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Barudak
May 7, 2007

PT6A posted:

Rudeness and lack of tipping are the major complaints I've heard, especially (but not exclusively) with regards to French Canadians.

I used to live in an area with enough Quebec snow birds to have a boardwalk festival and the other two stereotypes are smoking and license plates that don't make any goddamn sense.

Edit: And a passion for losing money at casinos

Barudak fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Apr 21, 2015

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Rime
Nov 2, 2011

by Games Forum

Ccs posted:

I've got no debt thanks to luck of birth, but am in a career where I probably won't make much over my lifetime, and will have to move around so buying a house seems risky.

But I'm also only 25 so I don't really know how the world works. I guess I'll have a better sense of things in a few years.

Bro, if you don't know how the world works by 25 then you're pretty much boned and headed for a lifetime of pain.

Femtosecond
Aug 2, 2003

ocrumsprug posted:

Vancouver house prices fell off a cliff in 2008. Emergency interest rates, and Canadian exceptionalism were the only things that stopped them from cratering then.

I did a few googles before I made the statement to make sure my anecdotal feeling wasn't wildly off the mark and it looked like sales dropped by 35%, but prices were only down 10-15%. 15% is a significant drop, but I don't think it was a dramatic enough drop to satisfy real estate pessimists.

It's good that you point out the emergency measures taken by government because I would expect that to happen again if the market took a downturn. Politicians are heavily invested in ensuring the status quo of housing prices continues.

ocrumsprug
Sep 23, 2010

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Rime posted:

Bro, if you don't know how the world works by 25 then you're pretty much boned and headed for a lifetime of pain.

The opposite is more likely.

If you don't know by 25 though, you probably never will, so try mask the confused look on your face.

ocrumsprug
Sep 23, 2010

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Femtosecond posted:

It's good that you point out the emergency measures taken by government because I would expect that to happen again if the market took a downturn. Politicians are heavily invested in ensuring the status quo of housing prices continues.

It can't happen again though, as they didn't lift the emergency interest rates. The government already shot that bullet. When the market craps out again, they will need to intervene in a much more obvious manner.

namaste friends
Sep 18, 2004

by Smythe
This guy can't read a loving graph. Don't bother

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


ocrumsprug posted:

The opposite is more likely.

If you don't know by 25 though, you probably never will, so try mask the confused look on your face.

Though going by the predictions and observations about the economy/state of the world in this thread, seems most of society doesn't know how the world works, so maybe I'm just average.

Rime
Nov 2, 2011

by Games Forum
Admittedly, if you're savvy enough to think you don't know how the world works then you're already a huge loving leap past most of the population. :v:

cowofwar
Jul 30, 2002

by Athanatos
Basically there are a number of factors that can initiate a liquidity squeeze that will start a chain reaction driving down housing sales but they have to hit enough people to meet a threshold. Canada has a good social safety net and health care so personal factors are less of an issue than in the states. So I think systemic changes are what is going to drive a collapse.

-A recession causing both a lack of consumer confidence and widespread unemployment. The previous recession didn't seem to damage consumer spending, however since then we've seen personal debt levels increasing so Canadians may be approaching their credit limits. Which brings me to my next point.

-A systemic decrease in lending confidence. Canadian purchases, and especially the housing sector along with automotive sales, are driven not by income, but by available credit. If anything causes the banks to tighten their purse strings in contrast with recent history where credit is easy to obtain, this will cause a squeeze. The interesting thing is that most of GDP growth is due to consumer spending but this spending is not based in increased wages and increased employment, but year over year increase in borrowing by consumers. So it's basically a game of chicken between the banks and the government.

-The government is maintaining the current trajectory through a number of policies that promote consumer spending and bank lending. The first policy would be low overnight rate set by the Bank of Canada. We're down to 0.75% so not much room left to go, CPI appears to ticking upwards so they've got a bit of a problem brewing. A second policy line is the CHMC insurance, clearly the frenzy in the housing sector is out of whack with CHMC insurance effectively underwriting a bubble (like the government promoting oil-sands instead of alternative industry). Clearly the government likes to bet on a single horse so they will probably not make any significant changes without any external impetus.

