The guy who runs Generation Squeeze says building more homes isn’t enough to lower prices, because most people buying houses are already property owners. Property owners can either sell their current house to get a load of cash, or borrow against it to get a load of cash. Either way, they can pay a lot for their next property....
While I understand the views of this article, I don’t believe it. It’s true that if we build 100k homes in each province, it’ll do little to dent housing prices. We don’t need 100k new homes, we need like a million in each major city. People keep talking about how big of a deal building a few thousand homes are, but they’re literally a drop in the bucket at this point when we should be increasing the supply not by 1-2%, but a good 20-40%.
And while I agree that not everybody would be looking to get their own personal house, increasing housing would vastly let up the pressure on rentals as well. And making rentals cheap enough that you could get one while working part time as a student would also mean that the moment you get a full-time job, you’d have the free time to do everything you could want to improve your life. The fertility crisis we’re having wouldn’t be such a big deal either, not to mention all the stress the young are dealing with since they know that moving out of home before 30 is a pipe dream for most of them.
No I think the op-ed is trying to say that no matter how many homes we build, it won’t matter because those who already have homes can just leverage those homes to take on loans to buy more homes, preventing those who don’t have them from actually buying homes since they’re always at a deficit compared to those who are effectively already rich.
What I’m saying is that if the supply of homes increase by something like 40% across the board, it won’t matter if many of these people buy a second or third home, as it’s not like every person with a house is going to buy more. And even if they do, they’ll resort to renting them out because a home they’re not actively using is nothing but a cost that has a high chance of costing more than anything they can sell it for in a few decades due to property taxes. If they do rent them out, they’ll be competing with a massively increased rental market, lowering prices or else dealing with property that is costing money rather than making money.
A net win even if everything this person says comes true. And if it doesn’t, we have a massive influx of homes that’ll push down prices. The only issue is that we’ll be dealing with a new and long term recession as the retirement plans of millions go out the window. It’s a risk but taking this risk is the only way to prevent this problem from increasing perpetually, or else the housing prices crashing due to the bubble popping anyways.
I was looking at the numbers, and while I agree to a certain point (if prices are going down, it’s better to rent and hope that prices will continue going down so you can buy at the best price possible) but prices have shot back up since the last year and are almost at the 2021 prices in the span of a single year. We had a temporary dip in prices, not any form of a drop.
And as for incentive, there’s a massive amount. With prices as high as they are, it’s entirely a seller’s market, and if you can make more homes, you basically have as much cash to take as you have homes to sell. The issue is that builders aren’t able to build new homes due to legislation, zoning regulations, and plenty of other hurdles placed. I keep seeing so many properties that have “we are planning to build this skyscraper condo here once we have our permit” and the old building just sits there for 3-5 years before they get their approval.
The federal Liberals are seeing a dive in popularity among younger voters, once the core of their base, falling 23 points behind the Conservatives by the end of August, according to new polling from Nanos Research.
They shouldn’t be in third place. They should be fourth or fifth place, behind the Rhinoceros Party, Centrist Party, and the Communist Party, or perhaps even the People’s Party.
None of the top parties will decide to work hard to make meaningful and positive change if a fire isn’t lit under all of them, and there’s no fire greater than an insignificant party suddenly becoming a legitimate threat.
Of course $7500 isn’t nearly enough for pulling someone out of homelessness.
To be honest, I think it’s far more efficient to give the homeless proper homes with locking doors and a respectable level of privacy as well as access to clean water and some sort of minimum level of food (like an infinite supply of rolled oats). It doesn’t need to be a big home, even something little better than a capsule hotel room would be enough.
The homeless stay homeless because nobody can pull themselves together if they’re constantly stressed trying to figure out how to even reach the next day. It’s even worse when you don’t have access to a shower to clean yourself up to be presentable enough to get through an interview at even the most unwanted jobs.
It’s the single biggest reason why mental illness is so rampant amongst the homeless and few ever repair their lives.
According to a new report from Rentals, In July, the Canadian rental market hit a record high with an average asking rent of $2,078, marking an 8.9 per cent annual increase.
Was it a tax? I thought the law simply required third parties to actually pay for reproducing the work of news outlets? Basically paying for paid work, rather than just stealing it?
The prime minister is meeting with his youth advisory board this week to hear its most 'pressing concerns,' with the aim of informing future policy decisions.
A combination of a few million new high density housing over the next decade, a complete rewrite of zoning laws to take them outside of the hands of the cities, and the removal of any need of any neighbourhood association to sign off on any new development.
Commercial producers won’t make housing cheap and affordable on their own in any reasonable time-frame. Even if they instantly become able to construct as they like, market forces will take time to let housing prices cool off.
