Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/inheritance-tension-why-more-families-may-be-headed-for-court-1.2840370

fuuuuuuucking looool

canadians asking for advances on their inheritance lmao

loving scum

Canadians are basically a real life version of the prodigal son story from the bible.

# ? Nov 23, 2014 17:26

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# ? May 19, 2024 21:07

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

etalian posted:

Canadians are basically a real life version of the prodigal son story from the bible.

The Bible posted:

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won�t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?

Luke 14:28

# ? Nov 23, 2014 17:29

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Have you guys seen this analysis of house prices across the developed world since ~1870?

http://www.voxeu.org/article/home-prices-1870

Real house prices in 14 first world economies.

The argument is that things happening in individual countries and the policies of individual governments, central banks, lenders, house builders, or consumers aren't really relevant to the global phenomenon. Instead, the authors suggest that:

quote:

Our results have potentially important implications for the much-debated long-run trends in the distributions of income and wealth (Piketty and Zucman 2014).1 We offer a lens for reinterpreting Ricardo�s famous principle of scarcity. Ricardo (1817) argued that in the long run, economic growth disproportionally profits landlords as the owners of the fixed factor. Since land is highly unequally distributed across the population, market economies produce ever-rising levels of inequality.

Writing in the 19th century, Ricardo was mainly concerned with the price of agricultural land, and reasoned that as population growth pushes up the price of corn, the land rent and the land price would continuously increase. In the 21st century, we may be more concerned with the price of housing services and residential land, but the mechanism is similar. The decline in transport costs kept the price of residential land constant until the mid-20th century. The price surge in the past half-century could be an indication that Ricardo might have been right after all.

Their paper's available here if you're interested: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2512724

# ? Nov 23, 2014 17:35

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/inheritance-tension-why-more-families-may-be-headed-for-court-1.2840370

fuuuuuuucking looool

canadians asking for advances on their inheritance lmao

loving scum

What the hell would make any person think it's acceptable or a good idea to ask for an advance on one's inheritance? Does that come from beating your kid too much, or not enough, or what?

# ? Nov 23, 2014 17:43

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

LemonDrizzle posted:

wisdom and science

Knoll, Schularick and Steger posted:

We also find considerably cross-country heterogeneity. While
Australia has seen the strongest, Germany has seen the weakest increase in real house prices in
the long-run.

I can totally dig this. Germany has the most awesome fuckin rural commuter rail system I've ever seen anywhere.

e: Rather than pump subsidies into FIRE to boost Canada's GDP, wouldn't it have been awesome if Canada's Greatest Finance Minister Jim Flaherty had the vision to pump money into improving transport projects? Can you imagine if Vancouver had a couple lines of commuter rail into the fraser valley built between 2008 and now?

namaste friends fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Nov 23, 2014

# ? Nov 23, 2014 17:53

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

https://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/661...l#axzz3Jucehz5C

quote:

Why a house-price bubble means trouble

A housing boom is the economic equivalent of a tapeworm infection

Buying a house is not just a big deal, it�s the biggest. Marriage and children may bring more happiness � or misery, if you�re unlucky � but few of us will ever sign a bigger cheque than the one that buys that big pile of bricks, mortar and dry rot.
It would be nice to report that buyers and sellers are paragons of rationality, and the housing market itself a well-oiled machine that makes a sterling contribution to the working of the broader economy. None of that is true. House buyers are delusional, the housing market is broken and a housing boom is the economic equivalent of a tapeworm infection.
As a sample of the madness, consider the popular concept of �affordability�. This idea is pushed by the UK�s Financial Conduct Authority and seems simple common sense: affordability asks whether potential buyers have enough income to meet their mortgage repayments. That question is reasonable, of course � but it is only a first step, because it ignores inflation.

To see the problem, contrast today�s low-inflation economies with the high inflation of the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, paying off your mortgage was a sprint: a few years during which prices and wages were increasing in double digits, while you struggled with mortgage rates of 10 per cent and more. After five years of that, inflation had eroded the value of the debt and mortgage repayments shrank dramatically in real terms.
Today, a mortgage is a marathon. Interest rates are low, so repayments seem affordable. Yet with inflation low and wages stagnant, they�ll never become more affordable. Low inflation means that a 30-year mortgage really is a 30-year mortgage rather than five years of hell followed by an extended payment holiday. The previous generation�s rules of thumb no longer apply.