-Which makes external financial pressure perhaps the most likely cause of a collapse in the bubble. A loss of confidence in bond buyers due to a downgrade may cause a flight of money leading to higher borrowing costs and a lower dollar. Foreign money, especially that of chinese market investors and retail speculators to the states might be enough to initiate a credit squeeze due to the Canadian banks tightening their lending standards. So I think I'll be watching for the dollar dropping further and increasing bond rates as well as any rumbling about a downgrade on Canada.

Everyone likes to poo poo on the boomers for having an easy middle class time but their money is what is running the Canadian economy. They are selling their houses at all time highs in order to pay for down payments on their kids' homes and subsidize their children' lifestyle and education. Between the boomers shelling out for health care, boomers shelling out for their kids' education, and boomers shelling out for their kids' down-payments on condos - when that gravy train dries up poo poo's going to get real. Real money is being leveraged to secure debt but eventually the banks will baulk and tighten lending due to the lack of real GDP growth in terms of wages and full time employment. Might happen slowly over time, or an external stress will make it happen super fast.

cowofwar fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Apr 21, 2015

MickeyFinn
May 8, 2007
Biggie Smalls and Junior Mafia some mark ass bitches

cowofwar posted:

-The government is maintaining the current trajectory through a number of policies that promote consumer spending and bank lending. The first policy would be low overnight rate set by the Bank of Canada. We're down to 0.75% so not much room left to go, CPI appears to ticking upwards so they've got a bit of a problem brewing. A second policy line is the CHMC insurance, clearly the frenzy in the housing sector is out of whack with CHMC insurance effectively underwriting a bubble (like the government promoting oil-sands instead of alternative industry). Clearly the government likes to bet on a single horse so they will probably not make any significant changes without any external impetus.

I don't know about this one. It seems like a few years of inflation in the neighborhood of 3-4% might do some good in both punishing savers further and devaluing the debt that people already have. I can see a central banker looking at that and a potential collapse in home prices and thinking that not doing anything about inflation for a short while might be the best course of action. There are probably all sorts of other problems with that plan, like foreign money leaving Canada or the screams of investors, or something. But still, it might prove tempting to try (hope) to let inflation come in for a soft landing rather than crash.

Precambrian Video Games
Aug 19, 2002



Boomers' money is driving the economy insofar as they're the only ones with actual income to spend. And even then, I think that statement requires some evidence to back it given how lower-income people tend to spend larger fractions of their earnings (i.e. 100%) on basic goods and services.

cowofwar
Jul 30, 2002

by Athanatos

eXXon posted:

Boomers' money is driving the economy insofar as they're the only ones with actual income to spend. And even then, I think that statement requires some evidence to back it given how lower-income people tend to spend larger fractions of their earnings (i.e. 100%) on basic goods and services.
Hopefully an American academic can do some research on the matter since Canada is a black hole of statistics.

namaste friends
Sep 18, 2004

by Smythe

quote:



Vancouver developer remains 'bullish' on Calgary luxury condo market

MARIO TONEGUZZI, CALGARY HERALDMore from Mario Toneguzzi, Calgary Herald

Published on: April 20, 2015
Last Updated: April 20, 2015 5:32 PM MDT


The Vancouver-based developer behind a planned luxury condo project at Eau Claire remains “bullish” about the local market despite oil price uncertainty that has analysts forecasting sales to fall this year.

Grant Murray, vice-president of sales for Concord Pacific, the company behind The Concord development at 6th Street and 1st Avenue S.W., said half of the 105 residential units in the first phase have sold.

“We’re absolutely bullish. I don’t see any downturn from our perspective in this price range,” Murray said. “The people that we’re appealing to in this market are not affected by any kind of downturn or swing. They’re looking long-term. they’re looking for lifestyle.”

The Concord is to comprise 218 units in two towers, including a $13-million penthouse. The first tower is to be completed by the fall of 2017.


http://calgaryherald.com/business/real-estate/vancouver-developer-bullish-on-calgary-luxury-condo-market


I think we just had our Jim Cramer Bear Stearns moment.