Which goes into my second point, zoning laws as they exist prevent housing from being made in the first place. Especially single family house zones are the single biggest killer of affordable housing. People already make their houses massive, to the point that they’re getting close to low-rise apartments.
Which goes to the third point: the character of a neighbourhood changes every single day, so any attempt at the preservation of such a thing is just a bald faced lie, even if they’re lying to themselves saying it. The neighbourhood I grew up in were all small houses, from tiny two stories to bungalows. Every single house is easily twice if not three times bigger than the ones I remember as a child. There’s no trace of the neighbourhood I grew up in, aside from the fact that they don’t house any more families than before. Hell, they probably house fewer people than before as I bet almost all the families there have only one child at most.
The unfortunate result if there was actually the political will to do this is that it would cause a pretty big depression as people have been conditioned into treating housing as an investment for their retirement. A necessity of modern life being used to create profit, that in itself is a non-performing asset that adds exactly zero dollars to the economy and is worse than buying a whole bunch of gold ingots in the hopes that its value will rise faster than inflation.
Personally, I’m patient so I’m fine with house prices going down slowly, as long as rentals get cheaper. It’s stupid when such a high number of young decide that they’re pushing off moving out of their homes due to seeing it impossible to afford one of their own. Delaying getting a home, even an apartment, means delaying getting married, presuming you’re even bothering to date. Delayed marriages means fewer children, which means a stagnating and eventually dwindling population.
If the population stagnates, then everything falls apart for the elderly as the price of everything goes up as there’s fewer people to make, deliver, and serve everyday items. And that’s not to mention that the entire RRSP system depends on sufficient new blood putting money into it just to maintain the status quo. Lots of retirees all over the world are going back to work only because inflation has gone up a bit. How many will do so when it becomes impossible to keep inflation in the most critical areas down due to the lack of workers?
In the end, housing is the root problem, and while I fear it causing a major recession, I still think it’s preferable than for housing prices to never come down. The economy will tank in the future whether the housing bubble bursts or keeps its course. But only one of those two options gives us a hopeful future beyond that bleak one.
Seriously. The amount of foam trays and plastic containers used is insane, and entirely because it would cost more to develop a biodegradable alternative than to accept a bad look and just say it’s for the consumer’s bottom line.
While I admit that some things are done better in traditional plastic until we can create decent and cheap bioplastics (we’re getting close for low strength, though I don’t know if transparency is good or not), many things can just be swapped with waxed paper or cardboard. We’ve been using waxed paper for cup for decades now, just adapt that for other uses.
Overall I agree. While every death is a tragedy, the reality is that if someone is denied a compatible organ, it means that there was someone who received it and was willing to go through more effort to ensure that they would survive the operation long term.
COVID still exists, and it is still running rampant through the world, and it is still a legitimate threat to those with weakened immune systems, something that all organ recipients are.
This is virtually the same as someone being denied a lung transplant because the refused to quit smoking. Someone died to give you that lung, and so if you’re not going to treat it with respect, you don’t deserve it as much as someone who will.
That said, the numbers for transplants I’ve found are a lot more positive than I had expected: Organ transplants in Canada, 2021: Donations and need. That said, most organ transplants are from the deceased, and of those, a significant percentage were from Ontario and BC (adjusted for population) interestingly enough.
Though with that said as well, in 2022 80% of donations were from the deceased, 52% were from family members, and compared to 2936 transplants, there were an additional 3777 people on the wait list. 701 Canadians were removed from the wait list that same year, 39% of whom had died while waiting. (cihi.ca/…/summary-statistics-on-organ-transplants…)
The numbers are pretty uplifting overall, but until we can commercially grow organs (either in a vat or a donor pig) we need to take care of donated organs and maximize their value by preferentially giving them to those who are most likely to survive receiving them in the long term.
Canada is great at high-speed rail studies — but not at actually building high-speed rail. So why is it the only country in the developed world considering a new conventional-speed passenger network?...
I agree when it comes to transporting goods, but low speed rail isn’t good enough to transport people. Remember, isn’t actually that insanely fast. They start at 200km/h, so aren’t anything too amazing at the lower end.
That said, if we can get some more low speed rail for goods installed, the tax revenue from that alone should give the governments more than enough to set up high speed rail lines soon after. Canada has a serious internal trade problem. Every single province trades more with the US than their neighbouring province. More cargo rail would help fix that.
In addition, since cargo and passenger rail is combined right now, passenger trains need to wait hours for cargo trains to pass through sections of it because they have priority. Just building a new cargo line would significantly reduce this one problem even if cargo trains are still allowed to use the old lines.
