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.

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

Most of the positions outlined in that link are contemptuous of unions anyway. It's weird but even in my mind I find it super difficult to justify an "engineer's union" or an "Accountants Union".

Some of you have outlined more overt ways in which employers exploit their employees (contract work etc). In my experience the exploitation is often a lot more subtle and institutionalized. Your boss will never explicitly tell you to stay longer and do work. The main reason a lot of people stay at the office for a long period of time is because you get a task to do at the last minute 5 o clock and it must be completed by tomorrow morning OR ELSE. Management kind of separates themselves from the equation. Your sense of work related responsibility forces you to stay.

Imagine for a second if I had to paint your deck with waterproofing sealant. Your incentive to stop working at 5 oclock and leave a half painted deck before a rainstorm kinda tugs at your sense of responsibility as well as your ability to deliver on a commitment to the customer.

We've departed from regular working hours because most organizations are now very much customer service oriented to the point where you sacrifice everything to please them. Some of my coworkers have to take conference calls at 9pm to talk to customers in China. Other times someone gets called in the middle of Sunday morning because production urgently requires an engineering document to trigger a physical change in the line. Are you supposed to say "Sorry it's Sunday that's not my problem"?

The unpaid overtime nonsense tugs at your very conscience when a lot of people are depending on YOU to get something done ASAP at the 11th hour. It becomes hard to think about your OT pay or lost vacation time in light of all that.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 01:00

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 24, 2024 01:38

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

Yeah that sums up my wife's job to a tee. They are under staffed and have a massive ever-increasing back log of angry clients. They never demand people do overtime (it's paid) but there are constant subtle pushes to do overtime every day, to come in on the weekends, to "learn to cope". They are sat down and shown time-wasting inspirational videos, VP's from back east flown in to give motivational talks. But what it all boils down to is management saying your work load is 100% your responsibility and if you aren't coping with it it's your problem, maybe you're not working hard enough? Maybe you need to work smarter? Except that's not the problem, it's an impossible amount of work to get done in a normal day. That plus tons of instances of getting a call at 4:55 that ends up taking a hour. And there's of course no solidarity among workers, people who refuse to over-work them selves and go home at the times they were hired to do so are looked down on as everyone else thinks that shifts more work onto them. People brag about how low their back-log is.

But I tell my wife all the time, it's not your pile of poo poo, it's the company's poo poo. They hired you to shovel poo poo, you can only shovel so much poo poo a day, any extra is down to bad management and under-staffing. You don't need to feel any guilt, it's not your problem, it's not your team's problem, it's not your entire department's problem.

Her previous job was union, but their Vancouver office was constantly coming in to work UNPAID on weekends to "help the backlog" because management knew how to so perfectly manipulate them and keep them in this constant stage of protestant work ethic guilt or what ever. Massive backlog of work? Can't possibly be because of a greedy and lovely management class, it's down to us workers, so let's dig in and take one for the team! How was this rewarded? They closed down the office because corporate hated the few union offices they ended up with after a merger, all the jobs shifted to non-union offices elsewhere. Apparently a bunch of the workers blamed each other for the shut down, saying they should have disbanded the union or worked harder.

Modern management doesn't need to crack the whip, they've trained the working class to self-flagellate.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 02:18

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Baronjutter posted:

Modern management doesn't need to crack the whip, they've trained the working class to self-flagellate.

also managers believe if they can't get workers to unpaid OT, then the managers don't have "real" leadership skills.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 02:21

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

quote:

