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May 10, 2024 21:12
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- Rime
- Nov 2, 2011
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by Games Forum
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Canada Debt Bubble: gently caress Your Life Choices, I'm Smarter Than You.
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Sep 8, 2015 02:04
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- Ansar Santa
- Jul 12, 2012
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I think that's what it comes down to a lot of the time. Not that it's dangerous and slowly kills a person, but that it's icky. Tobacco smoke smells bad and I have a right not to be exposed to bad smells.
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Sep 8, 2015 02:10
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- MickeyFinn
- May 8, 2007
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Biggie Smalls and Junior Mafia some mark ass bitches
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This attitude makes me want to take up smoking again just to spite self-righteous anti-smokers.
Didn't ask, don't care.
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Sep 8, 2015 02:11
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- T8R
- Aug 9, 2005
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Yes, I would like some tea!
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I would still be smoking if it wasn't so expensive, and if it didn't make me feel like poo poo all the time and get sick a lot, and if it didn't make me a slave to a small paper tube filled with plant matter.
Of course it isn't a good idea, but it's tempting as I'm a sucker for sticking it to sanctimonious assholes.
Just light up a cigarette in front of a little usb fan and direct it towards the closest sanctimonious apartment/house/whatever in your vicinity.
Hell make a little smoking robot that does it periodically without supervision.
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Sep 8, 2015 02:14
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- Ansar Santa
- Jul 12, 2012
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Just light up a cigarette in front of a little usb fan and direct it towards the closest sanctimonious apartment/house/whatever in your vicinity.
Hell make a little smoking robot that does it periodically without supervision.
This is a good solution.
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Sep 8, 2015 02:22
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- Boy Wunder
- Dec 2, 2000
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I got the guy who lived below me kicked out for smoking inside. I don't have a big problem with smokers but when I come home from work and my place smells like an ashtray because you're too lazy to go outside then gently caress you.
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Sep 8, 2015 02:36
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- namaste friends
- Sep 18, 2004
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by Smythe
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news..._medium=twitter
quote:
New wave of real estate developers hit the Vancouver scene
Vancouver has been a real-estate development test site for the children of wealthy, foreign-born entrepreneurs for several decades. Now there’s a new generation with a difference: They grew up here.
Kevin Cheung and Scott Wang are two of the latest wave of developers, sometimes labelled as offshore, who have arrived in Vancouver within the last couple of years and caused ripples of interest and alarm.
Both graduated from Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School, with Mr. Cheung getting a bachelor’s in commerce at the University of British Columbia. Both have fathers in real-estate development in Shanghai who are providing the starting equity for their sons’ Vancouver ventures. They are the children of the astronaut families.
“You see a lot of this in Vancouver, where the mother and child stay here and the father is doing business in China where the opportunity is,” said Mr. Cheung, a soft-spoken and impeccably polite 27-year-old who now lives in Shaughnessy.
The launch of the company that he and Mr. Wang, 31, founded in July 2014 (then called Xpec), has been energetic.
Their Vancouver company, now called Landa Global Properties Ltd., has picked up five expensive local multifamily sites in just two years, none of which have started construction yet. One of the most talked about was the recent sale of the Burritt Bros. site on Main Street, for which they paid an unprecedented amount – reported to be between $11– and $11.5-million. (The deal hasn’t been finalized yet.)
Some critics in the development world have said the new offshore buyers – who were noticed in recent years as they outbid locals in the fierce fight for properties along Cambie Street – are pushing up the price of land and buying just as a way to park money, with no plans to develop even though the city is desperate for housing.
“There probably is a component that is parking money, but we aren’t,” said Mr. Cheung. “We are moving full speed ahead on our sites.”
It hasn’t been all easygoing for the company, in spite of his family’s experience and money.
Mr. Cheung was outbid himself on many properties before the Burritt Bros. sale in what he says is a very competitive market. He said he just edged out others on the Burritt site by a small margin. (One broker, Kirk Kuester at Colliers, says although the sale raised eyebrows then, it now looks like a good deal, given the prices of other sales since.)
