it up at the end there.   It's not exactly that immigration is the problem per se. The actual problem is that our population is growing faster than our ability to provide homes and medical services for them. If we could build homes fast enough and increase our other infrastructure fast enough it wouldn't be a problem. But we can't, ,and all of our population growth right now is from immigration. So it's not crazy to say that immigration is sort of the problem. As long as immigration and population growth does not exceed our ability to provide for them it's not an issue.

Speculation by investors is largely meaningless. They're buying homes and renting them. Which means if someone bought that home and lived in it there would be less rental spaces for the people who couldn't afford homes and needed to rent. Renting is already severely unaffordable due to a lack of rental spaces. So if you cut that down even more you're still hurting people. Whether it's a foreign speculator or a local person who owns the property it doesn't make any difference, if there are not enough properties then the prices are unaffordable.

The only way to fix that is to build more homes or have slower population growth. Right now for a variety of reasons it's very hard to build more homes. Therefore reducing population growth to a number that we can accommodate makes sense. In the long term building more homes is the solution and the government will have to focus on that. But those two factors under control for an investment no longer becomes a problem and you don't get speculation buying.

 

So at the end of the day it always comes back to the same thing: We need to build more homes and reduce our population growth to match what we can build. Absolutely nothing else matters. Fix those two issues and the problem goes away, fail to fix those issues and nothing else you do will help.

 

[herbie]

We could always go back to before Capital Gains.,

100% of profits are taxable income. So if you bought a property for $50,000, built a cottage on it and sold it for $300K and didn't keep receipts, you'd add $250K to your income and get taxed on the total amount.

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, herbie said:

We could always go back to before Capital Gains.,

100% of profits are taxable income. So if you bought a property for $50,000, built a cottage on it and sold it for $300K and didn't keep receipts, you'd add $250K to your income and get taxed on the total amount.

I suppose we could go back to slavery too but.. some bad ideas are best left in the past

To be honest though, the time you're talking about never really existed. During periods of Canadian and American history where it seemed like tax rates were higher, there were always loopholes that allowed you to exclude huge amounts of the income.

The idea behind capital gains is to attract people to investing in certain things which benefit our society. If you put money in a business then the business grows, more people are employed, there's more corporate tax to pay for services, etc etc. If you just treat it like income then people might as well put their money in a bank account and earn simple interest, and that really benefits nobody.

By the way, you know who is going to get hurt the most? You think it's rich people, but it's really going to be the income trusts that provide for the Pensions of school teachers and civil servants. They actually hold the most stock in Canada. But yeah, it's about time someone taught those rich school teachers a lesson and that they paid their fair share gosh darn it.

[herbie]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

The idea behind capital gains is to attract people to investing in certain things which benefit our society

No it isn't it's to get you to start a business and sell it for half the tax, not wait for someone else to give you a job.
And of course if the Tories did exactly the same thing, you'd be on here bellowing what a fiscally responsible move it was.

[eyeball]

12 hours ago, blackbird said:

Very basic services and very limited government.  Not excessive taxation and government control and intervention.  Let private enterprise do its job and let the people have their freedom as much as possible.

I'll assume you mean this federally and provincially.

And what about things like environmental protection, product safety, building standards, land use practices, zoning etc?  And who is responsible for enforcing laissez faire all the way down to the ground where people live, federal, provincial or local governments?

[blackbird]

2 hours ago, eyeball said:

I'll assume you mean this federally and provincially.

And what about things like environmental protection, product safety, building standards, land use practices, zoning etc?  And who is responsible for enforcing laissez faire all the way down to the ground where people live, federal, provincial or local governments?

All those things are part of the reason housing is unaffordable for the average Canadian now.  All of those things could be examined in depth to see if they were really necessary or are they to build a massive bureaucracy and tax and charge Canadians to death.

However, that is not the main issue.  We are referring to what would fit the definition of Socialism.  That would be more to do with all the social programs and government departments that seem to be growing with no end and all the government intervention in the economy.  All of this is paid for by confiscating the private money of citizens in various ways.  Government is growing at an astronomical rate.  It increased 40% in size since Trudeau took office in 2015.

For some reason, every need of every person and everything that costs money is now the responsibility of government.  What changed in society that the individual is no longer the responsibility of the person himself?  I can understand support for people who are handicapped, ill, or seniors in need of care, but everyone else who is capable of working should be supporting themselves.  However government has made it unaffordable for healthy people to support themselves.  That is a disaster.

Edited April 23 by blackbird

[CdnFox]

14 hours ago, herbie said:

No it isn't it's to get you to start a business and sell it for half the tax, not wait for someone else to give you a job.

The vast vast vast vast majority of capital gains tax in canada does not involve selling a business you started.  So... care to explain that?

It's not about starting and selling a business.

Quote

And of course if the Tories did exactly the same thing, you'd be on here bellowing what a fiscally responsible move it was.

Nobody anywhere would say it's fiscally responsible. 

And the conservatives would be the first in line to castrate the conservative leader who did it.