Because you are a sophisticated reader of the Financial Times you have, no doubt, figured all this out for yourself. Most house buyers have not. Nor are they being warned. I checked a couple of the most prominent online �affordability� calculators. Inflation simply wasn�t mentioned, even though in the long run it will affect affordability more than anything else.

This isn�t the only behavioural oddity when it comes to housing markets. Another problem is what psychologists call �loss aversion� � a disproportionate anxiety about losing money relative to an arbitrary baseline. I�ve written before about a study of the Boston housing crash two decades ago, conducted by David Genesove and Christopher Mayer. They found that people who bought early and saw prices rise and then fall were realistic in the price they demanded when selling up. People who had bought late and risked losing money tended to make aggressive price demands and failed to find buyers. Rather than feeling they had lost the game, they preferred not to play at all.

The housing market also interacts with the wider economy in strange ways. A study by Indraneel Chakraborty, Itay Goldstein and Andrew MacKinlay concludes that booming housing markets attract bankers like jam attracts flies, sucking money away from commercial and industrial loans. Why back a company when you can lend somebody half a million to buy a house that is rapidly appreciating in value? Housing booms therefore mean less investment by companies.
. . .

House prices have even driven the most famous economic finding of recent years: Thomas Piketty�s conclusion (in joint work with Gabriel Zucman) that �capital is back� in developed economies. Piketty and Zucman have found that relative to income, the total value of capital such as farmland, factories, office buildings and housing is returning to the dizzy levels of the late 19th century.

But as Piketty and Zucman point out, this trend is almost entirely thanks to a boom in the price of houses. Much depends, then, on whether the boom in house prices is a sentiment-driven bubble or reflects some real shift in value. One way to shed light on this question is to ask whether rents in developed countries have boomed in the same way as prices. They haven�t: research by Etienne Wasmer and three of his colleagues at Sciences Po shows that if we measure the value of houses using rents, there�s no boom in the capital stock.

The housing market then, is prone to bubbles and bouts of greed and denial, is shaped by financial rules of thumb that no longer apply, and sucks the life out of the economy. It even muddies the waters of the great economic debate of our time, about the economic significance of capital.

One final question, then: is it all a bubble? That is too deep a question for me but there is an intriguing new study by three German economists, Katharina Knoll, Moritz Schularick and Thomas Steger. They have constructed house-price indices over 14 developed economies since 1870. The pattern is striking: about 50 years ago, real prices started to climb inexorably and at an increasing rate. If this is a bubble, it�s been inflating for two generations.

At least dinner-party guests across London will continue to have something to bore each other about. Not that anybody will be able to afford a dining room.

Tim Harford�s latest book is �The Undercover Economist Strikes Back�. Twitter: @TimHarford

namaste friends fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Nov 23, 2014

# ? Nov 23, 2014 18:07

Guest2553: Aug 3, 2012

How to buy a home with your friends

Nothing I can really add that isn't already disdainfully implied.

# ? Nov 23, 2014 18:10

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

quote:

When Georgie Aitken and Magda Dominik�s son, Walker, was born in September 2013, they dreamed of having a backyard and more space for him to play in. The 36-year-old leadership consultants were renting the third floor of a 110-year-old house in Vancouver for $1,700 a month.

what the gently caress is a leadership consultant

quote:

A partnership or joint venture agreement should cover who pays for the purchase and maintenance of the house as well as how the property will be divided if the friends/family decide to separate or if one person dies.

�If one wants to sell and the other doesn�t then [it might say] we�ll do an appraisal, you�ll buy me out at fair market value. If the house is worth $300,000 and my share is 50%, then buy me out at $150,000. If you don�t want to buy me out at $150,000 then we must sell,� Mr. Weisleder says. �Or let�s say you�ve agreed to 50% of all of the expenses. Let�s say one of you loses your job � now what? One thing you could put in the agreement is that one person owes the other person interest on the money. There are some agreements that have penalty clauses: �If you don�t put up your share and I have to pay then I get to buy you out at 80% of fair market value.��

It blows my mind that it isn't obvious to these loving idiots that this sort of arrangement is risky as hell.

namaste friends fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Nov 23, 2014

# ? Nov 23, 2014 18:12

Guest2553: Aug 3, 2012

Clearly, analytical minds are not required for those positions.

