There's a fantastic blog on Canadian real estate and investment at https://greaterfool.ca/ which covers a lot of these subjects.
But let's say that foreign investment is 20% of homes in Toronto. That means that 80% are owned domestically. For all those seven-figure sales, a Canadian goes to a Canadian bank, borrows Canadian money, hands it to another Canadian.
But let's say that foreign investment is 20% of homes in Toronto. That means that 80% are owned domestically. For all those seven-figure sales, a Canadian goes to a Canadian bank, borrows Canadian money, hands it to another Canadian.
It's no accident that some of the most expensive places to live in the world are commonwealth nations: England's London, Canada's Vancouver and Toronto, and Australia's Melbourne.
All three countries have faced a collapsing industrial base, and in the face of that, real estate was a quick and politically easy way for governments to keep people feeling rich despite not being rich.
In Canada in particular, I'm well acquainted with the tens of thousands of dollars in free money available to buy a house, and that's on top of artificially low interest rates propped up by the central bank (and one of the central bankers who led the charge into housing, Mark Carney, ended up as the head of the Bank of England, unsurprisingly). Political parties fell over themselves to come up with new ways to prop up the housing market. If I wanted to, I could go to the bank tomorrow, and borrow a million dollars to buy a house in Toronto (assuming I could buy a house for that little). That's absurd, I simply shouldn't be allowed to do that, but I am. People want to blame foreign investment, and that's certainly a small part of it, but access to unlimited credit has been the primary driver of real estate, and most purchasers of real estate are people living in those cities. In Vancouver, there's an absurdly high tax on buying places to live and not living in them, and I think in Toronto there's even a foreign investment ban, but there's still people buying houses for a million bucks.
The absurdly high house prices are basically the genesis many of the other parts of the high cost of living. People living in those areas need a lot more money to live because just renting an apartment is absurdly expensive.
This isn't because the conservatives spent a lot of time in power in Canada, at least. The liberals are known as "Canada's natural ruling party", and there are no term limits, so they were totally in control of the government from the late 90s through to the late 2000s, then eventually got power in 2015 and have formed the government ever since (meanwhile housing costs have done nothing but rise). For most of that time, the liberals were in charge of Ontario, and the liberals or NDP were in charge of BC.
As I recall, Melborne has incredibly beneficial tax incenentives for purchasing property which people take advantage of to purchase multiple properties.
As for the UK, I believe the biggest thing in London is it's a great place to launder your money, and real estate is one of the ways to do it. It's been a while, but I think that was the big thing.
A Canadian (Doctorow) claiming that high cost of living is because of the eeeeevil conservatives just doesn't track. I mean, they contributed, but it was a team effort.
Now, energy is another thing, and it's a lot simpler. It comes down to a few little things:
1. "green" policy that just means we "stop using fossil fuels" by transferring those activities to dictatorships that don't care about being green and only allow those dictatorships to drill for oil;
2. the covid lockdowns and the government response;
3. central bank money printing; and of course
4. shtickinittaputinbrah
So it's a complicated thing, but a lot of it starts with monetary and fiscal policy and banking regulations and taxation.
House prices are starting to drop now, and it appears to be happening exactly because interest rates are finally starting to rise in response to inflation. That should give a great clue as to where the solution will be.
All three countries have faced a collapsing industrial base, and in the face of that, real estate was a quick and politically easy way for governments to keep people feeling rich despite not being rich.
In Canada in particular, I'm well acquainted with the tens of thousands of dollars in free money available to buy a house, and that's on top of artificially low interest rates propped up by the central bank (and one of the central bankers who led the charge into housing, Mark Carney, ended up as the head of the Bank of England, unsurprisingly). Political parties fell over themselves to come up with new ways to prop up the housing market. If I wanted to, I could go to the bank tomorrow, and borrow a million dollars to buy a house in Toronto (assuming I could buy a house for that little). That's absurd, I simply shouldn't be allowed to do that, but I am. People want to blame foreign investment, and that's certainly a small part of it, but access to unlimited credit has been the primary driver of real estate, and most purchasers of real estate are people living in those cities. In Vancouver, there's an absurdly high tax on buying places to live and not living in them, and I think in Toronto there's even a foreign investment ban, but there's still people buying houses for a million bucks.
The absurdly high house prices are basically the genesis many of the other parts of the high cost of living. People living in those areas need a lot more money to live because just renting an apartment is absurdly expensive.
This isn't because the conservatives spent a lot of time in power in Canada, at least. The liberals are known as "Canada's natural ruling party", and there are no term limits, so they were totally in control of the government from the late 90s through to the late 2000s, then eventually got power in 2015 and have formed the government ever since (meanwhile housing costs have done nothing but rise). For most of that time, the liberals were in charge of Ontario, and the liberals or NDP were in charge of BC.