Irish Fighting Bankers Show It�s Not Just Greeks Protesting Debt

(Bloomberg) -- Byron Jenkins says he would rather destroy his home than hand it over to the banks.
The former builder owes about 750,000 euros ($860,000) on his house in a Co. Kildare town about 40 miles west of Dublin. After 15 court appearances, he�s still fending off repossession.
�All they�ll get back is a pile of bricks,� Jenkins said. �I�ve told them that.�
Banks lodged 10,000 applications to foreclose on family homes in the year through September, a legal rights group said last month, four times as many as in the previous year. The legacy of western Europe�s worst real estate crash is entering a new phase, bringing with it a very Irish version of the backlash against the establishment sweeping Europe.
As Greeks turned to Alexis Tsipras to reverse five years of austerity, and anti-immigrant parties gain ground in countries like France and Sweden, in Ireland, homeowners are increasingly organizing resistance.
Jenkins is part of a group of activists allied to the Land League, named after a 19th century organization that battled with landlords when Ireland was ruled from London. In the 21st century, the fight is against bankers.
�We have been creating mayhem, if by mayhem you mean keeping people in their homes,� said Jerry Beades, a developer who has spent almost a decade in disputes with banks and financial regulators and is now leading the League. �We are reflecting the anger that�s out there about the level of debt that just can�t be serviced.�
Growing Threat
About 117,000 home-mortgage accounts are in arrears, according to central bank figures, and the Free Legal Advice Centres group said last month that a �substantial spike� in repossessions may be on the way. Increasing foreclosures may help damp house price increases over the coming two years, Goodbody Stockbrokers said in a report on Friday.
�Ireland remains one of the most highly indebted countries in the euro area, with a household debt level equivalent to 190 percent of disposable income,� Dermot O�Leary and Juliet Tennent, economists at Goodbody, said in a report today. �The vast majority of this debt is mortgages.
With an election due next year, the issue is starting to gain political traction, with Prime Minister Enda Kenny this week urging bankers to do more to address arrears. Homeowners who are behind in their repayments for more than two years amount to about a third of all accounts in arrears.
Snowy Morning
Resistance was evident on a snow-dusted January morning, as a group of anti-repossession campaigners sat around a blazing fire in a small house on the outskirts of Kells, a town 30 miles northeast of Dublin.
Over 72 hours, about 60 people helped to ward off the threat of repossession of the property, home to a couple with a 10-year-old daughter, according to a bearded man who came to the door to discuss the action. He declined to identify himself.
Days later and about 25 miles away, the Land League hosted a meeting to start up in the northeast of the country as it scrambles groups of activists to homes under threat.
��There�s an alert system: You send a text, and 50 of our people show up,�� Beades said. ��Our slogan is that we�ll be there faster than an ambulance.��
Historical Resonance
The Land League�s name has historical resonance in Ireland. In the late-1800s, the organization sought to stop small farmers being evicted in stand-offs that often turned violent, and later helped fuel the movement for independence from Britain.
Ireland won that autonomy in 1922 and its history has been defined by the struggle for land.
��Irish culture is opposed to evictions and repossessions for good historical reasons, and that will not change,�� said Brian Lucey, a finance professor at Trinity College Dublin. ��Culture will always trump strategy.��
Exposing Industry
The League is one of a loosely-aligned group of organizations aiming to halt evictions. Bryon Jenkins operates the Hub, close to the city�s fruit market, in a space provided by Beades, according to the former builder.
The 55-year old, who took out his home loan with General Electric Co. before it sold its Irish mortgage business in 2012, set up the organization to offer guidance to people in financial distress. The group is also critical of the industry that has grown up around the mortgage crisis.
��Let people know how these guys are making their money,�� said Mattie McGrath, an independent member of the Irish parliament involved with the Land League. ��It�s an underbelly that shouldn�t be tolerated in a modern democracy. Let them beware that they�ll be exposed. We�d be usurping the name of the Land League if we didn�t stand up and defend our people.�
Days before Christmas, police and security guards stopped about 60 Land League activists from reaching the home of an accountant in an affluent south Dublin suburb. The group wanted to present the man, who it said worked for banks, with a wreath commemorating the suicides of people weighed down by debt.
Hedge Funds
Dublin-based security firm KTech also took legal action against activists who visited the home of a director to hand over a wreath because they said the company was involved in evictions. KTech declined to comment.
Activists also disrupted real estate auctions, prompting some auctioneers to agree not to sell real estate that was the subject of a dispute between banks and borrowers. Beades said his next target may be the hedge funds and private-equity firms that snapped up Irish mortgages after the crash.
Investors such as Apollo Global Management LLC, Lone Star Funds and Oaktree Capital Group LLC have bought mainly non-performing Irish loans in the past months.
�From what we hear, they have a problem,� Beades said. �They can�t get sheriffs to repossess properties and they can�t get auctioneers to sell them. If we can�t reach agreement, then we intend to take on these hedge funds. We�ll visit their offices, we�ll stop repossessions.�

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-06/hedge-funds-next-target-irish-land-league-fighting-reposs

# ? Feb 7, 2015 02:48

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

I've always said the nicest people in Europe are the Irish and the Germans. Burn that poo poo down before the bankers get it

# ? Feb 7, 2015 02:56

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

it is very unfair to hold people to the terms of agreements they signed when the credit boom was in full flow

why are the mean banks taking my house when all i did was borrow ten times my income to buy a ridiculous mcmansion while working in a job that was completely dependent on the continuation of a massive bubble????