I just don’t feel like 50% faster is enough. People are just so attached to their cars that they’ll just rent one if they can’t afford to own one. People in Canada compare things against planes if they talk about riding, so I think 200km/h is still a bit low unless if it’s a short trip, which I doubt it would be. Most likely it’ll be something like between Toronto and Ottawa, or Ottawa and Montreal.
200km/h isn’t quite enough to make the trip feel short. I think you’d have to be closing in on 300km/h before people take high speed rail seriously, as then you’d be doing less than 2 hours including boarding for a trip like that, where boarding on a plane alone would take much of those 2 hours, though the flight itself would be quite a bit faster.
Older millennials, adults aged 35 to 44, had debt-to-disposable income ratios around 250 per cent in 2019, while Freestone noted that metric was roughly 150 per cent for the same age group in 1999....
Don’t forget the cost of insurance, maintenance, fuel, etc. According to TechAltar it costs about half a million euros to own something like a VW Golf at the low end, 1.5M euros on the higher end. It’s estimated that the average person spends 30-40% of their lifetime income on their car.
People only see the initial purchase price (which is often ignored because of various deferred payment offers that further increases the price), and the price of gas. Gas alone is starting to reach the price of renting an apartment, yet somehow people still can’t see themselves living without a car.
AI generated content will become prolific no matter what. It’s only a matter of time, so rather than just banning such things and pretending it will never become an issue once you do so, it’s better to simply legislate so that it is less likely to become an issue.
Things like limiting what sorts of ads you’re allowed to make, how much money each ad would be worth for election purposes, rules and regulations on the contents of the ads (like significant penalties for being misleading or outright lies).
In fact, since AI in theory should be much better at fact checking than humans, the standards of information quality should be much higher and enforced by law, by penalty of a significant fine either against the party or individual’s coffers, or against their campaign funds, depending on when it’s done.
I think AI generated content is fine as long as it’s not spreading misinformation. Mostly because there’s no stopping it. If you ban it, people will find a way around it, so just regulate it to make it as beneficial as possible.
No, I know that modern AI has no real ability to fact check, but the reason is because they’ve never been built that way, nor do they have the resources to do it properly. They have no way to know what is a reliable source, nor how to interpret the data in a meaningful way if it needs to be used in an abstract manner.
But I do believe that modern AI technology should be able to do so if given the resources. Create an AI that only references from a list of credible sources, and is able to compare them to what is said elsewhere.
I’m no AI specialist or anything, so maybe I’m completely wrong and such a method wouldn’t work. But at the very least, I haven’t even heard of any real attempt at making a fact checking AI yet. All the existing ones are shit and only adapt normal language learning models to reference other internet sources regardless of their legitimacy.
Honestly, the government doesn’t even need to subsidize public housing to fix the housing crisis, just create non-market housing. There’s plenty of charity organizations that are able to build homes that are less than half of market prices. Hell, apparently even the YMCA does this.
We don’t need to increase housing for those who are unable to work, just those who don’t make 6+ figures. If charity organizations can fund these housing projects entirely off the back of bank loans that the renters are able to pay off themselves in addition to maintenance costs of their buildings, I don’t see how the government can’t do the same by using the subsidization funds.
We don’t need a bunch of $200 apartments, we need lots of $1000-2000 apartments.
Canadian millennials are more likely to face the brunt of a wavering labour market as most face mounting debt with an income that fails to keep up with inflation, according to a report from RBC Economics....
I’ve just plain given up on attaining the old “life goals” and just going for things within reach. I don’t care about family, a career, a home, or any of that sort of stuff.
Doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. I enjoy my life pretty decently. But all that stuff that was considered necessary for a good life before? Fuck that shit, I’m out. I’ll make do with what I have and be happy through my own means.
I’ll admit that such a large shift in mindset isn’t something just anybody can do, but it worked for me.
What a waste of time. Who cares about the name of a street. People focus so much time, energy, and money (not to mention public time energy and money) on things that don’t matter when we have real issues that need to be dealt with, and quickly.
How about getting some of the current transit projects fixed up so that they actually finish during our lifetimes? Or fix the housing crisis? Or deal with all the empty office space? This city has countless problems, many from neglect over the decades, and people think that changing the name of a damn street is more important.
They are hard, but hard problems are the ones that need addressing. Easy problems tend to have little to no effect, regardless of if they’re solved or not. And solving this problem will have exactly zero impact beyond stroking a few egos (which is something I consider a bad thing so thus should be avoided).
As someone about the same age, I do understand your concerns, at least in part. And while things look bad, to be frank I think there’s also a lot of good to see in the current world.