# ? Nov 23, 2014 18:15

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

Cultural Imperial posted:

I can totally dig this. Germany has the most awesome fuckin rural commuter rail system I've ever seen anywhere.

e: Rather than pump subsidies into FIRE to boost Canada's GDP, wouldn't it have been awesome if Canada's Greatest Finance Minister Jim Flaherty had the vision to pump money into improving transport projects? Can you imagine if Vancouver had a couple lines of commuter rail into the fraser valley built between 2008 and now?

Vancouver used to have a highly robust commuter rail system all the way out to Chilliwack. In fact, the first electrical projects in the lower mainland were constructed to power the BCER, rather than household gadgets.

And then the age of the car arrived.

The rail lines are still sitting there, rusting away. The communities centers have drifted in the past century though, and are no longer very close to where the stations originally were.

# ? Nov 23, 2014 18:36

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Guest2553 posted:

How to buy a home with your friends

Nothing I can really add that isn't already disdainfully implied.

Yeah the whole mortgage concept seems like a classic case of "What could go wrong?"

# ? Nov 23, 2014 18:44

cowofwar: Jul 30, 2002; by Athanatos

Rime posted:

Vancouver used to have a highly robust commuter rail system all the way out to Chilliwack. In fact, the first electrical projects in the lower mainland were constructed to power the BCER, rather than household gadgets.

And then the age of the car arrived.

The rail lines are still sitting there, rusting away. The communities centers have drifted in the past century though, and are no longer very close to where the stations originally were.

My favorite part about BC is that when the sea to sky highway got too busy and dangerous due to people driving from vancouver to whistler, their solution was to drop billions on a better road rather than to improve the rail service. That line is perfect for rail since everyone starts and ends at the same place and just leaves their car unused for a week. In fact they cancelled the commuter rail service since they couldn't make it work due to issues with the railway not wanting to give track time to non freight.

# ? Nov 23, 2014 19:41

melon cat: Jan 21, 2010; Nap Ghost

Ceciltron posted:

After six years, you're still paying down a car that has lost almost all its value and thanks to planned obsolescence, no longer has warranties and is increasingly unreliable. What the christ.

Why stop there? Many people using their credit lines to buy a new car, then pay interest-only for several years. So not only are they paying down a car that has lost its value, but in many cases they're paying down a car that they no longer own! :downs:

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/inheritance-tension-why-more-families-may-be-headed-for-court-1.2840370

fuuuuuuucking looool

canadians asking for advances on their inheritance lmao

loving scum

How the heck do you even bring up a conversation like that? Do they just preface the discussion with, "Mom, why can't you and dad just hurry up and die?"

melon cat fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Nov 23, 2014

# ? Nov 23, 2014 19:52

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

melon cat posted:

How the heck do you even bring up a conversation like that? Do they just ask their parents, "Mom, why can't you and dad just hurry up and die?"

Maybe the goal is to make your parents realize they did such a piss poor job raising you that they off themselves immediately and you get the inheritance. I can only speculate.

# ? Nov 23, 2014 20:11

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

melon cat posted:

How the heck do you even bring up a conversation like that? Do they just preface the discussion with, "Mom, why can't you and dad just hurry up and die?"

You say that like canadians (especially vancouverites) are incapable of being uncouth spendthrift shitheads.

# ? Nov 23, 2014 20:59

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

cowofwar posted:

My favorite part about BC is that when the sea to sky highway got too busy and dangerous due to people driving from vancouver to whistler, their solution was to drop billions on a better road rather than to improve the rail service. That line is perfect for rail since everyone starts and ends at the same place and just leaves their car unused for a week. In fact they cancelled the commuter rail service since they couldn't make it work due to issues with the railway not wanting to give track time to non freight.

That branch is really weird. While I've encountered freight sitting on the line while exploring out by Seton Portage, I've never actually seen a train moving between Pemberton and Vancouver. I thought that after the BCR scandal they just up and abandoned the line. :shrug:

# ? Nov 23, 2014 21:29

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

Rime posted:

That branch is really weird. While I've encountered freight sitting on the line while exploring out by Seton Portage, I've never actually seen a train moving between Pemberton and Vancouver. I thought that after the BCR scandal they just up and abandoned the line.