Remember - we're not like you.  When our leaders do something bad we don't shut up and go along like you.  We wipe that leader out.  And if necessary we wipe out the whole party and rebuild. We've done it numerous times federally and provincially.

I get that YOU would defend a bad action just to protect your leader.  But we dont'.

[eyeball]

9 hours ago, blackbird said:

All those things are part of the reason housing is unaffordable for the average Canadian now.  All of those things could be examined in depth to see if they were really necessary or are they to build a massive bureaucracy and tax and charge Canadians to death.....

....For some reason, every need of every person and everything that costs money is now the responsibility of government. What changed in society that the individual is no longer the responsibility of the person himself?  

I don't know. But if your septic system pollutes my well because it wasn't properly installed by a professional according to regulations would you rather I sic a massive bureaucracy on you or just take responsibility for settling the issue myself and shoot you?

[taxme]

On 4/20/2024 at 5:15 PM, I am Groot said:

The thing is most big problems are complicated and aren't so quick and easy to solve. Which means it takes time - years. No government wants to have the healthcare, or justice, defense, or native administration system in a mess, like a car that's half put together with its parts laid out on the garage floor, when the next election rolls around. Because then the other guy can say "Look at the mess they made of our car! It's half collapsed and its parts are all out on the floor! Elect me and I'll fix it!"

And people are such short-term,  stupid thinkers they're likely to do just that.

Which is why the big, complicated, systemic problems get kicked down the road.

Our politicians always create problems and then they try and pretend that they are going to fix their created problems. They never do. They even sometimes make things worse. There is nothing complicated about trying to rectify anything if the will is there to do so. 

Canada is being run by a Marxist like dictator in Ottawa and Canada is fast becoming a WEF globalist elite Marxist country where we will own nothing and be happy. Housing, inflation, massive immigration and massive debt are all planned events being implemented on the Canadian people by the WEF Zionist globalists. Those scumbag globalists are taking Canada apart piece by piece.

Canadians are losing their freedoms and rights, they are being taxed to death, and they are getting more and more of a big government to have to have to deal with. This is not just a coincidence, but more like a conspiracy that has been  going on in Canada, especially since post covid, to try and turn Canada into a totalitarian globalist Marxist like state where we will become slaves to the globalist corporations, be forced to eat bugs, and be happy to own nothing. 

If the Joe and Mary six packs in Canada keeps on voting and supporting political party's like the leftist liberals, the Marxist NDP, communist and environmentalist political party's, we will all end up as slaves and will own nothing. PP of the Conservative Party of Canada has already said that he does not want to have anything to do with the WEF and their globalist nonsense. Now PP appears to be the man that we must have as our next PM of Canada. Works for me. 

Believe it or not. 😇

[blackbird]

3 hours ago, eyeball said:

I don't know. But if your septic system pollutes my well because it wasn't properly installed by a professional according to regulations would you rather I sic a massive bureaucracy on you or just take responsibility for settling the issue myself and shoot you?

Dumb comparison.   Do we need hundreds of thousands of civil servants in the federal government to manage a few departments in this country?   Do we need a massive pile of building codes and regulations to build houses and keep your septic system clean.  If you are out in the country it is a fairly simple process, but you seem to miss the point that municipalities, regional districts and all levels of government have gone overboard with regulations and control of everything.

I could give you lots of insane examples just in the B.C. fishing regulations to show how bad things have become.

I wrote to the government to ask why they close a local river part of the year to freshwater trout fishing.  The answer I got was because the water temperature gets high and the salmon migrate up the river.   I wonder how a few people trout fishing on that river have anything to do with that.  Insane regulations.

I also asked why there is a 10 HP maximum for boats to fish on a remote lake.  The answer was the federal government doesn't want boats with more than 10 HP fishing on that lake because salmon migrate in it.  I have an old 15 hp motor and when I fish it runs very slowly.  So what difference does it make if it was 15 or 10 HP is you are trolling slowly?  No difference.  

The BC freshwater regulations are full of unnecessary and useless restrictions.  That is how governments act.

Another example is they don't even allow electric motors on a little lake.  Now why would an electric motor make any difference to anything?

Edited April 23 by blackbird

[taxme]

On 4/20/2024 at 2:13 PM, eyeball said:

Oh well, he'll always have Babs.

But seriously, isn't this the position everyone should take towards their betters in our society? I bet Connie thinks so.

They do look like they are a wonderful looking couple that only lefties like you could only hate, right lefty? 😁

[taxme]

On 4/20/2024 at 2:39 PM, eyeball said:

Someone who will unleash people like Black so they can pretty much do whatever they want?

Don't worry, nature will take care of regulations along with regulators soon enough and everyone will have the same opportunities.

Well, thanks to lefty liberals like you, we have now been stuck with your Marxist dictator in Ottawa for 9 years now. And what has your favorite dictator in Ottawa done for you, or for Canada, since he came into power? I do not believe that people like Black are much all in for implementing communism in Canada. The longer we have the Marxist liberals in power, the more new rules and regulations will be coming along. The lefty liberal dictators in Ottawa just love controlling the population with more communist like rules and regulations. You bone head bunch of liberals are all alike. Stoopid as hell. Just saying, stopod. 🤣

[eyeball]

25 minutes ago, blackbird said:

Now why would an electric motor make any difference to anything?