Rime
Nov 2, 2011

by Games Forum
In which someone at the CBC gets fired for greenlighting this publication:

Labour market deregulations not working: International Monetary Fund

quote:

Recent — and potentially watershed — International Monetary Fund (IMF) documents have cast doubt on the merits of labour market deregulation of the last three decades, with important consequences for Canada. But will anyone listen?

The last 30 years have not been kind to economic growth and wealth creation.

The economic "successes" of the neo-liberal era, from roughly 1980 to 2007, pale in comparison to the three decades that followed the Second World War with respect to almost every economic variable imaginable.

One of the core arguments of the neo-liberal era, adopted at one time by the IMF and the World Bank, among other institutions, has been a belief in what economists have called labour market flexibility.

Labour market flexibility is aimed largely at making wage settlements more difficult and less generous, labour force reductions easier for the private sector, and labour union participation more difficult.

According to this argument, in a growing competitive global environment, Canadian companies have to remove any inefficiency in the labour market, especially any that could stifle the private sector's quest for flexibility and profits.

So efforts have taken place over the last three decades to make labour markets more flexible: A push toward term or temporary contracts, a de-emphasis on job security, laws that made participation in unions more voluntary. And the Harper government has been an active and willing participant in this misplaced quest for labour market flexibility.

The private sector labeled labour unions as disruptive and detrimental to their bottom line: Wage gains were too high and unions too powerful, thereby making it too difficult to "restructure" hiring practices to make Canadian companies competitive (a fancy way to say it was difficult to fire people).

In reality, of course, this was an awful idea in terms of economic theory and economic consequence. In terms of building social peace between labour movements and the private sector, it was no good, either. The attack, however, has been carried out largely on the backs of working Canadians. And now we have proof.

In twin reports, the IMF revisits the question of the success of these policies.

In what can only be labeled a gigantic mea culpa, the IMF now claims that these policies have failed — and miserably, at that.

In two reports, the IMF carefully lays out the empirical evidence and it ain't good.

In one of them, dated March 2015, the IMF argues that the decrease in unionization rates has largely fed the increase in incomes of those at the top.

Subsequently, for its April 2015 edition of the World Economic Output (WEO) report, which featured data from 16 G20 countries, the IMF concludes that there is no evidence that the neo-liberal deregulatory reforms had any positive impact on labour markets and economic growth.

These painful deregulatory policies, often imposed by force, have had no impact on total factor productivity.

It took courage for the IMF to arrive at these conclusions, and it reminds me of John Maynard Keynes, who famously once said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?"

To its credit, the IMF looked at the evidence and admitted they had been wrong.

The IMF reports are just some in a series of recent reports from reputable institutions casting doubt on the whole neo-liberal era. Some of us have been arguing these same issues for years, concluding this era was one colossal failure, not only for the economy as a whole, but also for workers and their families.

In a recent report echoing the IMF findings, the Economic Policy Institute in Washington argued that there is a direct correlation between the decline in unionization rates in the U.S. and the decrease in the share of income going to the middle 60 per cent of working Americans (more or less, the middle class).

Evidence against the panoply of policies imposed on developed and developing countries over the last three decades is growing.

This requires a full rethinking of economics and economic policies, which is already well underway in many countries, led in many instances by students disillusioned with the teaching of economics. For instance, I have just returned from a conference in Vienna hosted by intelligent students looking for better solutions, and attended by over 200 students.

Many political parties in power, however, still refuse to acknowledge these findings, and continue with the same policies that largely contributed to the 2007 crisis.

It's time we demand an end to policies that work against working Canadians, and in the process, we must demand from our governments better policies that share gains more broadly.

Louis-Philippe Rochon is an associate professor of economics at Laurentian University in Ontario, and the co-editor of the Review of Keynesian Economics.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

the price of beanie babies could only go up up up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgDsyj5eLmo

Coxswain Balls
Jun 4, 2001

Baronjutter posted:

How many of us in this thread are in debt? House debt or student loans or anything.

I never went to post-secondary and the only significant debt I've held was my car, which is all paid off. Compared to a lot of people I know who are still paying off school loans with little to show for it, I feel really fortunate to be getting paid what I am with only a high-school diploma and some expired certs. That's not to say that I think post-secondary is a waste of time; I would very much like to go to school again, but with the way employment and the economy is looking in this country, I'm going to cling onto this job for dear life for the forseeable future.

