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PC LOAD LETTER posted:So you're saying I should've tacked ' funding their choice of researchers' on there too? That still doesn't let you handwave away the immense influence and power the banks have in govt. via lobbying and choosing which politician to back during primaries. I'm sorry but can we back away for just a second because I'm losing track, you're talking about the US right?
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Jan 2, 2015 13:20
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Mostly the US but I think the basic gist applies to Canada too. After all a housing bubble has been allowed to blow up there. That sort of thing doesn't happen when you've got competent politicians, bankers, and economists who are running things and interested in doing their job properly.
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Jan 2, 2015 14:45
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:Mostly the US but I think the basic gist applies to Canada too. After all a housing bubble has been allowed to blow up there. That sort of thing doesn't happen when you've got competent politicians, bankers, and economists who are running things and interested in doing their job properly. Here's the thing, the 2008 crash wasn't the result of negligence or incompetence. It was the inevitable conclusion of 3 straight decades of neo-liberal policy and Laissez-faire economics. This wasn't simply something ushered in by american lobbying, it was a global trend brought on by researchers and politicians forgetting the lessons of the great depression after the second saudi oil crisis. It happened everywhere, no matter how much or little influence the private sector had over the public sector.
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Jan 2, 2015 16:13
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Furnaceface posted:So Alberta will be Canada's own Philippines? bringing this back from a couple pages ago: I have quite a few bookmarks for farms from mls.ca in this area, where the amount of homes over $800k has increased 90% recently. Going through them today to keep the bookmarks current, about 80 of them from the Georgian Bay area are no longer listed. I can't imagine 80 properties have sold in December in that area, meaning the listing have expired. Newer listings are the same amount of land, similar houses, barn, outbuildings etc. for around $450k. I'd say the rural Ontario bubble is bursting. Finally. Sucks if you thought your hilly as gently caress 50 acres that you kept in canola for 20 years was gonna sell for over a mil and that was your retirement. Way better for any young people trying to get some land and use it. Hilariously, Chestnut park has 2 different listings for the same property in the area, except one listing is $300k lower. $1.2M vs. 950K (for 66 acres!  ) *sad trumpet sound*http://www.chestnutpark.com/properties/listing/20141674 http://www.chestnutpark.com/properties/listing/371430129 No interior pictures of the house or barn, obviously. peter banana fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 17:24
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:The banks successfully lobbied for much if not all of those incentives, policies, and often times their choice of regulators to run those institutions. Yeah, I saw Inside Job too. You're right, but this is still only part of the story, and IMO the most boring part anyway. For starters: in pluralist democracies, everyone is always lobbying voraciously and greedily for their own interests, banks included. If the National Flower-Growers Association somehow acquired the same clout as bankers, we'd be knee-deep in government-subsidized tulips in no time flat. But banks have clearly been more effective at lobbying than most other groups in recent times. Are they somehow greedier than everyone else and therefore lobby harder? No, of course not, clearly there's systemic reasons for why politicians listen to bankers and not to flower-growers. E.g. the dismantling of capital controls, and the rise of electronic finance, make it very easy for capital to seek out the laxest jurisdictions, so that any country whose politicians didn't listen to the bankers suffered real economic harm because of that refusal. Another question, which is IMO way more interesting, is why did the deregulation and globalization of finance lead to an American housing bubble, instead of a European equity bubble or something else? Hint: It has to do with China's current account deficit and the international role of the dollar. It's not that bankers aren't greedy, it's just that some posters fixate entirely too much on their greed. And then they ask themselves, "how could we prevent such a crisis from happening again?" And the only answer they can come up with is, "By preventing bankers from being greedy," and then they realize that's impossible and become nihilists filled with impotent rage.