Traditional values and desires have little place nowadays and are becoming impossible to achieve (though I think a lot of that was true for the boomers as well, they just pretend it’s not), but new things are appearing that’s good. We’re healthier overall than previous generations. We’re surrounded with luxuries that previous generations would’ve considered impossible for the average person to have. We have opportunities abound to find careers, livelihoods, passions, and any number of other worthwhile pursuits that weren’t possible even two decades ago.
If you let go of the preconceptions of previous generations, I believe there is a countless number of things that are good now that didn’t exist even one generation ago. Maybe having a traditional career, getting married, having children, and owning a home are becoming more and more impossible, but that doesn’t mean friendships, hobbies, and any number of other things of value are out of reach.
I don’t make a lot of money. I’ve given up the idea of marrying and having kids. I will never own a single detached house. I don’t even see a future where I will ever retire. But I don’t think those are reasons to say I am unhappy. I enjoy each and every day, find value in my work, enjoy my hobbies, and have friends, even if some of us argue constantly about our conflicting political leanings. The world now, despite climate change, dictatorships, rich assholes hoarding everything they can, political apathy, insane and transparent corruption, and any number of other horrible things in the world or even in my own city, I think the world now is better than it has been in the past, and will continue to become better.
You just…need to let go of what drove your parents, and find new things to bring you joy that wasn’t possible for them. Because there are countless things that are possible now that wasn’t even when you were a child.
For those people who are actually wishing for the bubble to burst, remember that’s exactly what happened in 2008, and what happened back then. Literally the only people who won were the rich as they just bought out all the property that got severely discounted while other rich people got a massive payday from the government (aka regular Joe’s tax dollars) for fucking up. And the bubble simply got restored because those rich people could afford to sit on unproductive products for a decade at a time because they knew that without a constantly increasing supply of housing, the prices will explode again because housing is a requirement, not a luxury.
And the losers was everybody who doesn’t make 7 figures or more. People’s retirements were crushed, their savings crushed, their existing lives crushed. And the economy was set back for years and inflation skyrocketed for a little while, which never came back down.
And in places where such housing bubbles really burst, Japan hasn’t seen any growth for 30 years. They’re still in what they all the Lost Generation, because they realized that calling it the Lost Decade was premature and it didn’t end in 10 years. We’re watching China’s housing implode on itself right now with hundreds of thousands of people losing their entire investments and retirement savings. We’re watching 80 year olds going back to work so that they don’t starve to death while youth unemployment reaches levels so insane that they’ll take a job that only pays under the table because the company can’t afford to pay minimum wage!
You want a dystopia, you’ll get it if the bubble bursts. You’ll also get it if the bubble continues to inflate.
So the only solution is to slowly deflate the bubble by increasing housing construction so that it outpaces demand in a controlled manner until the prices come back down to something reasonable, then to continue keeping pace. And for that, we need the political will for both government subsidized housing and a overhaul of zoning laws to allow for mixed-use residential to replace all residential zoning.
Detached single family housing don’t belong in major cities, and suburbs shouldn’t be subsidized by the downtown core.
Seriously? Wasn’t this Ford’s idea? Wasn’t this all Ford’s decision? Wasn’t this Ford who did everything? Isn’t this about Ford doing political favours for his buddies in real-estate?
You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve personally almost been run over while on bike because of that, but even worse, when crossing the street the after the light turns green. Most drivers don’t look the way they’re going, and instead solely pay attention to the colour of the pretty lights overhead like three month olds.
Pedestrians/wheelchairs should ALWAYS be separated from vehicles (and that’s including bikes) with physical barriers, and bikes separated from cars with physical barriers anywhere the speed limit’s greater than 20km/h. And speed limits shouldn’t be enforced with simply signs, but actually physical barriers that prevent speeding, like regular turns or speed bumps.
Drivers are so entitled in this country that they complain about being ticketed by the police when they’re the ones knowingly breaking the laws. Laws that exist because people kill each other due to carelessness if it wasn’t for these laws! And people DO kill each other constantly despite these laws! I mean, if most statistics didn’t lump in cars together with all other accidents, cars alone would be the 11th leading cause of death in the States!
They should be banned as a form of illegal drug due to the harm they cause (same with a few other platforms like tik tok).
While I think that social have a lot of benificial uses, the way most of them are implemented are anti-human in nature, and are the cause of a lot of mental health issues for those under 30, and especially for teens. Just look at suicide rates for teens over the last decade or two (especially among girls) and it’s hard not to see facebook as a force of ill and should not be allowed to be used in Canada, especially by the young.