Landa’s first multifamily site, the Bold at Fraser and East 19th, ran into problems because it is on the edge of the Vancouver’s Tea Swamp. The project on that site, currently assessed at $7.4-million, ended up costing more than he expected because of the challenges of building on a peat bog.
And the two are spending extra to hire some well-known Vancouver architects and to create unusual designs.
The Burritt site will be a “very cool, contemporary building” designed by architect Tomizo Yamamoto. As with all of their Vancouver sites, the Burritt building will only be four stories, all that’s allowed in current city zoning.
The Bold, designed by Walter Francl (who did Jameson House and Trout Lake Community Centre), has a courtyard so that units can have windows on two sides.
Many condo developments in the city have typically been rectangular boxes that only allow one window per unit, except on the corners, which is cheaper.
At the $24.5-million property that Landa bought in Richmond, architects Foad Rafii and Arno Matis were asked to work together on the Straus development to create a landmark building.
And at Landa’s Shaughnessy and Point Grey sites (valued $7.9-million and $13.7-million, respectively), Mr. Cheung said the projects will be high-end to match the neighbourhoods.
That’s the kind of development his father, Frank Cheung, has done in Shanghai, where his single-family residential projects look like collections of minor French chateaus. According to the company’s website, his father, a Hong Kong resident, established a joint partnership with the Chinese government in 1993 to build residential communities.
Mr. Cheung says he doesn’t know much about the other new players who have moved into Vancouver’s development market.
One is a company called Brilliant Circle Group, whose principal is a David Cai, which also made headlines earlier this year when it bought the former 230-acre Imperial Oil site in Port Moody and a prominent site on Georgia Street.
Real-estate brokers and architects from Surrey to Vancouver to North Vancouver also have been talking about new offshore players who are bidding hard and buying up sites in those areas.
But Mr. Cheung doesn’t put himself with that group.
“I see myself more as a Vancouver local than an offshore Asian investor. I love Vancouver, I love the city. We want to grow and slowly take our steps here.”
hahaha
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Sep 8, 2015 03:30
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- I would blow Dane Cook
- Dec 26, 2008
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Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School
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Sep 8, 2015 03:59
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- PT6A
- Jan 5, 2006
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Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
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Does weed stain everything? Going into some old houses where people smoked indoors everything gets stained and discoloured. Would smoking the same amount of weed indoors do that or is it all the tar and poo poo that causes the stains? I'm happy neither are allowed to be smoked on the property here though.
Is all the drama around smoking in a condo because the stratas try to change the rules, or are people buying into non-smoking buildings then throwing free-holder-on-the-strata tantrums when the rules get enforced?
The case was about a rule that was added after the owner in question bought his condo.
Ultimately, yes, the damage that's done by smoking indoors is largely due to quantity. I smoke a cigar every now and again inside, and there's no staining and there's very little odour (I run a really good air cleaner).
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Sep 8, 2015 03:59
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- namaste friends
- Sep 18, 2004
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by Smythe
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quote:
Some Canadian banks allow wealthy Asian investors to skirt Chinese law by helping them bring in large amounts of money that is often used to buy real estate in Vancouver.
Financial institutions in the area have flagged more than 8,200 suspicious transactions since January, 2012, the year China began cracking down on citizens they suspect of corruption.
Ninety-six per cent of those transactions were also facilitated by the banks, however, even though the vast majority of that business involved suspected money laundering, according to FinTRAC, the federal agency responsible for tracking money laundering.
These findings, obtained by The Globe and Mail through an Access To Information Request, come as a debate rages over the source of foreign investment and Vancouver’s soaring luxury housing markets. A recent study by Macdonald Realty said 70 per cent of clients who paid more than $3-million for Vancouver houses last year were from China.
It is illegal for Chinese citizens to remove more than $50,000 (U.S.) a year from China without government permission, partly to stop corrupt millionaires from fleeing with their money. But a review of B.C. court cases by The Globe found they have worked around this restriction by sending millions of dollars into Vancouver-area banks through multiple wire transactions of smaller amounts by family and friends.