There's a passenger train, I think the Rocky Mountaineer, that passes through once a week or so. I thought it was unused for ages until I saw it go past once at Function and then I've seen it a couple times and a few freight trains but that's it.

When you look at the demographic of people going to Whistler at peak times most likely to get into an accident (generally people with second homes going up for the weekend on Friday afternoon and coming back Sunday afternoon), those people are never going to take a train up to Whistler anyway. Improving the highway was likely the safer choice overall. As good as an option as public transit is, when people won't use it, letting them die on the highway is still not the better option.

# ? Nov 23, 2014 22:10

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

LemonDrizzle posted:

Have you guys seen this analysis of house prices across the developed world since ~1870?

http://www.voxeu.org/article/home-prices-1870

Real house prices in 14 first world economies.

The argument is that things happening in individual countries and the policies of individual governments, central banks, lenders, house builders, or consumers aren't really relevant to the global phenomenon. Instead, the authors suggest that:

Their paper's available here if you're interested: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2512724

So maybe Shiller was wrong about real estate being flat over time after inflation?

# ? Nov 24, 2014 00:37

Buskas: Aug 31, 2004; ?

HookShot posted:

There's a passenger train, I think the Rocky Mountaineer, that passes through once a week or so. I thought it was unused for ages until I saw it go past once at Function and then I've seen it a couple times and a few freight trains but that's it.

When you look at the demographic of people going to Whistler at peak times most likely to get into an accident (generally people with second homes going up for the weekend on Friday afternoon and coming back Sunday afternoon), those people are never going to take a train up to Whistler anyway. Improving the highway was likely the safer choice overall. As good as an option as public transit is, when people won't use it, letting them die on the highway is still not the better option.

I agree the sea to sky needed the upgrades but it's loving insane that it's not a toll road. gently caress rich Vancouverites.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 02:07

Buskas: Aug 31, 2004; ?

LemonDrizzle posted:

Have you guys seen this analysis of house prices across the developed world since ~1870
Real house prices in 14 first world economies.

The argument is that things happening in individual countries and the policies of individual governments, central banks, lenders, house builders, or consumers aren't really relevant to the global phenomenon. Instead, the authors suggest that:

Their paper's available here if you're interested: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2512724

I'm certainly open to theories behind meaningful and sustained real price growth, but lol if anyone thinks that spike in the last few years is not primarily due to cheap credit.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 02:11

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Buskas posted:

I'm certainly open to theories behind meaningful and sustained real price growth, but lol if anyone thinks that spike in the last few years is not primarily due to cheap credit.

In the case of Canada and Australia it's obviously not due to having a god tier economy to justify such big home price increases.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 02:42

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

Buskas posted:

I agree the sea to sky needed the upgrades but it's loving insane that it's not a toll road. gently caress rich Vancouverites.

Yeah screw those of us that live here and occasionally need to get to the city, too.

Toll roads in principle are completely hosed. Raise taxes if you want to build roads (or better yet, raise taxes and improve public transit), making roads inaccessible to the poor is a hosed, hosed idea.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 02:50

Buskas: Aug 31, 2004; ?

HookShot posted:

Yeah screw those of us that live here and occasionally need to get to the city, too.

Toll roads in principle are completely hosed. Raise taxes if you want to build roads (or better yet, raise taxes and improve public transit), making roads inaccessible to the poor is a hosed, hosed idea.

Anyone poor enough to be affected by a $5 fee sure as hell isn't traveling to Whistler on any sort of regular basis. And yes, you should pay more for living in a remote mountain paradise, the same way Vancouver Islanders pay for the ferries.

Till roads in general are an excellent source of fair taxation assuming you tax highway/bridge A as well as highway/bridge B, which of course we don't in the lower mainland so the worse-off commuters pay for the bridges they drive across in order to do their jobs, but the rich have their weekend getaway access subsidized by everyone else.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 03:33

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

I'm all for ripping up #1 past Hope if it means all the white trash from the rest of BC get into Vancouver.