Two years after Valérie Plante’s administration said a new housing bylaw would lead to the construction of 600 new social housing units per year, the city hasn’t seen a single one....
Making for-profit private organizations do not-for-profit work will never work. They’ll either find a way to get around it, or just not do it in the first place.
Won’t be surprised if we suddenly see a host of new 4842 square feet projects, or maybe joint projects between multiple companies (all probably owned by the same guy) that split ownership so that nobody builds more than 4842 square feet on a single plot of land.
Or alternatively they’ll just hand over useless land somewhere else in exchange for building that massive high value condo or something.
The only way to make affordable housing is to either rely on not-for-profit organizations, or the government to do it themselves.
I don’t really have any sympathy here. I mean, if prices are too low, that means that either competition is too high, or the product isn’t as popular as people thought it would be.
Either way, the legalization is doing what it’s supposed to do: squeeze out illegal trade and prevent this money from reaching the hands of criminals. I bet that no back alley dealer wants to touch weed with a ten foot pole as there’s no way for them to make any real profit anymore.
Honestly, I never stopped wearing a mask. After having it for years, it just feels more comfortable wearing it than not nowadays. Not wearing it is like going shirtless or something.
That aside, it also feels like after COVID, a lot of people have lost their sense of smell. The issue of excessive perfumes and nasty odours has gotten worse and I feel like I’ll choke on them if I’m not wearing a mask. I already feel like choking despite wearing a mask, so it’s hard to imagine how much worse it’ll be without it.
It’s not just that, but the Saudis are trying to pivot hard towards new industries. They see their entire government collapsing if they can’t find a new source of revenue before oil demand collapses and their savings disappear.
Saudi Arabia basically bribed their civilians to stay in power by subsidizing gas, electricity, and water to the point that all three are basically free in the country, while their migrant workers are basically slave labour. The moment any of this changes, there’s going to be a coup, and they see the clock ticking with oil demands having peaked in much of the world already.
RealLifeLore has recently released a video talking about their situation, though not so much on the oil.
It’s not the drilling that’s the issue, it’s the refining. The prices of crude isn’t so high on the market itself, but the post-refined products themselves. American refineries are at capacity and have been for at least a decade now, yet they aren’t doing anything to increase production.
And as for Canada, we don’t have much when it comes to refining capacity in the first place.
I don’t think this is what he’s talking about. It’s not about a city where everything is in walking distance, is a city where 90% of the people live in suburbia, where nothing is in walking distance, but everybody is so far apart that no bus can service anything at any decent level of convenience, let alone cost.
Public transit doesn’t work when the population density of your city outside of downtown is more comparable to Yellowknife than Toronto.
CHINA – a major source of outbound tourists – has left Canada off a list of countries now approved for travel by tour groups, its embassy in Ottawa said on Wednesday (Aug 16), due to anti-Beijing rattling by Ottawa....
And now I hope that we upgrade the danger level of Canadians going to China now that they’re pushing anti-spying laws and policies on par with wartime levels.
The two Michaels were just a warning. We need to increase separation from China until they cool off and start actually following international laws and conventions.
The report shows the number of unfilled health-care jobs in Canada reached an all-time high in 2022 and that staff are missing an extra week on average due to illness.
Did you know that the popular way to become a doctor is to first get into university as a nurse, then transfer to the doctor’s course after the first year? It’s well told and commonly accepted and done.
Except for the fact that those nurses find out that not a single credit gotten in the nurse course can be applied to the doctor’s course. Even worse, if you’ve started the nurse’s course, you’re barred from the doctor’s course, even if you try to switch universities. This has been true for more than a decade (I know, because I knew someone who suffered this). At least Ontario is so starved for nurses that they teach you in high school to go to nurse school as a shortcut to get into a doctor’s course if you don’t get accepted the first try. A lie that is perpetuated because becoming a nurse is so unpopular.
Yea, the boomer retirement is really messing things up on every level.
It doesn’t help when Ford ignored nurse protest last year. Didn’t he get into trouble with the courts with how he treated them at the time? Some sort of legislation he forced through that lowered their work conditions and gave pay cuts across the board turning out to be illegal?
If that’s not one of the most bald-faced display of disdain for one of the most critical workers in modern society (outside of China that is), I don’t know what is.
Tens of thousands of Canadians were "Alberta bound" as they searched for a more affordable place to live amongst higher interest rates and home prices.
Is Alberta housing that cheap? I was under the impression that anywhere worth living over there was actually extremely expensive and poor in quality due to how many people move there temporarily due to oil.
They did, if you look at late 20th century history. The lobbying and propaganda they did at the time was insane, but there was only so much they could do when people were dying from lung cancer, had trouble breathing, and even chewing tobacco was known to cause mouth cancer.