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Jan 2, 2015 18:23
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Xoidanor posted:... Guy DeBorgore posted:You're right, but this is still only part of the story, and IMO the most boring part anyway....But banks have clearly been more effective at lobbying than most other groups in recent times. Are they somehow greedier than everyone else and therefore lobby harder?....Another question, which is IMO way more interesting...And the only answer they can come up with is, "By preventing bankers from being greedy," and then they realize that's impossible and become nihilists filled with impotent rage. That the banks' lobbying is most effective has to do more with 'return on investment' than their level of greediness or any possible negative economic impact from fleeing investors vs other lobbyists efforts. Its the difference between funneling tens or hundreds of millions of dollars your way + having increased influence over agriculture vs. funneling billions or tens of billions into your industry + having influence over the whole nations' economy. But there was a EU housing bubble, and bust. The outcome of which has been quite nasty for some EU client nations. Also China throwing money around the world markets isn't a good enough scapegoat by half to explain away either the GFC or the US/EU housing bubbles. No, that is a strawman you keep whacking away on which is quite insulting BTW. You'll never stop bankers or anyone from being greedy but you can regulate that greed quite well as was once done in the not so distant past. That they're angry about the greed is perfectly reasonable and something you should expect them to express but not focus on. PC LOAD LETTER fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 18:30
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:I don't think negligence or incompetence had too much to do with it. Not at the VIP level anyways. Neo-liberal/LF policies weren't being seriously pushed by European countries onto their own citizens 3 decades ago, that is a relatively new development. You realize 3 decades ago is 1985? Six years after the election of one Maggie Thatcher?
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Jan 2, 2015 18:33
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:I don't think negligence or incompetence had too much to do with it. Not at the VIP level anyways. Neo-liberal/LF policies weren't being seriously pushed by European countries onto their own citizens 3 decades ago, that is a relatively new development. Well, only if the UK doesn't count.
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Jan 2, 2015 18:33
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peter banana posted:bringing this back from a couple pages ago: Seriously, yes gently caress these hobby farming dickholes. The best way to show them is to never buy any apples, honey or other quadruple priced local hobby farm organic bullcrap. Walmart has a great selection of fruit, I can get engine oil at the same stop and the honey is full of surprises. Luckily for people like us who love the idea of broke hobby farmers, there are more old people retiring with less money (either selling their homes for less than they thought or staying in them because they can't bear selling so they stick with the high cost) and one of the first things people seem to budget out is expensive locally produced gourmet food items. I don't think the property values are going down because bubble though. The population is aging so more of these properties are on the market. Meanwhile, the good jobs migrating to the urban centers, nobody's going to buy that farm and commute to Collingwood to work the grain elevator. Nobody is going to buy that farm to make money because nobody has money. It's a bit of a gently caress you for young aspiring farmers; when people have money to spend on hobby farm crap, you can't afford to get in. When people stop buying that stuff, the farm prices crash and you're left wondering what to do next?
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Jan 2, 2015 18:36
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Just chiming in to say gently caress you to small butcher shops with locally sourced beef. I made a delicious standing rib roast over the holidays from a hipster butcher shop called Harkness near main St. I paid $100 for 5.5 lbs. It was tasty but not loving 200% more tasty. gently caress small businesses and gently caress these tiny farms.