I've got a great idea for a false flag operation where someone lights up a pile of korans in williams lake.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 03:35

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

Buskas posted:

Anyone poor enough to be affected by a $5 fee sure as hell isn't traveling to Whistler on any sort of regular basis. And yes, you should pay more for living in a remote mountain paradise, the same way Vancouver Islanders pay for the ferries.

Till roads in general are an excellent source of fair taxation assuming you tax highway/bridge A as well as highway/bridge B, which of course we don't in the lower mainland so the worse-off commuters pay for the bridges they drive across in order to do their jobs, but the rich have their weekend getaway access subsidized by everyone else.

Nope, sorry, there's plenty of free things to do in the Whistler area (hiking, etc) that poor people might want to partake in, and a $5 fee would stop them from doing it. Tolling roads is a completely hosed concept. Sure, $5 here and there might not affect you that much, but there are plenty of people for whom that is a hardship, who will not go to places they otherwise would (or have to take a longer, free route), and quite frankly, the idea that people may not be able to travel somewhere because they cannot afford to pay to use the ROAD is ridiculous. Everyone should have equal access to all roads, and that means keeping them all free.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 03:40

Precambrian Video Games: Aug 19, 2002

HookShot posted:

There's a passenger train, I think the Rocky Mountaineer, that passes through once a week or so. I thought it was unused for ages until I saw it go past once at Function and then I've seen it a couple times and a few freight trains but that's it.

There was a pretty intense ad campaign for the Rocky Mountaineer here in Ontario around a year ago.

HookShot posted:

Nope, sorry, there's plenty of free things to do in the Whistler area (hiking, etc) that poor people might want to partake in, and a $5 fee would stop them from doing it. Tolling roads is a completely hosed concept. Sure, $5 here and there might not affect you that much, but there are plenty of people for whom that is a hardship, who will not go to places they otherwise would (or have to take a longer, free route), and quite frankly, the idea that people may not be able to travel somewhere because they cannot afford to pay to use the ROAD is ridiculous. Everyone should have equal access to all roads, and that means keeping them all free.

... what is this nonsense? How many people can afford to pay for a car, insurance and gas to drive 50-100 km but not for a $5 toll?

Tolls are a perfectly sensible idea, both as a user fee and as a way to curb otherwise insatiable demand for more roads.

Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Nov 24, 2014

# ? Nov 24, 2014 03:41

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

etalian posted:

So maybe Shiller was wrong about real estate being flat over time after inflation?

The graphs in the full paper support his argument in the case of the US, but not in the global case. It's also important to note that he doesn't say they're flat even in the US - he found long term real capital growth of a bit below 1% per annum since WWII.

Real US house prices, 1890-2012:

Buskas posted:

I'm certainly open to theories behind meaningful and sustained real price growth, but lol if anyone thinks that spike in the last few years is not primarily due to cheap credit.

My reading of their argument is that the global credit boom is just exacerbating a pre-existing trend - it's taking us someplace we were already going, just getting us there more quickly and perhaps making the ride a lot more bumpy.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 03:45

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

HookShot posted:

Nope, sorry, there's plenty of free things to do in the Whistler area (hiking, etc) that poor people might want to partake in, and a $5 fee would stop them from doing it. Tolling roads is a completely hosed concept. Sure, $5 here and there might not affect you that much, but there are plenty of people for whom that is a hardship, who will not go to places they otherwise would (or have to take a longer, free route), and quite frankly, the idea that people may not be able to travel somewhere because they cannot afford to pay to use the ROAD is ridiculous. Everyone should have equal access to all roads, and that means keeping them all free.

That's a very strange argument. Should air travel be free because I want to go places on airplanes? Why are roads special? It should be illegal to implement a toll on roads where that road is the only means of access to somewhere, but I don't have a problem with tolls in general.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 03:59

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

I loving NEED ORGANIC ARTISANAL POTATOES FROM PEMBERTON YOU SELFISH FUCKS

# ? Nov 24, 2014 04:04

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

HookShot posted:

Nope, sorry, there's plenty of free things to do in the Whistler area (hiking, etc) that poor people might want to partake in, and a $5 fee would stop them from doing it. Tolling roads is a completely hosed concept. Sure, $5 here and there might not affect you that much, but there are plenty of people for whom that is a hardship, who will not go to places they otherwise would (or have to take a longer, free route), and quite frankly, the idea that people may not be able to travel somewhere because they cannot afford to pay to use the ROAD is ridiculous. Everyone should have equal access to all roads, and that means keeping them all free.