They simply gave up trying so hard in the west and concentrated efforts in emerging markets. Do you remember the infamous video of the smoking baby a few years ago? Shit like that’s eerily common in places like Indonesia.
Alcohol is a massive tax revenue in pretty much everywhere in the world, but especially here in Canada. It’s pretty obvious when you see the difference in price of a beer here compared to the states, as 90% of that difference is purely taxes. Hell, you can tell the difference between the beer/wine costs in Ontario vs in Quebec. There’s a reason why people in Ottawa and Gatineau constantly cross the boarder to buy their poison of choice.
That said, there’s also the fact that when the States tried to ban it, they basically created some of the richest criminals in the world in like a single year. Alcohol is so ingrained into modern society that people riot over it.
Tobacco is a comfort luxury that pretty much anybody can get off of with some effort. Alcohol is a crutch that far too many people use to avoid going to some pretty dark places.
It does. But for those that use alcohol as a crutch, its use makes those problems feel further away. Especially if you don’t know how to deal with the problems, or just desperately need some relief before tackling the problem (even if it means that you never get to it until it explodes in your face), alcohol is an easy way to pretend that a problem doesn’t exist.
Why do you think so many homeless are also alcoholics? I doubt all of them were alcoholics before becoming homeless, and even for those who were, there’s a reason why they’re still drinking tons of alcohol. All throughout human history, alcohol was known as man’s best friend because life was tough, and it let you forget that fact for a while. Or at least make it feel less bad.
I think you misunderstand me. Running away from problems is rarely a good thing. Usually it’ll only make things worse, so I completely agree with you.
But the issue is that it is human nature to go for the quick and easy way out, even if it means that you’ll be in deeper shit because you did so. This isn’t restricted to alcohol abuse either. I personally know a guy who got married because he accidentally got his girlfriend pregnant. He wasn’t anywhere close to being ready to commit to it, but he went the easy route once, and now he’s saddled with a marriage and baby he didn’t want for life. And this is a common story, and people keep making this mistake even after being burned.
How many people can you think of who are obese and don’t do anything about it despite knowing full well that one thing probably cut their life down by 10 years if they don’t fix things, yet still eat far too much and indulge in sweets or other high calorie foods?
I’m not arguing against you on this point at all. Alcohol isn’t a good drug at all, and generally don’t provide any real benefits. Either you’re dependent on it for numbing some sort of pain, or you consume it just so you’re not ostracized by your social circle. Any time someone says that they drink because they truly enjoy it only does because one of those two things had happened in the past and now they’ve merely adapted to it and formed a different sort of dependancy.
Where I live, they’ve got some sort of weird “The Future Is Electric” campaign going on. It’s on the busses, there’s a billboard of one near my place, and hell, that one’s powered so it shines brighter than the street lights at night!
And what is it advertising? I have no idea. Just that our province paid for it. The province. For at least one powered, custom billboard along with who knows how many regular ads. For something that I can’t even start figuring out.
Ads aren’t just ugly and a cheap way to make people spend money on things that they don’t need or even make their lives worse, but our tax dollars are spend on meaningless ads when there’s so many social and economic issues that are being actively ignored or even caused by the current governments.
A lot of people I know have noticed this. Not just in typical groceries, but in a lot of food products.
Usually they don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve heard plenty of complaints about the taste of things they buy. Even weird ones like one beer tasting like a cheaper brand.
“This has become probably the most important both economic and political problem facing the country right now,” said Tyler Meredith, a former head of economic strategy and planning for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland....
I think it’s not just the Liberals, but the Conservatives that are at fault. Neither parties have done much of anything when they were in power to help this and other significant stagnation issues over the least two or three decades.
At least for Toronto, the federal and provincial governments had to be punched in the sides to make public transit investments after being forgotten for most of a half century, and even then the new constructions are still quite inadequate and will require at least two more decades of consistent work before things reach a decent level, presuming that other areas don’t get worse in the meantime.
It’s unfair to just blame the Liberals. All our leading parties suck because they see themselves as invulnerable. They’ve gotten used to being an oligarchy, and the NPD is no longer scaring them, but instead have become a part of the oligarchy. Layton was great, Mulcair was okay, but Singh is just a puppy following Trudeau. Without someone new (it can be the Rhinoceros Party for all I care) getting a decent number of seats to become a legitimate threat to the oligarchy and make them actually move their asses for real and positive change, I think we’re stuck with nothing but corrupt personal interests.
The problem about just hoping for the best is that there’s basically no way for it to happen naturally. Without an external force to make prices fall in some sort of controlled way, market and local forces will just keep the prices rising, until they crash. And while a part of me kinda hopes for it on a surface level, a housing crash is something we really don’t want.