Banks are legally obligated to report transactions they deem suspicious to FinTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, but do not have to stop them or shut down accounts. The agency’s mandate is to gather and analyze those reports. It will not say what percentage involve this type of foreign investment, but said almost none that do are passed on to police.
The data are raising serious questions among legal experts about the effectiveness of federal laws meant to curb money laundering and transnational crime, and shines a light on a system that is time-consuming and expensive for taxpayers.
“The whole regime is a waste of money,” said lawyer Christine Duhaime, an internationally accredited expert on money laundering who has testified before parliamentary committees. “It seems to be completely ineffective.”
In her experience, Ms. Duhaime said, Canadian police do not have the resources to take on these cases.
“I think they also might face obstacles in China because of political differences between the two countries.”
FinTRAC’s guidelines on what banks should consider suspicious include multiple deposits to a client’s account by third parties, a high volume of wire transfers and frequent wire transfers to a client from individuals who do not have an account with the bank.
A recent B.C. court case heard that CIBC regularly helped wealthy clients move large amounts of money out of China – using several transactions and multiple third parties – even though the bank is familiar with Chinese law.
“This process is often conducted using different remitters in the same Chinese city sending funds to one or more accounts in CIBC, then through a common financial adviser get the funds collected back in one account – to be paid out to a law firm,” testified Kim Clark, a CIBC corporate-security investigator.
That testimony came in an ongoing wrongful dismissal suit by Guiyun Ogden, who was a top-tier financial adviser with CIBC’s Imperial Service unit. Ms. Ogden managed a $233-million (Canadian) portfolio for wealthy Chinese clients in Vancouver.
She helped a client move $500,000 (U.S.) out of China by using friends and relatives to send 10 wire transfers into 10 different CIBC accounts overnight. Ms. Ogden then transferred the money into another account for her client to use as a down payment on a $5.7-million (Canadian) Vancouver mansion.
Ms. Ogden was fired for moving some of that money through her own CIBC accounts. But the bank supported the practice of multiple transactions, according to a 2014 written ruling by Supreme Court of British Columbia Justice Randall Wong.
The testimony from CIBC’s Mr. Clark suggested the practice “enabled the client to say, ‘I am not bringing in $500,000 (U.S.) from China; me and these nine other third parties are each bringing in $50,000.’”
Ms. Duhaime said she has seen other examples of this practice.
“I have seen the bank transaction forms, where $50,000 has been wired out multiple times by several people at one bank in China,” she said. “There is so much money that is being made out of immigrants coming from China to Canada, I suspect no one wants to rattle that cage too much.”
The Globe and Mail asked HSBC, RBC and TD Canada Trust if they also facilitate multiple wire transfers like this from China. None of those banks answered that question specifically except RBC, which indicated it might shut down the account instead.
“Multiple wire transfers may be indicative of suspicious transactions,” spokesman Don Blair said. “Where RBC is of the view that a suspicious transaction report needs to be filed with FinTRAC, we will do so. In addition … RBC may close accounts and terminate relationships.”
In their responses to multiple inquiries by The Globe, all of the banks stressed that they are compliant with the law by reporting suspicious activity to FinTRAC.
In a 2011 e-mail highlighted in the court case, Steven Harvey, national director of CIBC’s anti-money laundering group, advised Mr. Clark the bank “generally [has] no obligation under any foreign law.”
When asked about this practice in general, Ms. Duhaime said, “They are facilitating breaking banking laws in China and they think that’s okay. It’s not. Our anti-money laundering laws say we need to be concerned if someone is breaking the law in another country.”
Canada’s proceeds of crime legislation exists partly “to assist in fulfilling Canada’s international commitments to participate in the fight against transnational crime, particularly money laundering.”
CIBC defended its practices. “It is the responsibility of the remitting institution in China to scrutinize whether the remittance transaction or transactions are in compliance with Chinese laws,” CIBC spokesperson Kevin Dove said.