I take umbrage with the bolded part. Now, when I was growing up the Coquihalla still had tolls on it, so whenever we came to the coast we added nearly an extra 8 hours driving by going through Cache Creek and down the canyon, instead, the few times we came down to visit family. This was loving stupid. Sure, mom (and all her friends who did the same) "saved" the $10 on the toll. And they pissed four times as much $$$ out the tailpipe on the extra fuel caused by doubling the trip length.

So in the case of a hypothetical toll on the Sea to Sky, where some dirt-poor idiot decides to take the back way up the Fraser and over the Duffy to have some weekend skiing (and I hope there is nobody in BC that stupid), the route wouldn't be free. They'd just be demonstrating the incredibly piss-poor fiscal sense that we harp on about constantly in this thread.

The sense of entitlement that adults in this nation have towards their unlimited free use of the road is abominably infuriating.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 04:37

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Rime posted:

The sense of entitlement that adults in this nation have towards their unlimited free use of the road is abominably infuriating.

I think the way to look at it is like going to an all-inclusive resort or on a cruise or whatever. You get most of it for your basic price (vehicle registration), but the nice, upgraded roads are the equivalent of the good booze and special food: it costs extra, so whip out the ol' Visa card.

It's my fondest wish that Deerfoot Trail becomes a toll road, because then the traffic might not be utterly loving infuriatingly bad all the goddamn time. Can't afford to drive on it? Take the bus. Same thing with the whiny bastards who moan about the price of parking constantly.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 04:45

Lexicon: Jul 29, 2003; I had a beer with Stephen Harper once and now I like him.

HookShot posted:

Yeah screw those of us that live here and occasionally need to get to the city, too.

Toll roads in principle are completely hosed. Raise taxes if you want to build roads (or better yet, raise taxes and improve public transit), making roads inaccessible to the poor is a hosed, hosed idea.

When you drive, you impose a cost on others not only in terms of emissions, but also in congestion and marginal wear and tear on roads. This cost is not currently paid.

It is eminently sensible to attempt to recoup this cost, and the suggestion that all are entitled to free rein on all roads is absurd.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 05:04

Lead out in cuffs: Sep 18, 2012; "That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."

HookShot posted:

Nope, sorry, there's plenty of free things to do in the Whistler area (hiking, etc) that poor people might want to partake in, and a $5 fee would stop them from doing it. Tolling roads is a completely hosed concept. Sure, $5 here and there might not affect you that much, but there are plenty of people for whom that is a hardship, who will not go to places they otherwise would (or have to take a longer, free route), and quite frankly, the idea that people may not be able to travel somewhere because they cannot afford to pay to use the ROAD is ridiculous. Everyone should have equal access to all roads, and that means keeping them all free.

Nah, sorry. Let's say they're poor and driving an old car they've paid off, so their only costs are maintenance, insurance, license and gas. They are still paying around 20c/km to operate the car, so the 260km round trip to Whistler is costing them $52. A $5 toll fee is not going to change whether or not they can afford that.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 05:10

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

What parallel universe has poor people instead of rich yuppies going to Whistler?

# ? Nov 24, 2014 05:18

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

probably referring to the people that work there, but that's just a guess, and in any case gently caress yeah: toll roads

# ? Nov 24, 2014 05:20

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

etalian posted:

What parallel universe has poor people instead of rich yuppies going to Whistler?

Underemployed people who place a higher priority on their extracurricular activities over their careers. How dare you question whether we should be subsidizing their lifestyle choices.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 05:39

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

I'm not JUST referring to a toll road between Vancouver and Whistler, quite frankly it wouldn't affect me that much. I'm talking about toll roads ANYWHERE. Sure, there's no way to pay for the emissions people are paying. Include it in insurance, add a tax, whatever. But if you seriously think toll roads are a good idea you are literally stopping people from travelling freely based on their financial status in a lot of cases. Look at the Port Mann. Because someone can't pay the $2.30 each way every day, they should have a commute that's what, an hour longer, by getting to the city another way? And either way, sure, what if 99% of the people going to Whistler can easily afford the toll? The 1% that can't shouldn't be denied going somewhere they want to go on a public road because they can't afford to pay the extra.