It could introduce an invasive species or spread disease to other freshwater systems with devastating effects on ecosystems they've never existed in. Introduced species are the 2nd leading cause of extinction.

29 minutes ago, blackbird said:

Do we need a massive pile of building codes and regulations to build houses and keep your septic system clean.

In so many words yes we do - we need things like building codes and regulations to prevent people from doing whatever they want in ways that impact the environment and their neighbours.

Pollution, noise, traffic, character of the neighborhood etc in addition to land use practices appropriate for the environment ie wetland and sensitive habitat setbacks etc.

It takes all levels of government to do this.

 

[herbie]

Canada going downhill in every major category?

You are safer in every way,
you have more freedom,
you have more choices,
you are wealthier than you were anytime in history.

If you insist on viewing everything in a negative light, you may easily convince yourself things are getting worse when they're not. As well as making personal choices that become self fulfilling prophecies.

[CdnFox]

6 minutes ago, herbie said:

Canada going downhill in every major category?

You are safer in every way,

False.  Crime is up, violent crime including random attacks is WAY up, health care is down.. You are in MORE danger in every way.

Quote

you have more freedom,

You have far less freedom. The state now censors things like the internet, you can be arrested and charged for your opinion far easier than before, and the gov't established it has the right to force you to take medicine you don't want and if you complain they evoke the emergency act and seize your bank account.

 

Quote

you have more choices,

You have far less choices.  Gov't regulation and interference has reduced your options in many areas, and not to mention that they are going to remove your choices for things like cars in the near future.

 

Quote

you are wealthier than you were anytime in history.

Canadians have fallen from about 7 to about 24 world wide in wealth and quality of life and it's still falling.

Quote

If you insist on viewing everything in a negative light, you may easily convince yourself things are getting worse when they're not.

If you insist on lying to yourself that everything is fine when it's not, then nothing ever gets fixed and you wind up at the very bottom.

[herbie]

1 minute ago, CdnFox said:

If you insist on lying to yourself that everything is fine when it's not, then nothing ever gets fixed and you wind up at the very bottom.

See what I mean about a negative personality affecting your entire outlook? You go out of you're way to prove the obvious isn't picking specific items claiming they represent the whole. Always. In every opportunity.

You can't buy a home in West Vancouver, so that means you can't buy one anywhere.
You can't get a job in Toronto, so there are no jobs anywhere.
They suggest you wear a mask and vet the vax in a pandemic, so they forced you to.
You can prance down the street celebrating massacres, teach with big fake tits, watch porn on the Internet and cable TV at home, hire an escort and marry your team mate, but you insist somehow you're less free cuz you can't stop someone else from doing the same.
Doesn't matter how many stats about crime decreasing, you read about a gang shooting in Surrey so you're kids aren't safe enough to walk to school in Truro or Corner Brook.

See what I mean?

 

[CdnFox]

Just now, herbie said:

See what I mean about a negative personality affecting your entire outlook?

 

See what i mean about lefties thinking that refusing to address real issues somehow fixes them?

Quote

You go out of you're way to prove the obvious isn't picking specific items claiming they represent the whole. Always. In every opportunity.

That made no sense.  Learn English.

Quote

You can't buy a home in West Vancouver, so that means you can't buy one anywhere.
You can't get a job in Toronto, so there are no jobs anywhere.
They suggest you wear a mask and vet the vax in a pandemic, so they forced you to.
You can prance down the street celebrating massacres, teach with big fake tits, watch porn on the Internet and cable TV at home, hire an escort and marry your team mate, but you insist somehow you're less free cuz you can't stop someone else from doing the same.
Doesn't matter how many stats about crime decreasing, you read about a gang shooting in Surrey so you're kids aren't safe enough to walk to school in Truro or Corner Brook.

So everyone can afford a home? So nobody felt pressured to take the vax and nobody got fired for refusing? etcetc

You lie and pretend that there's no issues instead of fixing them.  It's what  lefties do.

Quote

See what I mean?

Yeah. You mean if we point out that your socialist bullcrap has lead to problems you freak out and demand that we 'pay no attention to the man behind the curtain".

Which is why our country is in such bad shape. So instead, we're going to get rid of you losers and hire someone who admits their are issues and fixes them.

Meanwhile you'll lose your shit over the hyper critical issue of where transgender people are allowed to pee.

Sorry kiddo - people have come to recognize you and your kind as lying sacks o crap and are fleeing the left by the truckload. Lying and sticking your head in the sand is NOT an answer to lifes problems

[blackbird]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

It could introduce an invasive species or spread disease to other freshwater systems with devastating effects on ecosystems they've never existed in. Introduced species are the 2nd leading cause of extinction.

Now you are just making up BS to be contrary.  How could my small electric motor introduce invasive species or spread disease.  Fishing is allowed in that lake if you paddle or row, but no electric motors.  You obviously have no idea.  I thought you were a fisherman and knew something.  Apparently not.

Edited April 23 by blackbird