As I recall, Melborne has incredibly beneficial tax incenentives for purchasing property which people take advantage of to purchase multiple properties.
As for the UK, I believe the biggest thing in London is it's a great place to launder your money, and real estate is one of the ways to do it. It's been a while, but I think that was the big thing.
A Canadian (Doctorow) claiming that high cost of living is because of the eeeeevil conservatives just doesn't track. I mean, they contributed, but it was a team effort.
Now, energy is another thing, and it's a lot simpler. It comes down to a few little things:
1. "green" policy that just means we "stop using fossil fuels" by transferring those activities to dictatorships that don't care about being green and only allow those dictatorships to drill for oil;
2. the covid lockdowns and the government response;
3. central bank money printing; and of course
4. shtickinittaputinbrah
So it's a complicated thing, but a lot of it starts with monetary and fiscal policy and banking regulations and taxation.
House prices are starting to drop now, and it appears to be happening exactly because interest rates are finally starting to rise in response to inflation. That should give a great clue as to where the solution will be.
The key here is that if there's an honest truth to be told, represent it with the truth, not with cherry picked or out of context data.
It breaks good arguments.
It breaks good arguments.
It's great that you can get electricity cheap in what -- Norway? Sweden? But if you're not in Norway or Sweden and instead you're in Germany or Italy the fact that they drag the average down is cold comfort.
Sorta seems like cherry picking data. "Oh, look how bad england energy is!" Meanwhile German energy bills are up 20x...
Blaming capitalism for consequences of the largest worldwide government intervention in everything possibly ever seems disingenuous. If that is capitalist, I guess nothing isn't. We could nationalize every industry and when there are shortages, despite having no private ownership of capital we'll all just scream "damn you, capitalism!!!"
Blaming capitalism for consequences of the largest worldwide government intervention in everything possibly ever seems disingenuous. If that is capitalist, I guess nothing isn't. We could nationalize every industry and when there are shortages, despite having no private ownership of capital we'll all just scream "damn you, capitalism!!!"
It helped me, so I can't agree entirely.
I'm a driven professional, so I didn't date in high school or college because I was focused on my goals. I just didn't develop those skills, and it was really frustrating when I finally got on my feet and wanted to move on with the parts of my life requiring more soft skills. I found the materials by accident and they helped connect a lot of things I already knew and dispel things I was mistaken about in part because of mass media. It helped me to get out of my comfort zone, and one of the nights I went out I ended up on a path that would eventually lead to my marriage and my son.
The dehumanizing parts of the pick-up arts aren't about the women, they're about understanding that men have emotions and despite the act many men are fragile and terrified of rejection. Getting rejected by a woman is traumatic -- at one point in history in the 50 person society, it could mean the end of your life or the end of your bloodline, and yet to become any good with women you need to just get used to it. There needs to be some tools to deal with the fact that you're going to approach someone you think you'd really really like knowing that there's a massive chance you're going to screw it up and get rejected.
I can't disagree that there's a lot of people trying to get more money. Even when you watch the videos of the seminars, a lot of it is just shilling the next one. That's where you need to come in, take what you need, and get out. It may be a "community", but it's like water wings -- before too long you take them off because you've learned how to swim without them and they start holding you back.
One of the key things about the pick-up arts is that it isn't about "deserve". There are lots of deserving guys out there who don't get the girl and lots of undeserving guys out there who do. The difference is who knows how to be attractive and who doesn't. It's a tool, and the character of the use of the tool depends on the character of the person using the tool.
I'm a driven professional, so I didn't date in high school or college because I was focused on my goals. I just didn't develop those skills, and it was really frustrating when I finally got on my feet and wanted to move on with the parts of my life requiring more soft skills. I found the materials by accident and they helped connect a lot of things I already knew and dispel things I was mistaken about in part because of mass media. It helped me to get out of my comfort zone, and one of the nights I went out I ended up on a path that would eventually lead to my marriage and my son.
The dehumanizing parts of the pick-up arts aren't about the women, they're about understanding that men have emotions and despite the act many men are fragile and terrified of rejection. Getting rejected by a woman is traumatic -- at one point in history in the 50 person society, it could mean the end of your life or the end of your bloodline, and yet to become any good with women you need to just get used to it. There needs to be some tools to deal with the fact that you're going to approach someone you think you'd really really like knowing that there's a massive chance you're going to screw it up and get rejected.