If the housing prices crash, that means that the retirement funds of most people will simply disappear. Most people have almost all of their retirement funds locked up in their homes, with the hope that the value will continue to rise until they’re ready to withdraw from the market. But if the housing bubble bursts, then you’ve got millions of people who suddenly have to figure out how to go from expecting to smoothly sliding into retirement to not even being close to having enough money saved up to retire before 80.
The results of this is that everybody with a home will suddenly stop buying anything but the essentials, and doing everything they can to recoup as much liquid cash as they can with what they have left, while scraping every penny they can from their expenses. It’s basically millions of people suddenly just eject themselves from the economy, and we’re instantly into a major recession. Everybody’s working as hard as they can to save as much money as they can, but nobody’s buying anything, businesses lose profits, so everybody starts to shed jobs, making people try even harder to save money, and the cycle continues.
Without a controlled soft landing, it’s hard to see how we don’t get into a death spiral. And if you want the best case scenario of a place where this really happened, just look at Japan with its Lost Decades. And more of a worse case, look at what’s going on in China right now.
Honestly, it’s the fundamental problem with capitalism, and while I personally advocate for a better system, it’s not the sort of thing that can be put into place without major disruptions on all levels of society. Not to mention severe opposition from our allies at even the mention of such reform.
That said, the solution in the short term is to try to force people away from placing most of their money in nonperforming assets. Frankly speaking, getting the latest and greatest cars, smartphones, shoes, whatever isn’t actually that much of a deal. The issue is the waste that comes from doing that so often. If all of these things actually lasted us a good decade (or 3+ for cars), it wouldn’t be such a problem. Hell, we’d probably enjoy their use that much more if they were built to such a quality.
Imagine a smartphone that has a steel frame, engraved with a nice bezel pattern, and a colourfully etched backplate, strong enough that you don’t need a protective case, and all its parts can be replaced by hand, or at least easily at any local repair shop? Sure, you might pay a few thousand for it, but if it’s so beautiful, silky smooth to use, and easily lasts a good decade or longer, what’s wrong with that? Especially if you can pass it down to one of your kids because it’s still good and usable 15 years later.
I know there’s software issues with such degrees of long term usage, but the thought that things might last more than a year or two has all but disappeared from most people’s minds. It’s sad that we’re happy buying shoes that’ll only last us 6 months of wear, just because you can buy it for less than the price of a week’s Starbucks? I’d rather spend over $100 and get nice shoes that not only lasts me a few years, but feel good to wear and don’t make my feet hurt after standing and walking around for 10+ hours a day.
On the other side, there’s the issue that we don’t have good ways to dispose of things. Human sorting is terrible and expensive, yet there’s surprisingly little research into automating such processes because there’s a lack of money to be found doing so. It takes government will to get these sorts of things done, but need awareness before the governments even start looking at such things in the first place.
Governments have done the work of providing housing in the past, and still do in limited numbers. There is no reason why they can’t just push the number of projects up until there is no housing crisis anymore.
I’ve heard some numbers here and there, and it seems like there’s plenty of organizations providing non-market housing that rent at below half the usual prices. Apparently the YMCA is one of them.
If the governments aren’t willing to do it themselves, they can just make it easier for corporations that are willing to provide non-market housing to get the property rights and loans needed to actually get this done.
Building more isn't enough to lower home prices (www.theglobeandmail.com)
The guy who runs Generation Squeeze says building more homes isn’t enough to lower prices, because most people buying houses are already property owners. Property owners can either sell their current house to get a load of cash, or borrow against it to get a load of cash. Either way, they can pay a lot for their next property....
'Getting squeezed on both sides': Liberals a distant third among younger voters (www.ctvnews.ca)
The federal Liberals are seeing a dive in popularity among younger voters, once the core of their base, falling 23 points behind the Conservatives by the end of August, according to new polling from Nanos Research.
A B.C. study gave 50 homeless people $7,500 each. Here's what they spent it on. (bc.ctvnews.ca)
No reason not to do this across the board
High pasta prices set to boil over as Canada's wheat withers (www.reuters.com)
Canada's landlords now asking a record-breaking average of $2,078 per month: rental report (www.ctvnews.ca)
According to a new report from Rentals, In July, the Canadian rental market hit a record high with an average asking rent of $2,078, marking an 8.9 per cent annual increase.
Exclusive: Meta's Canada news ban fails to dent Facebook usage (www.reuters.com)
Trudeau seeking advice from youth on 'pressing concerns' to inform future policy (www.ctvnews.ca)
The prime minister is meeting with his youth advisory board this week to hear its most 'pressing concerns,' with the aim of informing future policy decisions.