# ? Feb 7, 2015 02:57

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

LemonDrizzle posted:

it is very unfair to hold people to the terms of agreements they signed when the credit boom was in full flow

why are the mean banks taking my house when all i did was borrow ten times my income to buy a ridiculous mcmansion while working in a job that was completely dependent on the continuation of a massive bubble????

Post/avatar combo

# ? Feb 7, 2015 02:59

Jan: Feb 27, 2008; The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.

LemonDrizzle posted:

it is very unfair to hold people to the terms of agreements they signed when the credit boom was in full flow

why are the mean banks taking my house when all i did was borrow ten times my income to buy a ridiculous mcmansion while working in a job that was completely dependent on the continuation of a massive bubble????

They're probably protesting because the bubble was caused by banks to begin with.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 03:02

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Jan posted:

They're probably protesting because the bubble was caused by banks to begin with.

Banks can't create a thing without people who are willing to borrow beyond their means to bid up prices and speculate. Those speculators and overbidders then get wiped out when the bubble bursts.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 03:09

cowofwar: Jul 30, 2002; by Athanatos

LemonDrizzle posted:

it is very unfair to hold people to the terms of agreements they signed when the credit boom was in full flow

why are the mean banks taking my house when all i did was borrow ten times my income to buy a ridiculous mcmansion while working in a job that was completely dependent on the continuation of a massive bubble????

Because it's the banks' fault? Banks making people loans isn't the same as a friend loaning another friend money.

LemonDrizzle posted:

Banks can't create a thing without people who are willing to borrow beyond their means to bid up prices and speculate. Those speculators and overbidders then get wiped out when the bubble bursts.

That's the banks' problem. They are responsible for verifying the ability of the borrower to repay the loan and are responsible for being aware of the monetary environment. They have many loan officers and actuaries for whom that is their job.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 03:21

sitchensis: Mar 4, 2009

LemonDrizzle posted:

Banks can't create a thing without people who are willing to borrow beyond their means to bid up prices and speculate. Those speculators and overbidders then get wiped out when the bubble bursts.

It's almost as if you need some kind of large entity with the power to look at both groups and regulate their behavior!

# ? Feb 7, 2015 03:22

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Cultural Imperial posted:

I've always said the nicest people in Europe are the Irish and the Germans. Burn that poo poo down before the bankers get it

authentic irish pubs own too.

cowofwar posted:

That's the banks' problem. They are responsible for verifying the ability of the borrower to repay the loan and are responsible for being aware of the monetary environment. They have many loan officers and actuaries for whom that is their job.

The whole banking industry is greedy, basically due to moral hazard and how mortgages are very profitable during a bubble, banks have lots of incentive to throw all underwriting out the door.

etalian fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Feb 7, 2015

# ? Feb 7, 2015 03:54

ductonius: Apr 9, 2007; I heard there's a cream for that...

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://imgur.com/Q21X8U1

loving lol. gently caress prince George

Well, gently caress me, now we're agreeing on something.

ductonius fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Feb 7, 2015

# ? Feb 7, 2015 04:55

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

quote:

'Spinster cottages' in Longford can't be sold despite lack of eligible women, judge rules

A Tasmanian Supreme Court judge has rejected a proposal to sell off seven heritage-style cottages that were built to accommodate spinsters in the state's northern midlands.

Sarah Louise Noake died in 1910, leaving instructions for cottages to be built on her land at Longford, which were then to be rented out to "spinsters in poor circumstances".

Her will stated that if such spinsters could not be found, the cottages could be rented out generally, with the income to go to the Queen Victoria Hospital for Women in Launceston.

The term "spinster" generally refers to a woman who is unmarried past child-bearing age.

In 2013, Tasmanian Perpetual Trustees Limited applied to the Supreme Court to vary Miss Noakes' trust, saying its original purposes had become impossible to carry out.

The trustees argued that real estate agents were finding it increasingly difficult to find spinsters to rent the seven cottages to.

In today's society, there would be far fewer women who would identify as spinsters.
Helen Wood, Tasmanian Supreme Court judge
Tasmanian Perpetual Trustees' Phillip Wheeldon said that difficulty was further exacerbated by the cottages' location in Longford, which had a limited population of spinsters.