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Jan 2, 2015 18:46
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Ikantski posted:Seriously, yes gently caress these hobby farming dickholes. The best way to show them is to never buy any apples, honey or other quadruple priced local hobby farm organic bullcrap. Walmart has a great selection of fruit, I can get engine oil at the same stop and the honey is full of surprises. Well, I'm trying to break into organic farming, so I wouldn't say gently caress them just yet. All organic farming is not necessarily all hobby farming. But yes, it annoys me that older farmers bemoan the fact that they have no successors when they got dairy quota for free and are selling their land for $1M, their equipment for another mil and their quota for yet another mil. it's as silly as Boomers crowing about how entitled Millenials are as they slash corporate payroll. It's a complicated issue, because not even the people who sell to Wal-Mart can make a profit without being propped up by subsides and quote restrictions against their smaller competitors. It's not as simple as "gently caress you farmer's markets." Cultural Imperial posted:Just chiming in to say gently caress you to small butcher shops with locally sourced beef. I made a delicious standing rib roast over the holidays from a hipster butcher shop called Harkness near main St. I paid $100 for 5.5 lbs. It was tasty but not loving 200% more tasty. gently caress small businesses and gently caress these tiny farms. Isn't this your fault for buying it, though? No one had a gun to your head. Sorry, but that really is how much it costs to produce beef at a small scale and make enough profit to continue the operation. Larger producers are subsidized by the government, so you're paying them anyway. Seriously guys, if young people don't start getting into farming, we're all hosed. However, our supply management system only skews towards larger producers. Since we're discussing banking, what's that about "Too Big to Fail" and if corporate consolidation continues to an unsustainable level it brings the whole system down. That's just about devastating enough when it's peoples' 401k's which get wiped out but if it's a significant amount of the food supply...well..that's when the riots start. peter banana fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 19:02
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It absolutely is my fault. Never again. And if it's this guys business model to rip people off, well don't expect me to every support small scale farming
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Jan 2, 2015 19:04
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Cultural Imperial posted:It absolutely is my fault. Never again. And if it's this guys business model to rip people off, well don't expect me to every support small scale farming What makes you think it's a rip off?
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Jan 2, 2015 19:10
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My favourite food critic, the guardian's jay Rayner wrote a book about how small scale farming is dumb. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTG-Ufc4Xm4#t=105
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Jan 2, 2015 19:12
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Brannock posted:What makes you think it's a rip off? I paid twice as much for it for a roast of the same quality from Costco.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:13
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Guy DeBorgore posted:You realize 3 decades ago is 1985? Six years after the election of one Maggie Thatcher? computer parts posted:Well, only if the UK doesn't count.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:18
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the meat from costco is produced by farms whose competitors have been run out of business by unrealistic production quotas and those farms are subsidized by the government, so you pay through your taxes. Some of Jay Rayner's criticisms are valid, some are not. I love bananas, but really, if I move to Georgian Bay I shouldn't be eating them. And to be fair, even Rayner himself has admitted in that video that people living rurally should grow their own and support locally and urban centers have diminishing returns, so again, not quite as simple as "gently caress hippies gently caress organic."
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Jan 2, 2015 19:19
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:OK but the UK is just one out of many European countries right? Russia and much of Eastern Europe also went through massive privatization when the USSR collapsed about 25 years ago. peter banana posted:the meat from costco is produced by farms whose competitors have been run out of business by unrealistic production quotas and those farms are subsidized by the government, so you pay through your taxes. Isn't that how people should pay for services?
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Jan 2, 2015 19:20
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yup, and the programs should be equally offered, if not more effective for smaller producers or they shouldn't exist at all. That's how competition increases in the market, instead of prices being kept artificially high through government collusion. CI gets a cheaper locally sourced cut at the butcher shop and a small farmer gets to be profitable and redistribute those resources into his local economy. Everyone wins!
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Jan 2, 2015 19:24
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peter banana posted:yup, and the programs should be equally offered, if not more effective for smaller producers or they shouldn't exist at all. That's how competition increases in the market, instead of prices being kept artificially high through government collusion. CI gets a cheaper locally sourced cut at the butcher shop and a small farmer gets to be profitable and redistribute those resources into his local economy. Everyone wins! How exactly are they being subsidized? It sounds like a lot of it is just economies of scale and any subsidies (if they were smart) would also only really work out if you had a large scale operation.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:29
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computer parts posted:Russia and much of Eastern Europe also went through massive privatization when the USSR collapsed about 25 years ago.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:31
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:OK but the UK is just one out of many European countries right? Sweden started massively re-organizing national policy on wages, currency, privatization and taxation at the same time in the name making our export industry more "competitive".