Abrupt Late-Summer Shift: Polls Now Put CPC in Majority Territory (www.338canada.ca)
Supermarkets are being asked to cut plastic waste. What would that look like? (www.cbc.ca)
The industry’s trade association, the Retail Council of Canada, said the new policy “unfortunately” targets large grocers exclusively....
Alberta woman dies after being denied transplant for refusing to get COVID vaccine (nationalpost.com)
How Canada got stuck building low-speed rail | CBC Creator Network (youtu.be)
Canada is great at high-speed rail studies — but not at actually building high-speed rail. So why is it the only country in the developed world considering a new conventional-speed passenger network?...
Millennials set to face most economic pain in months ahead, RBC says. Here’s why - National | Globalnews.ca (globalnews.ca)
Older millennials, adults aged 35 to 44, had debt-to-disposable income ratios around 250 per cent in 2019, while Freestone noted that metric was roughly 150 per cent for the same age group in 1999....
AI generated political ads should be illegal.
Until AI is allowed to vote perhaps they sit the fuck down.
Canada's housing affordability crisis requires wartime public effort: CUPE (cupe.ca)
Debt among Canadian millennials at record levels, while earnings haven’t kept up: RBC report (www.ctvnews.ca)
Canadian millennials are more likely to face the brunt of a wavering labour market as most face mounting debt with an income that fails to keep up with inflation, according to a report from RBC Economics....
Former Toronto mayors urge city staff to reconsider renaming Dundas Street (toronto.citynews.ca)
Three former Toronto mayors are expressing their opposition to changing the name of one of the city’s most well-known streets.
The kids are not all right: How young people are dealing with increasing climate anxiety (www.cbc.ca)
With climate concerns on the rise, experts warn existing mental health resources won’t be able to keep up. By Brishti Basu · CBC News
Canada likely sitting on the largest housing bubble of all time: Strategist - BNN Bloomberg (www.bnnbloomberg.ca)
Ontario housing minister’s chief of staff resigns following greenbelt controversy (www.cbc.ca)
She was hit by an e-scooter despite Toronto's ban. The city needs to step up regulation, she says (www.cbc.ca)
Group calls for Facebook, Instagram boycott on Aug. 23 and 24 (www.winnipegfreepress.com)
Non-Paywall Article
Every developer has opted to pay Montreal instead of building affordable housing, under new bylaw (www.cbc.ca)
Two years after Valérie Plante’s administration said a new housing bylaw would lead to the construction of 600 new social housing units per year, the city hasn’t seen a single one....
Dropping prices and heavy tax burden will mean cannabis industry bankruptcies, warns producer (www.cbc.ca)
With high taxes, a saturated market and few options, some of Canada's legal cannabis producers are struggling.
Early signs suggest fall COVID-19 wave starting in Canada — before updated boosters are available (www.cbc.ca)
Why gas prices are so high and what to expect in the fall (www.ctvnews.ca)
Gas prices are expected to reach an annual high this summer across Canada and into fall, with more than one factor causing the increase, experts say.
China snubs Canada as restrictions on tourism travel lifted (www.businesstimes.com.sg)
CHINA – a major source of outbound tourists – has left Canada off a list of countries now approved for travel by tour groups, its embassy in Ottawa said on Wednesday (Aug 16), due to anti-Beijing rattling by Ottawa....
Canada’s unfilled health-care jobs doubled since pandemic began: StatCan (globalnews.ca)
The report shows the number of unfilled health-care jobs in Canada reached an all-time high in 2022 and that staff are missing an extra week on average due to illness.
Canadians continue to be ‘Alberta bound’ by the tens of thousands (globalnews.ca)
Tens of thousands of Canadians were "Alberta bound" as they searched for a more affordable place to live amongst higher interest rates and home prices.
Why aren’t health warnings on cigarettes expanded to alcohol? (rabble.ca)
Downgrading the Ingredients in our Food Items: 'Skimpflation' Hits Grocery Stores in Canada [Op-Ed] (retail-insider.com)
Sylvain Charlebois discusses the subtle alteration in the nutritional composition of some products as manufacturing costs soar in the industry.
Long way home: Blamed for affordability crisis, Liberals look to pivot on housing (www.cp24.com)
“This has become probably the most important both economic and political problem facing the country right now,” said Tyler Meredith, a former head of economic strategy and planning for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland....
Canada wants to make homes affordable without crushing prices (www.bnnbloomberg.ca)
In a country with some of the world’s most expensive real estate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government wants housing to become more affordable.