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Nah, sorry. Let's say they're poor and driving an old car they've paid off, so their only costs are maintenance, insurance, license and gas. They are still paying around 20c/km to operate the car, so the 260km round trip to Whistler is costing them $52. A $5 toll fee is not going to change whether or not they can afford that.

Yeah, people aren't the best at including wear and tear and stuff, they're a lot better at just calculating the cost of gas and deciding that's all they've paid.

Lexicon posted:

When you drive, you impose a cost on others not only in terms of emissions, but also in congestion and marginal wear and tear on roads. This cost is not currently paid.

It is eminently sensible to attempt to recoup this cost, and the suggestion that all are entitled to free rein on all roads is absurd.

Yes, there has to be another way to recoup that cost. An emissions tax added to insurance based on the car's emissions, for example. I'd like to see those huge F-350s pay more than say, my Prius or a Corolla or something.

But yes, all people are entitled to free rein on all roads, when it comes to access. Everyone pays taxes (or are exempted from paying them by the government), so everyone should have access to the roads paid for by taxes. I have absolutely no problem with that, and I don't think people who haven't got the money to pay extra on top of that should have to either not make a trip or take a different route because they can't afford it.

Rime posted:

I take umbrage with the bolded part. Now, when I was growing up the Coquihalla still had tolls on it, so whenever we came to the coast we added nearly an extra 8 hours driving by going through Cache Creek and down the canyon, instead, the few times we came down to visit family. This was loving stupid. Sure, mom (and all her friends who did the same) "saved" the $10 on the toll. And they pissed four times as much $$$ out the tailpipe on the extra fuel caused by doubling the trip length.

So in the case of a hypothetical toll on the Sea to Sky, where some dirt-poor idiot decides to take the back way up the Fraser and over the Duffy to have some weekend skiing (and I hope there is nobody in BC that stupid), the route wouldn't be free. They'd just be demonstrating the incredibly piss-poor fiscal sense that we harp on about constantly in this thread.

The sense of entitlement that adults in this nation have towards their unlimited free use of the road is abominably infuriating.

Yeah, that is just monumentally stupid. And the dumbest thing is, the people who do this are often the ones for whom that extra money they wasted on gas could have used it the most.

I will give this to the Coquihalla though: they said the toll would be there for 20 years, and when that came up they took it away. I could have sworn they would keep it forever.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 05:43

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

Cultural Imperial posted:

Underemployed people who place a higher priority on their extracurricular activities over their careers. How dare you question whether we should be subsidizing their lifestyle choices.

Haha yeah, how dare people go and have fun ever when they could be spending 100% of their time trying to get a job that doesn't exist? gently caress the unemployed, they can have fun when they're perfectly productive members of society, I guess?

# ? Nov 24, 2014 05:45

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

HookShot posted:

Haha yeah, how dare people go and have fun ever when they could be spending 100% of their time trying to get a job that doesn't exist? gently caress the unemployed, they can have fun when they're perfectly productive members of society, I guess?

Hey look guys we got a real keynesian believer here how cute

:okpos:

# ? Nov 24, 2014 05:53

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# ? May 19, 2024 21:07

Lexicon: Jul 29, 2003; I had a beer with Stephen Harper once and now I like him.

HookShot posted:

Yes, there has to be another way to recoup that cost. An emissions tax added to insurance based on the car's emissions, for example. I'd like to see those huge F-350s pay more than say, my Prius or a Corolla or something.

But yes, all people are entitled to free rein on all roads, when it comes to access. Everyone pays taxes (or are exempted from paying them by the government), so everyone should have access to the roads paid for by taxes. I have absolutely no problem with that, and I don't think people who haven't got the money to pay extra on top of that should have to either not make a trip or take a different route because they can't afford it.

You still haven't addressed congestion. That's the primary reason why road pricing is a good idea. I wouldn't be so vehemently in favour of it if Vancouver and most other North American cities of decent size had such a huge problem with miserable congestion.

# ? Nov 24, 2014 05:54

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

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