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Jan 2, 2015 19:32
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I think you're naive if you think this whole 'artisanal' 'locavore' movement is not all about ripping people off, which is a shame because I'm no completely agnostic to the benefits of proper farming/crop rotation etc. And I think I've made it clear in the canpol thread how much I hate industrial farm subsidies.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:33
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peter banana posted:Well, I'm trying to break into organic farming, so I wouldn't say gently caress them just yet. All organic farming is not necessarily all hobby farming. But yes, it annoys me that older farmers bemoan the fact that they have no successors when they got dairy quota for free and are selling their land for $1M, their equipment for another mil and their quota for yet another mil. it's as silly as Boomers crowing about how entitled Millenials are as they slash corporate payroll. Sorry, I was being a bit facetious to point out the silliness of cheering on the rapidly falling values of hobby farms while hoping to get into the same industry yourself. You want to buy into a luxury product production business at the beginning of a recession and are happy the buy-in prices are falling but I believe it's because nobody who has already made money and values it wants to buy in, not because of a housing bubble mostly concentrated in urban centers.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:37
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An even bigger scam is the whole "organic" certification itself. It's so expensive and full of bullshit that even some farmers who do farm organically and use other good farming techniques don't get the certification because they can't afford it. Meanwhile, industrial organic farms generally produce the same lovely-tasting produce as every other large-scale farm, only using more resources in the process.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:39
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:Russia and its ComBlock client states are special situation both in the 80's and 90's as you're well aware though. I didn't mention I'd exclude them because I didn't think anyone would consider them along with the rest of western Europe but I did say Europe so fair enough. If you're limiting to just Western Europe the UK makes up a fairly large chunk of the population. I think the other thing is that the (US friendly) Democratic Socialism model wasn't really that common in the first place. I mean hell, large parts of Western Europe (Iberia) were under fascist dictatorships until the mid 70s.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:42
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Just had a good chat with my friend. She's moving to Edmonton for a boy, who is moving to Edmonton for his military job. We've talked about how ridiculously pampered the military is re: housing but it really sounds worse than I thought. She even said she was disgusted at what our taxes are spending on making sure military employees can buy, and how unfair it is that there's zero handouts to people choosing to rent. So this dude lost like 60k selling his Victoria condo, but the military actually paid him back a big percentage of that loss. He's a really nice guy but his 2nd passion in life is realestate and if he wasn't military he'd be a realtor or "investor". He says educating him self on and keeping up in the news on housing is his main passion, but all his research has led him to want to buy buy buy and build equity and rent out houses. But even he's getting cold feet about buying in Edmonton right now. Even he thinks maybe just maybe now isn't the best time to buy in alberta. But on the other hand renting is throwing away your money and rents in Edmonton are pretty high vs buying so he'll probably do it anyways, but only because of the insane handouts he'll get from the military and the security knowing that even if the market shits its pants the military will pay back most of his losses.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:09
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computer parts posted:How exactly are they being subsidized? You are right that it's economies of scale, that is a huge factor. However, farming is inherently labour and capital intensive. It's not the tech start-up where you can generate some code and sell for millions because a few guys pulled some all nighters. It's getting to that large scale that's the problem. Small scale and organic famrers have to be a lot more innovative and creative than their larger counterparts. People who had modestly success farms and didn't sell to larger producers now have no one to inherit the farm, because their kids don't want it. So they think they can sell it to some city slickers for a few mil and everything will be fine. These people don't actually care about the future of how we're going to feed everyone. it's just about maiking a quick buck. I just ended up on the wrong side of it and I'm pissed. However, there are 2 main ways larger producers are systemically favoured (let's just ignore that we're in a housing bubble making smaller farm purchases out of the question for people wanting to break into farm with little start up capital) The first way is through straight up subsidies: For mainly the egg, dairy and poultry industries in Canada (not an exhaustive lists, beef is also subsidized) subsidies are an average of 14% of receipts. That's typically twice the amount of profit. It's $8B annually fro the federal and provincial governments and 70% of these programs goes into risk management programs, which subsidizes the losses of these farms and is used for farmer income. The problem with these programs is that they are based on expenditure. Essentially, you pay the money build your new dairy parlor, feed lot or whatever and the government will pay you back. Well, you typically can't apply with debt (ie. take out a line of credit to build the structure) so you need the capital...somehow. And the the government pays you back. The capital you already spent. From that same article, a farm needs to generate at leats $250,000 annually in order to be profitable. However 50% of farms in Canada make less than $100k annually. Meaning the majority of farmers have an off-farm job. Which means there returns are lower, so they have to up hours in their off farm income which means...you get the