I can't disagree that there's a lot of people trying to get more money. Even when you watch the videos of the seminars, a lot of it is just shilling the next one. That's where you need to come in, take what you need, and get out. It may be a "community", but it's like water wings -- before too long you take them off because you've learned how to swim without them and they start holding you back.
One of the key things about the pick-up arts is that it isn't about "deserve". There are lots of deserving guys out there who don't get the girl and lots of undeserving guys out there who do. The difference is who knows how to be attractive and who doesn't. It's a tool, and the character of the use of the tool depends on the character of the person using the tool.
Has not worked and will never work, you're not cutting off the fuel.
You're just selling kids into slavery so you don't have to pay for government services.
The only thing that would make that work is to abolish government debt.
You're just selling kids into slavery so you don't have to pay for government services.
The only thing that would make that work is to abolish government debt.
ngl, I'd be pretty contemptuous of any court that was considering the question of whether I should be charged with incorrect pronouns.
You won't be abolishing anything if you don't abolish anything. You'll just be racking up more debt faster.
Spending debt you intend to never pay back then pass down to your children is no different than slavery.
Spending debt you intend to never pay back then pass down to your children is no different than slavery.
That's where I see pick-up arts as a path away from becoming an incel. Yeah, you can look cringe while you're trying to hit on women unsuccessfully, but fundamental idea is that the reason you're not successful with women isn't that you just don't have a certain skill set rather than because there's something fundamentally unattractive about you that can't be solved because you are God's chosen failure.
"The future is infinitely diverse. Except of course for people being different. That is haram."
(Do Namekians have penises?)
(Wait... have I ever seen a female namekian?)
(Oh god. I don't like where this train of thought is going. I should go...)
(Wait... have I ever seen a female namekian?)
(Oh god. I don't like where this train of thought is going. I should go...)
I still like that they're acting as if stagflation isn't even an option, when we're already in it.
Economics isn't just the current economic system.
Economics has been described as the study of incentives, and how to manage scarce resources. People usually think of economics as directly relating to money, but money is not necessary for economics to exist. You could have a study of economics in situations that only include barter between physical objects or immediate services, or even the "clans or tribes of close-knit individuals living together".
Scarcity is the default in the world, so even among your kin you must choose how to manage scarce resources. You spend resources deciding how much effort to spend on supporting each of your kin, you have to decide how much risk to take in supporting your kin if they get into trouble, you have to decide who gets what accommodations or food. Taking one opportunity means another is no longer available, so which opportunities do you take and why? If someone is being imperfect, at what point is it time to start imparting disincentives and what magnitude of those disincentives should be? If you happen to have certain kin who are particularly strong, or smart, or talented, or attractive, how will you make use of them? They can only be in one place at one time. If you have certain people who are wise, how will their time be parceled out, since they can only be in one place at one time?
The questions don't go away because money goes away, or because modern systems of trade go away. They are fundamental questions that will decide whether a clan or tribe is successful or unsuccessful. Understanding these things is important whether we like it or not.
That doesn't mean we can't criticise anything coming out of economics, any particular conclusions or the specific systems our society has set up. It just means that we can't place the blame of our faulty systems entirely on the shoulders of economics, any more than we can blame chemistry for war because bombs and guns use chemical explosives, or we can blame language for hate because people use language to express their hateful ideas.
Economics has been described as the study of incentives, and how to manage scarce resources. People usually think of economics as directly relating to money, but money is not necessary for economics to exist. You could have a study of economics in situations that only include barter between physical objects or immediate services, or even the "clans or tribes of close-knit individuals living together".
Scarcity is the default in the world, so even among your kin you must choose how to manage scarce resources. You spend resources deciding how much effort to spend on supporting each of your kin, you have to decide how much risk to take in supporting your kin if they get into trouble, you have to decide who gets what accommodations or food. Taking one opportunity means another is no longer available, so which opportunities do you take and why? If someone is being imperfect, at what point is it time to start imparting disincentives and what magnitude of those disincentives should be? If you happen to have certain kin who are particularly strong, or smart, or talented, or attractive, how will you make use of them? They can only be in one place at one time. If you have certain people who are wise, how will their time be parceled out, since they can only be in one place at one time?
The questions don't go away because money goes away, or because modern systems of trade go away. They are fundamental questions that will decide whether a clan or tribe is successful or unsuccessful. Understanding these things is important whether we like it or not.
That doesn't mean we can't criticise anything coming out of economics, any particular conclusions or the specific systems our society has set up. It just means that we can't place the blame of our faulty systems entirely on the shoulders of economics, any more than we can blame chemistry for war because bombs and guns use chemical explosives, or we can blame language for hate because people use language to express their hateful ideas.