The only schooling I've seen consistently pan out for my peers has been nursing, which my mom tried to push me towards, but it just wasn't for me. Some of my family who have immigrated from the Philippines got their healthcare aide certs and are going to school for nursing right now, and managed to buy a house like a year after arriving.

Mandibular Fiasco
Oct 14, 2012

Coxswain Balls posted:

The only schooling I've seen consistently pan out for my peers has been nursing, which my mom tried to push me towards, but it just wasn't for me. Some of my family who have immigrated from the Philippines got their healthcare aide certs and are going to school for nursing right now, and managed to buy a house like a year after arriving.

I work in hospital management, running a variety of nursing units. Nursing is a bit of a black hole these days, and it comes down to mismatch between service needs and supply. The nursing schools are churning out piles of new grad nurses, but there are only so many new grad positions (medical/surgical units, generally). Where there are shortages are the specialty areas - critical care, high acuity, perioperative, emergency, renal. These are all areas that require post-graduate training, which is generally only provided in sponsored courses offered by employers. This is a stupid setup as it results in huge shortages of nurses in high demand areas, but the requirements of a) funding and b) 'experience' to be considered for the course because 'reasons' has meant that positions go vacant. With any luck, we'll be able to abandon this setup and create opportunities for more nurses to get specialty educated and fill the vacant positions. Not sure how that will happen, but something has to give.

Bloody Hedgehog
Dec 12, 2003

💥💥🤯💥💥
Gotta nuke something
No no, you see, having those shortages in specialized nursing areas gives the various health regions numerous opportunities to spend enormous sums of money to import unneeded nurses from the US or UK. Why pay for local nurses to upgrade their skills, when we can bring in foreign nurses and pay for all their expenses.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

Rime posted:

In which someone at the CBC gets fired for greenlighting this publication:

Labour market deregulations not working: International Monetary Fund

A Good Article.

Yesterday a colleague told me that he found CBC was too left leaning and was just as bad as far right leaning news sources. I decided not to argue.

ZShakespeare
Jul 20, 2003

War gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished.

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

No no, you see, having those shortages in specialized nursing areas gives the various health regions numerous opportunities to spend enormous sums of money to import unneeded nurses from the US or UK. Why pay for local nurses to upgrade their skills, when we can bring in foreign nurses and pay for all their expenses.

Give people free education? That's socialism comrade.

namaste friends
Sep 18, 2004

by Smythe

quote:


Forget gold, buy a Vancouver condo if you want to hoard your wealth, says world’s top money manager


Gold’s traditional role as a store of wealth has been usurped by contemporary art and apartments in cities such as New York and London, according to Laurence D. Fink, head of the world’s biggest asset manager.


“Historically gold was a great instrument for storing of wealth,” the chairman of BlackRock Inc. said at a conference in Singapore on Tuesday. “Gold has lost its lustre and there’s other mechanisms in which you can store wealth that are inflation-adjusted.”

Over the centuries, bullion traditionally lured demand as a protection of wealth during crises, including conflicts and periods of inflation. Prices posted the first back-to-back annual drop last year since 2000 as investor holdings in exchange-traded products contracted, global equities rallied and the dollar climbed on prospects for higher U.S. interest rates. Since peaking in 2011, it’s dropped about 38 per cent.

“The two greatest stores of wealth internationally today is contemporary art….. and I don’t mean that as a joke, I mean that as a serious asset class,” said Fink. “And two, the other store of wealth today is apartments in Manhattan, apartments in Vancouver, in London.”

Bullion for immediate delivery, which rallied to as much as US$1,921.17 an ounce in September 2011, traded at $1,198.82 at 6:30 a.m. in New York, according to Bloomberg generic pricing. It’s risen about 1.2 per cent this year after losing 1.4 per cent in 2014 and tumbling 28 per cent in 2013.

‘Easier to Own’

Holdings in gold-backed ETFs totaled 1,621.7 metric tons as of Monday, 1.5 per cent bigger this year after contracting 9.3 per cent in 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The funds trade like shares, enabling investors to own bullion without taking physical delivery of it.