idea. The second way the agri-indutry favours large producers in through our supply management system. Initially created in the 70's to help spread risk across producers, it now basically blocks out smaller producers and increases systemic failure risk to the large unwieldy agribusiness sector (sort of like how securitization of financial tools was invented to spread risk and ended up being used to compound it, and ultimately crashing). The supply management system means that farmers have to commit to producing a certain amount ever year. If you want to sell your dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey or beef (those are the ones in Ontario and BC afaik) anywhere other than your "farm gate" (literally on your farm, on your concessions road a million miles from nowhere) you have to buy quota form the provincial government. I know for dairy in Ontario the quote is usually around $25,000 per dairy cow, which will produce about 10,000L per year (30L per day). However, to make your dairy farm sustainable, you'll need about 50-100 cows at $25000 a piece and if you want to produce value added products with your dairy, you need additional quota. It's not uncommon for a farmer with and average herd, maybe 70 cows to pay $1-2M every year for quota. That's why most people don't start diary farms, if you run a dairy farm, it's probably because you inherited it (you can bequeath quota unmolested). MacLeans has a great article about it here: http://www.macleans.ca/general/the-25000-cow/. More about supply management here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_management_(Canada) My numbers are good estimates. The provinces change the exact prices every year. Look, business consolidation is not necessarily a bad thing and it's a fact of life. But it's the same thing that happens with every industry. Bigger players try to box smaller ones out and acquire people who are willing to sell. It's up to you if you don't have a problem with a few large companies, who could fail like any other company, owning a large amount of the domestic food supply, then that's up to you. Personally, I do, because I think that's too much responsibility to have. It's asking these companies to behave more responsibly than any companies ever have before.20% of farms generate most of the countries agriculture products in Canada . If it was my investment portfolio, for example, where 20% of the securities were generating most of the value, that wouldn't sit right with me. Most urban centers only store a few days of food supply. But at the same time, the local food movement has to make sense. Rayner's criticisms that it doesn't work well for England is valid in some cases, but Ontario is Ontario and we used to produce more grain that Saskatchewan and we have a lot more land. 1/3 of Canada's Grade A farmland can be seen from the top of the CN Tower (covered in suburbs now, but anyway...). However, rural Ontario really has gone to poo poo in my lifetime, and I doubt it will come back anytime soon. I don't necessarily have all of the answers. I just know I don't want to work some poo poo job for someone else, I want to grow my own food and move towards some measure of self-sufficiency. A lot of hard work and research has gone into making that happen. It's absolutely a lifestyle choice, but I'm also very passionate about agriculture. I'm sure people could poke holes in the challenges of organic farming, but really, if older farmers keep dying off with no one to succeed them, and no younger people are interested we will have an ag system which resembles the US banking system of 2008.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:15
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computer parts posted:If you're limiting to just Western Europe the UK makes up a fairly large chunk of the population. I think the other thing is that the (US friendly) Democratic Socialism model wasn't really that common in the first place. I mean hell, large parts of Western Europe (Iberia) were under fascist dictatorships until the mid 70s.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:28
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:This comes off as an attempt at shifting goal posts to me. If it was a large majority of the population of Europe of the time period mentioned it'd be a different story though. The original post was about the world, not just (apparently Western?) Europe.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:32
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Ikantski posted:Sorry, I was being a bit facetious to point out the silliness of cheering on the rapidly falling values of hobby farms while hoping to get into the same industry yourself. You want to buy into a luxury product production business at the beginning of a recession and are happy the buy-in prices are falling but I believe it's because nobody who has already made money and values it wants to buy in, not because of a housing bubble mostly concentrated in urban centers. I didn't get that you were being facetious because a large part of the SA hivemind, especially in DnD thinks "gently caress small scale and organic farmers" non-facetiously. Check the Monsanto thread. Look, is 66 acres in the Georgian triangle worth $1M? No. No, it is not. The problem is the housing market everywhere has become so decoupled from "worth" and more to "here's what people will pay for it." Sellers seem to adhere to this, without realizing it can go the other way too.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:54
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peter banana posted:I didn't get that you were being facetious because a large part of the SA hivemind, especially in DnD thinks "gently caress small scale and organic farmers" non-facetiously. Check the Monsanto thread. Youre right in that a lot of those large acreage plots are up for sale at high prices because thats what big suburb developers are willing to pay for the land. Just look at all the farm land around Orillia and Collingwood that was sold and converted into something other than farming. Which brings me to another hilarious point about living in this area, all of that development in the last decade has been for detached and semi-detached housing. Affordable housing and rental building has slowed to almost 0 growth. I can see 3 condo complexes being built from my house, and if I drive out of the city in any direction its suburbs being built as far as the eye can see. Clearly a development plan that wont backfire! 