“We fully appreciate the sensitivity of this issue, but we maintain that the structure of these transactions undertaken by our clients complies with Canadian banking laws and that we have no means or reason to deny them.”
Realtors who specialize in luxury housing say many of their wealthy clients get the money they use to buy homes to Canada though these transactions.
In the Ogden case, CIBC did not report the transactions as suspicious.
Notaries and lawyers are also legally obliged to report suspicious activity to FinTRAC. However, Ron Usher, a lawyer for an organization that advises B.C. notaries on real estate deals, said the banks are the ones that see how the money got to Canada.
“Our members then get that money from the bank – in a Canadian bank draft – and they have no idea that this involves a suspicious transaction,” Mr. Usher said. “… So we really don’t have a system that actually seems to stop anything.”
Other B.C. cases in family court show how millionaires moved their money out of China through multiple transfers into Canadian bank accounts held by spouses and relatives here.
Fang Long came to Canada with her husband, Lin Li, in 2007, but was left alone for long stretches while he did business in China. The couple bought three Vancouver properties, two of them worth more than $1-million (Canadian).
Mr. Li admitted in a B.C. court he transferred more than $3-million out of China into accounts at Vancouver financial institutions, all in Ms. Long’s name. Some of that money was wired by his family members in China in $50,000 (U.S.) increments.
He then fled to Canada. The Chinese government froze his remaining business assets and issued a warrant for his arrest for misappropriating funds.
A recent Department of Finance report, along with the data from FinTRAC, suggests Ottawa is aware money is being laundered through Canadian bank accounts on a large scale.
“There are many sectors and products that are highly vulnerable to money laundering … domestic banks … were rated the most vulnerable, or very high,” the July, 2015, report says.
It said Canada spends $70-million (Canadian) a year on 11 agencies – including FinTRAC – tasked with fixing that.
“We are not seeing many prosecutions or crimes detected. So either it is spectacularly successful or it’s spectacularly useless,” Mr. Usher said.
“We are all enrolled as bit players in this great theatrical production of security theatre … pretending [by reporting to FinTRAC] that we are doing something important.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...?service=mobile
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Sep 8, 2015 15:15
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- meatcookie
- Jun 2, 2007
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Don't smoke.
Vape instead!
This, for real. For so many reasons.
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Sep 8, 2015 19:31
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- Juul-Whip
- Mar 10, 2008
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Reported my neighbours for smoking in their living room and having like 6 adults living in a 2 bedroom apt. Would do again.
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Sep 8, 2015 19:33
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- PT6A
- Jan 5, 2006
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Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
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Don't smoke.
Vape instead!
All the flavours taste terrible and boring, and frankly it still makes my lungs feel like poo poo if I inhale it.
There's no replacement for a good cigar, but as soon as someone comes up with one, I'll be willing to consider it.
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Sep 9, 2015 00:38
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- I would blow Dane Cook
- Dec 26, 2008
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quote:
No stopping Melbourne CBD oversupply: ‘Get out as soon as possible’
New laws to clamp down on Melbourne CBD’s skyscrapers won’t stop a predicted drop in prices of up to 20 per cent in the next three years, according to a property research house.
Strict new density regulations announced by Planning Minister Richard Wynne on Saturday that limit the height of future towers to 24 floors unless open space offsets are provided won’t stop a “correction” for inner city apartment prices, said BIS Shrapnel managing director Robert Mellor.
Building approvals hit record highs under former Planning Minister Matthew Guy, dubbed Mr Skyscraper because of his aim to make Melbourne “the tallest skyline in Australia”, as property industry pundits warned of an oversupply.
These planning approvals were still coming through the pipeline and would keep adding to the apartment supply, Mr Mellor said.
“This financial year we will reach an oversupply,” he said. In the next financial year, 2016/2017 he said there would be a “significant excess” of apartments.
“Get out as soon as possible [otherwise] it will take 10 to 15 years before you get your money back.”Paul Nugent, Wakelin Property Advisory
“This will get worse in 2017/2018 and towards the end of 2018, when investors will start to struggle to get sufficient numbers of tenants,” he said.e
Investors looking at buying in the market will see rising vacancy rates will few prospects of capital gains, while apartment owners will struggle to hold onto the apartments without tenants.