Further, the Queen Victoria Hospital closed in 1995, and was incorporated into the Launceston General Hospital as the Queen Victoria Maternity Unit.

Tasmanian Perpetual Trustees' applied for approval to sell the property, so the proceeds could be invested in a share portfolio to benefit that maternity unit.

Scheme to donate money to maternity unit, cottages can't be sold

In her judgement, Supreme Court Judge Helen Wood said she would not allow the cottages to be sold as it would violate the spirit of Miss Noake's will.

But she ruled the trustee would be able to distribute income to the Queen Victoria Maternity Unit.

Justice Wood said she was proceeding on the factual basis that spinsters in poor circumstances were not seeking to rent the cottages.

"It is unsurprising that, due to historical reasons, there is reduced demand for spinsters," she said.

"In today's society, there would be far fewer women who would identify as spinsters.

"The term lacks currency and is not consonant with community attitudes."

But Justice Wood said while the term had fallen out of usage, that did not mean there was not a category of women who qualified as spinsters in poor circumstances.

Justice Wood found a share portfolio would sever any possibility of any assistance to spinsters in the future, and that was not in accordance with Miss Noake's will.

She also noted the proposed scheme would spell an end to the Noake family legacy in the Longford area.

But Justice Wood found that because the Queen Victoria Hospital for Women in Launceston no longer existed, the trustee had not been able to distribute surplus income as directed under the will.

She said she was satisfied that a limited variation to the trust should be approved, so that surplus rental income could now be directed to the Queen Victoria Maternity Unit at the LGH, rather than the now non-existent Queen Victoria Hospital for Women.

Justice Wood did not approve the other aspects of the proposed scheme.

"The circumstances do not justify the wholesale scheme proposed ... the difficulty with spinsters not renting cottages is provided for in the terms of the gift and could not amount to impossibility or impracticability in carrying out the original purpose," she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-07/court-rejects-proposal-to-sell-spinsters-cottages/6077596

# ? Feb 7, 2015 05:03

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

Literally a cougar den :agesilaus:

# ? Feb 7, 2015 05:13

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/b...?service=mobile

quote:

Clark warns mayors will have to raise property taxes if No vote prevails
m.theglobeandmail.comView OriginalFebruary 6th, 2015
B.C. Premier Christy Clark says Lower Mainland mayors will have to raise property taxes as a Plan B if voters reject a proposed sales tax to pay for new transit in this year�s plebiscite.

On Friday, Ms. Clark speculated that the property-tax option would be necessary if the No side prevailed in the mail-in vote, which would derail a proposal for a 0.5-per-cent sales tax to help fund $7.5-billion in regional transit improvements over the next decade.

The vote is being held between March 16 and May 29.

�Plan B is to go back to the old way we used to do things, which is TransLink mayors not able to make a decision around what vision they agree with, not able to make a decision about where they want to get the money,� Ms. Clark told reporters during a Surrey news conference on another issue. Surrey is slated to get new light-rail lines if the plebiscite passes.

�If they decide they do want to build transit without a Yes vote in this referendum, mayors will have to fall back, I guess, on the existing funding mechanism they have.

�They have always had the ability to raise money for transit through increasing property taxes and I suppose that would be one of the options available to them if the referendum fails.�

But Ms. Clark said she is optimistic about a Yes win, citing the detailed new transit services mayors are proposing if they secure the new tax revenue. It includes a new east-west Vancouver subway, light rail in Surrey and a new Pattullo Bridge.

The Premier also said mayors are campaigning �with passion� to win public support for the Metro Vancouver Congestion Improvement Tax.

�I have no doubt that mayors like [Surrey�s] Linda Hepner are going to be passionate and make sure they�re heard.�

And Ms. Clark said she would offer her support.

�As a voter, I am going to vote Yes in the referendum.�

Although Ms. Clark represents a Kelowna-area riding, her office noted that she has residences in both the Okanagan city as well as Vancouver.

Asked for comment, the Mayors� Council on Regional Transportation, representing Lower Mainland municipalities, said in a Friday statement that the funding model now before voters is the �most affordable way� to fund growing transportation and transit needs. �[It�s] a funding mechanism that is fair for all residents and businesses.�

The mayors also said they were �pleased� to hear Ms. Clark would be voting Yes.