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Jan 2, 2015 21:25
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Small scale farms are a good thing. To say, "gently caress them", just because the eventual cost of their product is higher at the check-out show an embarrassing amount of selfishness and ignorance. In many regions these small-scale producers form a part of co-ops that allow them to compete with industrial-scale producers. The only thing letting them survive are protective tariffs or favorable regulation. Sure we could chase short-term decreases in prices by breaking apart co-ops like the sask wheat board but it's not a good long-term idea. If neo-liberal policies and stagnant wages continue as a result we'll be a country with massive farming potential with zero farms importing all our staples from China. You can't rage against Canada's poor GDP diversity on one hand and then rail against small-scale producers on the other. Do you really think it would help Canada if some giant agro conglomerate bought out the best farms, layed off 75% of the labor in favor of automation and shipped profits down south to the states? Farming is already dying and once that knowledge base is gone it's dead - look at Zimbabwe. cowofwar fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 21:29
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Furnaceface posted:Youre right in that a lot of those large acreage plots are up for sale at high prices because thats what big suburb developers are willing to pay for the land. Just look at all the farm land around Orillia and Collingwood that was sold and converted into something other than farming. It's true that the large acreages near main highways or on the sprawl ends of towns are worth that amount. But so many of these listings were on a concession road or a country road in the middle of nowhere, which no developer really wants unless they're going to build one of those ungodly "outlet malls." It's lovely that people thought their rural house was going to be their nest egg, but it's pretty irresponsible as well. Equally as irresponsible as the people who have suburban homes who think they'll retire by selling it and putting nothing else aside. The thing is, older rural people put their farm up to be listed every spring. If they get a sniff that's enough they'll sell, but most of the time the listing comes down at the end of the selling season. If we raise enough capital by the end of summer 2015 we'll be ready to buy then and I'm so interested to see what land prices do, especially if raising interests rates has a chilling effect on the housing market in general.
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Jan 2, 2015 21:55
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peter banana posted:I didn't get that you were being facetious because a large part of the SA hivemind, especially in DnD thinks "gently caress small scale and organic farmers" non-facetiously. Check the Monsanto thread. Yeah, I went over the top a bit. I'm a beekeeper and maple syrup producer, both really easy to do on a small scale and fun. Real estate has always been "worth" the amount "people will pay for it", I can't even imagine how it would work otherwise. You'd have to sell for whatever MPAC assesses you and there's just a lottery if there's more than one buyer? People will pay more now because interest rates are low. They're dumb and just look at the monthly payment instead of the whole amount. Or they're geniuses who know that rates will stay low for a long time. 3% with a 800k mortage is the same monthly payment as 5% on a 650k mortgage, you're not saving that much money if that farm comes down another 20% because interest rates go up. 66 bare acres in Thornbury is not worth 1M. It's not bare though, there is a 2200 sqft house, two enormous 6-figure outbuildings and mature, disease resistant fruit trees. Maybe it comes with sorting, mowing, plowing equipment, maybe even a tractor? You're not buying just a residence, you're buying a business with the bonus of being homeless if it doesn't work out. I would want to get a list of assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses and growth. Furnaceface posted:Youre right in that a lot of those large acreage plots are up for sale at high prices because thats what big suburb developers are willing to pay for the land. Just look at all the farm land around Orillia and Collingwood that was sold and converted into something other than farming. Barrie is awesome, you are fortunate to live in such a prosperous city. I bet you could find someone in Thunder Bay to trade places with you and then you'd never have to suffer the horrors of living in a city with positive growth.