On the back of this, he said it’s “possible we’ll see a 15 to 20 per cent correction any time over the next year to 2018/2019″.
Buyers’ agency Wakelin Property Advisory director Paul Nugent also expects a drop in prices of “at least 10 per cent” that wouldn’t be softened by the new restrictions.
“It’ll take a generation until things settle down to a point where the apartments have a genuine value,” Mr Nugent said.
Smaller apartments in larger blocks with little natural light would be those hardest hit, while three-bedroom apartments with more generous floor plans might weather through, he said.
“Get out as soon as possible [otherwise] it will take 10 to 15 years before you get your money back,” he said.
Despite these warnings, Domain Group senior economist Andrew Wilson did not predict any significant drop in prices for inner city apartments.
He said offshore buyers are changing the investment dynamic in the inner city.
Where local buyers typically require decent levels of cash flow and a steady tenant, he said offshore buyers were “a whole new ball game” and were more than happy to keep apartments vacant.
“Our international investors aren’t as tuned in to finding a tenant,” he said
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Sep 9, 2015 00:44
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- Newfie
- Oct 8, 2013
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10 years of oil boom and 20 billion dollars cash, all I got was a case of beer, a pack of smokes, and 14% unemployment.
Thanks, Danny.
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http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/debt/canadian-seniors-ramp-up-debt-to-soak-up-glitzier-lifestyle
“They just don’t have enough money,” said Yvonne Ziomecki, senior vice-president of marketing and sales of HomEquity Bank, of the new lifestyle seniors are aspiring to. “We have a new term we have been using, right sizing. They are not downsizing. They don’t really need bigger homes, but they move into a house that has all the upgrades.”
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Sep 9, 2015 03:23
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- Dreylad
- Jun 19, 2001
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http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/debt/canadian-seniors-ramp-up-debt-to-soak-up-glitzier-lifestyle
quote: Canadian seniors racking up debt to fund bigger homes, glitzy lifestyles
Canadian seniors are getting a lot more comfortable with debt and a growing number are using it to finance their lifestyle, including home purchases, according to an exclusive survey provided to the Financial Post.
The survey conducted by debt rating agency Equifax for HomEquity Bank, at the end of July, found that a number of Canadians over 75 are still dealing with a mortgage — and their numbers are rising.
“They just don’t have enough money,” said Yvonne Ziomecki, senior vice-president of marketing and sales of HomEquity Bank, of the new lifestyle seniors are aspiring to. “We have a new term we have been using, right sizing. They are not downsizing. They don’t really need bigger homes, but they move into a house that has all the upgrades.”
FP0908_Debt_By_Ages_GS_B
HomEquity, which provides reverse mortgages, says those types of “downsized” homes are often the subject of loans. Consumers can get a reverse mortgage as long as they have 55 per cent equity in a home.
While seniors with mortgages are still a small share of the market, the study did find 11.3 million Canadians 55 or older have some sort of debt. Of that figure, about 1.87 million are carrying a mortgage which is up 20 per cent in two years.
Outstanding mortgage balances are up for every segment of seniors, which for the purposes of the survey was anyone over the age of 55. In the 75-and-over category, the average senior with a mortgage had $133,944 outstanding, up 11 per cent from two years ago.
What’s going on? Some seniors are just adjusting to a lifestyle where debt will get them nicer homes, fund more vacations or even help their adult children.
“A lot of people I talk to, they just don’t really care. This is how they manage their finances and they are perfectly comfortable with it,” Ziomecki said.
A poll from CIBC out this month found two-thirds of Canadian parents claim adult-children are cutting into their retirement savings.
Vancouver-based certified financial planner Clay Gillespie said low interest rates have encouraged some seniors to take on more debt, free of the worry that they need to pay it down before retirement.