The comments came the day after the Better Transit and Transportation Coalition, representing more than 90 organizations, including business groups, postsecondary student institutions, environmentalists and labour, kicked off their campaign to get a Yes vote with a boisterous rally in Vancouver.

Lower Mainland mayors and others are now at the forefront of the plebiscite debate, but the whole exercise came about because of Ms. Clark.

As the Liberals faced apparent long odds to win the May, 2013, provincial election, Ms. Clark promised that voters would get to approve any new transit funding sources in the Lower Mainland.

looooooool

increase property taxes in vancouver looooooooooooool

# ? Feb 7, 2015 06:45

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

# ? Feb 7, 2015 08:50

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

Reverse Centaur posted:

Someone on reddit posted this. It's a pretty typical thing to get in your mail every month in Vancouver

And the follow up

# ? Feb 7, 2015 10:41

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/b...?service=mobile

looooooool

increase property taxes in vancouver looooooooooooool

If they actually did this and still did all the transit improvements I'd vote no. Property tax makes much more sense than sales tax. And I am dumb enough to own a condo.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 10:43

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

sitchensis posted:

It's almost as if you need some kind of large entity with the power to look at both groups and regulate their behavior!

Yes, that'd be ideal. Ireland didn't have one of those, though, so it has a bunch of people who took out unrepayable mortgages and are now facing repossession. That's a good thing because it means the losses on those dumb loans are split between the two groups that created the problem in the first place: the banks (which have to hurriedly sell off the repossessed houses, pushing prices back to their correct level) and the overborrowers, who lose their speculative bets. What people ITT seem to be proposing is that the bank should take all of the loss and the overborrower none, which has two consequences. First, the property never gets dumped onto the market so prices don't correct properly. Result: Irish house prices remain well above historical norms (and above UK prices relative to incomes) six years after the crash. Second, Ireland's banks all effectively folded and got quasi-nationalized, with their bad mortgage loans being dumped onto a state-owned body called NAMA, so if you place all of the consequences on the lender, what you're doing is forcing everyone else in Ireland to pay extra taxes to buy houses for idiots who borrowed more money than they could ever repay.

Basically, if you forgive those debts without repossessing, you're rewarding the people who stoked the bubble at the expense of everybody who was priced out by necessity or choice. It's dumb and there's no possible way of justifying it.

LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Feb 7, 2015

# ? Feb 7, 2015 11:14

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

Yeah but did the Irish government do anything to make it harder for idiots to over borrow? It looks like they didn't. House prices crashed hard but that ft article says they rose faster than in the uk which suggests demand is more elastic doesn't it?

# ? Feb 7, 2015 14:05

ascendance: Feb 19, 2013

Jumpingmanjim posted:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-07/court-rejects-proposal-to-sell-spinsters-cottages/6077596

Operate it as a lesbian commune?

# ? Feb 7, 2015 15:05

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Cultural Imperial posted:

Yeah but did the Irish government do anything to make it harder for idiots to over borrow? It looks like they didn't. House prices crashed hard but that ft article says they rose faster than in the uk which suggests demand is more elastic doesn't it?

It was lots of factors but with lots of hilarious familiarity to the current bubble we are discussing:
-Irish government did not regulate the banks adequately and the banks took big risks as a result such as no downpayment mortgages
-Irish media, banks and real estate agents hyped real estate as surefire investment, You don't want to be left out?
-Ireland had the illusion of real economic progress by basically being a tax shelter for big multinational corporations
-Switch to the euro/ECB dropped prime interest rates lower, making risky home loan credit cheaper
-Construction companies ran out of good urban center real estate and built US style suburbs supply like crazy in more rural areas

look familiar?

# ? Feb 7, 2015 16:35

Vaginapocalypse: Mar 15, 2013; B-but it's so hard being white! Waaaaaagh!

Reverse Centaur posted:

And the follow up

Hahaha white Canadians lose their loving minds whenever they aren't catered to. :rolleyes:

# ? Feb 7, 2015 16:49

peter banana: Sep 2, 2008; Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.