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Jan 2, 2015 22:33
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Ikantski posted:Barrie is awesome, you are fortunate to live in such a prosperous city. I bet you could find someone in Thunder Bay to trade places with you and then you'd never have to suffer the horrors of living in a city with positive growth. Prosperous? Over 50% of the residents have to commute to another city just to make ends meet, and those stuck working here live with the daily risk of falling into poverty. There is a huge demand for affordable housing and rental properties that the city refuses to acknowledge, instead subsidizing the construction of 3 giant condo towers along the lake front and an art center no on will visit. There is a large, growing homeless population that is putting a strain on local food banks and has few places to go (when they arent being put on buses and shipped to other cities). City resources and infrastructure are already stretched paper thin and the costs for upgrading cant be met because our council is so loving daft at managing the population we already have. If this is positive growth and prosperity then loving sign me up for Thunder Bay. Or Iceland. This city is a giant mess of failures that are eventually all going to go off, I just hope for the sake of people living here its not all at the same time. I unironically love the area, and its a shame the city has been so poorly managed and planned the last 25 or so years because it could, and should, be a great place to live. Instead we have a city trying so hard to be Toronto without any of the underlying support that makes Toronto actually loving work as a densely populated city.
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Jan 2, 2015 23:11
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cowofwar posted:Small scale farms are a good thing. To say, "gently caress them", just because the eventual cost of their product is higher at the check-out show an embarrassing amount of selfishness and ignorance. In many regions these small-scale producers form a part of co-ops that allow them to compete with industrial-scale producers. The only thing letting them survive are protective tariffs or favorable regulation. Sure we could chase short-term decreases in prices by breaking apart co-ops like the sask wheat board but it's not a good long-term idea. If neo-liberal policies and stagnant wages continue as a result we'll be a country with massive farming potential with zero farms importing all our staples from China. I don't see you motherfuckers buying my company's products. I work in high tech and I have a STEM degree which cost a lot of money and I had to work really hard for it. Where are the fruits of my labour? You people are immoral assholes and you hate Canada because you're buying products made in other countries and not mine. My wage is stagnating because I didn't get my 5 figure bonus because not enough of you people bought my company's products. You neo liberals are preventing me from buying a home in Vancouver. I deserve a house in Vancouver and you people are standing in the way of my goals. Sure, my company's products are more expensive and they suck but that's irrelevant because I'm a socialist. If more Canadians bought lovely half baked food apps made in Vancouver, we would all have more wealth and live in Kits.
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Jan 2, 2015 23:31
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Cultural Imperial posted:I don't see you motherfuckers buying my company's products. I work in high tech and I have a STEM degree which cost a lot of money and I had to work really hard for it. Where are the fruits of my labour? You people are immoral assholes and you hate Canada because you're buying products made in other countries and not mine. My wage is stagnating because I didn't get my 5 figure bonus because not enough of you people bought my company's products. You neo liberals are preventing me from buying a home in Vancouver. I deserve a house in Vancouver and you people are standing in the way of my goals. Sure, my company's products are more expensive and they suck but that's irrelevant because I'm a socialist. If more Canadians bought lovely half baked food apps made in Vancouver, we would all have more wealth and live in Kits.
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Jan 3, 2015 00:18
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Furnaceface posted:when they arent being put on buses and shipped to other cities). Haha is this an actual thing? I always heard that about Calgary solving its homeless problem every winter by just giving them all bus tickets to Vancouver but I thought it was just a Ralph Klein joke.
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Jan 3, 2015 00:28
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