“I’ve seen people take out lines of credit against their house to help their children buy a house since house prices have increased so much in the last 10 years. I’ve seen individuals continue to support adult children, which does not allow them to pay off debt. And lastly, I’ve seen individuals that are using debt to finance their lifestyle. All of these can be dangerous if not done properly,” Gillespie said.
The HomEquity Bank study, which was based on Equifax’s own internal data, found that the number of seniors in debt is also increasing in other credit categories, such as auto loans, bank loans, lines or credit and credit card debt. With the exception of retail cards and banks loans, average balances have been going up, too.
A lot of people I talk to, they just don’t really care. This is how they manage their finances and they are perfectly comfortable with it
Gillespie’s fear is what happens to seniors if interest rates rise, especially if they no longer have the income to support their lifestyle.
“A significant portion of their retirement income will have to be used for the servicing of this debt and paying this debt off,” he said, adding that his own studies have shown 30 per cent of seniors go into retirement with $10,000 of debt or more. “Mathematically what this means is that they have to increase their income in retirement and pay higher taxes to pay off their debt, and this will reduce how long the retirement savings will last.”
Laurie Campbell, chief executive of Credit Canada, which counsels people in debt, said retiring with debt is fraught with problems.
“How do you get back into the workforce if you find you can’t keep up (with payments)?” Campbell said. “What happens if interest rates increase and you can’t maintain the payments?”
Sal Guatieri, an economist with Bank of Montreal, penned a report a year ago that said the current crop of retirees were the richest seniors ever.
“They have relatively lower debt to the income (than the general population) and much higher wealth and assets than other age groups,” the economist said. “But it is true the number of (senior) households carrying debt has increased.”
god drat canada
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Sep 9, 2015 03:25
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- cowofwar
- Jul 30, 2002
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by Athanatos
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rear end in a top hat boomers going out with a bang.
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Sep 9, 2015 04:00
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- Bloody Hedgehog
- Dec 12, 2003
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💥💥🤯💥💥
Gotta nuke something
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Central Air costs significantly more than baseboard heating, so they're not going to pay for it when Vancouver is only hot enough to need A/C for two months out of the year. For which you can get a portable/window unit.
Ontario gets central air and a/c, because while there summer is only slightly longer than Vancouvers, the summers are fuckoff hot and humid "dear god, let me die" summers.
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Sep 9, 2015 05:09
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- namaste friends
- Sep 18, 2004
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by Smythe
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Boc is holding the o/n rate at half percent. Watch for mortgage rates you start inching up, sez twitter.
This means the economy is recovering BTW.
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Sep 9, 2015 15:13
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- namaste friends
- Sep 18, 2004
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by Smythe
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quote:
The federal Liberals are promising tax breaks to developers who build new rental properties in Canada, and give millions to landlords to renovate existing housing stocks.
The Liberals want to eliminate the GST on all new rental builds in the country while giving up to $125-million a year to landlords renovating aging rental units in the country.
The party is also proposing allowing Canadians a second chance to dig into their retirement savings plans to pay for a home if they have to move for work or the death of a spouse, see their marriage breakdown or take in an elderly relative.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...&service=mobile
Holy gently caress this is so loving stupid.
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Sep 9, 2015 15:17
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- Coolwhoami
- Sep 13, 2007
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Holy gently caress this is so loving stupid.
Why? I'm curious what the negative consequences of this would be (or why it is misguided).
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Sep 9, 2015 16:24
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- namaste friends
- Sep 18, 2004
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by Smythe
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The problem with housing affordability in Canada isn't due to supply or lack thereof. It's due to eat credit. Supply side 'solutions' only serve to make a select few developers rich.
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Sep 9, 2015 16:35
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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May 10, 2024 21:12
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- Rime
- Nov 2, 2011
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by Games Forum
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The renovation bonus would be giving landlords a carte-blanche to renovict their existing tenants and jack rental prices through the roof on an unprecedented scale. In a country where rents are already eating up close to 50% of the median monthly income.
This is so loving stupid.
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Sep 9, 2015 17:14
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Sep 8, 2015 01:59
weed 