- the Irish REIT sector was the largest of the economy during the Celtic Tiger. During that time however, they managed to build very little infrastructure. The Republic is 4M sq km and still has no rail service to speak of nationally.
- The Prime Minister (Taoiseach), Bertie Ahern, was legitimately the Tony Soprano of government who took cash bribes in the middle of main streets in Dublin. We questioned at an investigative tribunal about his high earnings and why he hadn't claimed them for tax he said he had won them at the dog track and didn't have back account at the time (he was Finance Minister during this period [a Finance Minister who didn't have a bank account :laffo:

]). He was later re-elected during the investigative tribunal. My sister in law voted for him :wtc:

- Moreover, the feeling at the time was like that feeling of getting your first paycheque after being out of a work for a long time. People hadn;t had anything for so long that they wanted to blow everything as soon as they could. The Irish also have an innate hatred of anyone in authority trying to tell them how to live their lives. They actually like that their politicians will shaft each other to get a bit a ahead, they take it as a sense of pride when their MP's (called TD's) refuse to think nationally and further the riding's own agenda (The Irish people, outside of county councils, only have government representation at the federal level.)

You guys should know about the satriical column in the IT, Ross O'Carroll Kelly. It is written in the style of a typical noveau-riche low-acheiving South Dublin rugby jock. If you can get past the South Dublin accent and slang, it's such a great take down of "people getting above themselves." If you can start around 2005 and go through 2008 :lol:

Man, living through that crash while in Dublin was pretty wild. I worked in recruitment for the construction industry. The sign it was time to leave and come back to Canada was when everyone showed up to our office one day an the locks had been changed and out boss showed up and was just like, "Yeah, sorry, they closed the office over the weekend." Something to that effect had happened to me twice in the preceding year.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 17:02

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

E oh nm

# ? Feb 7, 2015 17:14

ocrumsprug: Sep 23, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Bizarrely the Irish government also bailed out the foreign banks that had ~~gambled~~invested in Irish development. I can understand why the people are fighting their repossessions, when if the developer in that article is not really a very sympathetic character.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 17:38

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Someone how canada thinks it's a special snowflake despite having similar conditions, low interest rates, lots of marketing PR by banks/real estate agents "No money down!", surging home prices and people taking on way too much debt.

This is a good overview of the whole thing:
https://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/wp09.32.pdf

my favorite graph from the paper:

etalian fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Feb 7, 2015

# ? Feb 7, 2015 18:08

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

Well we're only at 164% so

# ? Feb 7, 2015 18:30

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

http://business.financialpost.com/2015/02/06/job-losses-from-oils-collapse-not-showing-up-in-the-data-yet/?__lsa=fd7c-172d

quote:

CALGARY � Despite a projected $8 billion drop in capital spending among oil companies, and amid fears of widespread layoffs, employment levels in Canada�s two largest petroleum producing provinces aren�t showing the effect of the collapse in oil prices.

However, industry experts said Friday that announced layoffs at oil and gas companies could still take their toll on employment levels in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Data released Friday by Statistics Canada show that the country added a surprising 35,400 new jobs in January amid gains in part-time positions and the national unemployment rate dropped from 6.7% to 6.6% in the month.

Similarly, Alberta added 14,000 new jobs in a month when major employers like Suncor Energy Inc. and Cenovus Energy Inc. announced reductions to their workforce and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers forecast a 33% drop in spending by oil and gas companies.

BMO Capital Markets chief economist Doug Porter said in a note to clients that Alberta�s job growth and declining unemployment rate won�t last and shows �how much underlying momentum Alberta had around the turn of the year heading into the steep oil price drop.�

Cameron McGillivray, president and CEO of Enform, which acquired the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada in 2013, said in an interview Friday afternoon that the StatsCan numbers are volatile and may not show the effects of energy industry staff reductions at this point.

Related
Nearly one in five Canadian energy companies eyeing jobs cuts as oil plunge bites
Why Canada's forecast-smashing jobs growth isn't as great as it looks
�In many cases, companies are reviewing their plans,� Mr. McGillivray said, and large corporations may not have identified exactly which positions to cut.

For example, a spokesperson for Suncor, Canada�s largest integrated energy company, confirmed Thursday afternoon that the company has not identified all of the positions that will be cut in an effort to reduce the company�s workforce by 1,000 people.

In addition to Suncor, many other oil and gas producers and energy services companies have announced layoffs for both their permanent staff and contractors. The Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors forecast as many as 23,000 jobs could be lost as the number of active drilling rigs in the oilfield falls.

ATB Financial chief economist Todd Hirsch said in a note that �a deeper dive into the data reveals that the energy market is, indeed, seeing a slowdown� despite the better-than-expected labour force numbers.

Alberta and Saskatchewan shed 1,000 jobs each in the natural resource sector over the month of January, which includes subsectors like oil and gas, forestry and mining.

Saskatchewan�s unemployment rate jumped eight-tenths of a per cent in January to 4.5% as the second-largest oil and gas producing province in Canada shed 8,400 jobs, although most of those positions were in agriculture and in a category called professional, scientific and technical services.

�It would be to soon to tell, but because oil prices are so low right now, this could be indicative of a trend,� University of Saskatchewan labour economist Kelly Foley said in an interview.

Jason Gilmore, an analyst with Statistics Canada, said by phone that there have been 13,000 jobs lost in the natural resources sector in Alberta alone since September 2014. He said the majority of those job losses would be in oil gas.

TD Economics also published a research note Friday afternoon that said the unemployment rate is �understating labour market slack in Canada,� meaning that more layoffs could be coming.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 18:57

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Cultural Imperial posted:

Well we're only at 164% so

The graph is total private debt for the entire country vs. yearly country GNP.

So basically all the irish private loans/credit of various types were 2x the yearly GNP at the peak bubble.

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://business.financialpost.com/2015/02/06/job-losses-from-oils-collapse-not-showing-up-in-the-data-yet/?__lsa=fd7c-172d

lmao I guess they don't realize that a credit bubble/bear market is not something that magically happens overnight.

It's more a downward trend that occurs over a multi-year period.

Both the Irish and US credit bubbles took a few years to deflate and also start causing fallout in the economy as the banking sector crashed.

No overnight crash in employment or GNP, keep on crying bear failures

:smugbird:

quote:

Despite a projected $8 billion drop in capital spending among oil companies, and amid fears of widespread layoffs, employment levels in Canada�s two largest petroleum producing provinces aren�t showing the effect of the collapse in oil prices.

etalian fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Feb 7, 2015

# ? Feb 7, 2015 19:05

Employee 2-4601: Aug 31, 2001

peter banana posted:

- The Prime Minister (Taoiseach), Bertie Ahern, was legitimately the Tony Soprano of government who took cash bribes in the middle of main streets in Dublin. We questioned at an investigative tribunal about his high earnings and why he hadn't claimed them for tax he said he had won them at the dog track and didn't have back account at the time (he was Finance Minister during this period [a Finance Minister who didn't have a bank account ]). He was later re-elected during the investigative tribunal. My sister in law voted for him

So... what's chutzpah in Irish?

# ? Feb 7, 2015 19:13

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

Vaginapocalypse posted:

Hahaha white Canadians lose their loving minds whenever they aren't catered to.

It's not that it's not in English, it's that yellow peril has finally hit the north shore after wiping out the rest of the lower mainland and they are actively trying to push the true Canadian white people out of their homes and force them to move to Surrey against their will.

My parents' 1940s deed actually had a clause that said they couldn't sell to a "Chinaman." Of course, they did.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 20:50

Ceciltron: Jan 11, 2007; Text BEEP to 43527 for the dancing robot!; Pillbug

Vaginapocalypse posted:

Hahaha white Canadians lose their loving minds whenever they aren't catered to.

I don't care what anyone says. I've worked in China, lived in China, my girlfriend is mainland Chinese and is still living there. And yet I understand what kind of panic these whitebread bumpkins see when a bunch of loud allophone mouthbreathers from Shanghai and Beijing (using the money they've inherited from corruption and party privilege) roll up buying all the houses.

You know what? I don't want rich tuhao mainlanders living anywhere. Not here, not in China. They're awful people. If you thought nimby self entitlement was bad here with middle class yuppies, you haven't lived in a place where middle aged women revolt when they're barred from disrupting traffic with their "dancing". The poor, normal, everyday Chinese are by far and large awesome people -they're wonderful hosts, incredibly generous and unpretentious.

The wealthy assholes we allow to jump the queues who move into this country? Send them back. They're garbage and a detriment to humanity as a whole.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 22:11

Vaginapocalypse: Mar 15, 2013; B-but it's so hard being white! Waaaaaagh!

I'm not gonna disagree with you, that on average, wealthy people are shittier human beings than the less well off. But the kind of people who put up a poster like this are just as uncomfortable around East Asian immigrants as they are around East Asians who were born in Canada.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 22:18