“The advent of ETFs for gold made it much easier to own gold and it really democratizes gold,” Fink said at the 2015 Credit Suisse Megatrends conference. “I don’t believe people believe gold is a great store of wealth today.”

The median sale price for existing condos in Manhattan jumped to a six-year high of $1.3 million in the first quarter, driven up by buyers seeking alternatives to out-of-reach new developments, according to Corcoran Group, a brokerage. The average home price in Greater Vancouver reached$891,652 in March. In the U.K., asking prices for property climbed to a record in April as values in London rose 2.5 percent, Rightmove Plc said on Monday.

“It’s become much more accessible for global families worldwide to store wealth outside their country,” said Fink. “And they don’t have to own gold.”




lol

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

No no, you see, having those shortages in specialized nursing areas gives the various health regions numerous opportunities to spend enormous sums of money to import unneeded nurses from the US or UK. Why pay for local nurses to upgrade their skills, when we can bring in foreign nurses and pay for all their expenses.

Calgary did this with its police force too, and I'm just not sure why. They're still recruiting, and yet they deferred my friend's application three times (who's now happy for it, because he's an RCMP officer and he likes it way more).

MickeyFinn
May 8, 2007
Biggie Smalls and Junior Mafia some mark ass bitches

Cultural Imperial posted:

quote:

“The advent of ETFs for gold made it much easier to own gold and it really democratizes gold,” Fink said at the 2015 Credit Suisse Megatrends conference. “I don’t believe people believe gold is a great store of wealth today.”

lol

I love this line. "Now that regular people can have [ETFs for] gold, the wealthy don't want it anymore."

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

ZShakespeare posted:

Give people free education? That's socialism comrade.

Why would an employer pay to give them specialized training that they could then take to earn a higher wage elsewhere? Much more sensible just to pay for some flights.

Big K of Justice
Nov 27, 2005

Anyone seen my ball joints?

PT6A posted:

I don't think anyone ever said that. Canadian tourists are very lovely too.

Canadians have a rep for being notoriously lovely tippers In the us.

Rime
Nov 2, 2011

by Games Forum
I once had a great drunken discussion with the bartender of the Lovecraft in Portland on that topic. Apparently a lot of Canadians come down aware that Oregon is one of the few states with a minimum wage, and thus just never tip a dime. This was back when we were above par, too.

Then I ordered a drink that was on fire and it caused the glass to explode. Great bar.

MiddleOne
Feb 17, 2011

Big K of Justice posted:

Canadians have a rep for being notoriously lovely tippers In the us.

Everyone is a lovely tipper when visiting the US because your tipping culture is loving insane. Start paying out real wages.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Big K of Justice posted:

Canadians have a rep for being notoriously lovely tippers In the us.

What's considered normal in the States these days? I do 18-20% usually here (if it's a place I know I'll be back to and like), including on wine up to $20 tip/bottle (provided, for an expensive bottle, that the service and glassware were correct). If that's not enough for the Yanks, they can go screw themselves.

Lexicon
Jul 29, 2003

I had a beer with Stephen Harper once and now I like him.

Xoidanor posted:

Everyone is a lovely tipper when visiting the US because your tipping culture is loving insane. Start paying out real wages.

Ours is insane too, it's just numerically a bit less extreme. I would much much rather every restaurant inflated its menu by 20%, paid its staff decently, and I never had to see a loving tip jar or tip button on the payment terminal again.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Lexicon posted:

Ours is insane too, it's just a bit less extreme. I would much much rather every restaurant inflated its menu by 20%, paid its staff decently, and I never had to see a loving tip jar or tip button on the payment terminal again.

It's pretty great, because then you can give a tip to people who actually earned it by doing a superb job!

AVeryLargeRadish
Aug 19, 2011

I LITERALLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO NOT BE A WEIRD SEXUAL CREEP ABOUT PREPUBESCENT ANIME GIRLS, READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE!!!

PT6A posted:

What's considered normal in the States these days? I do 18-20% usually here (if it's a place I know I'll be back to and like), including on wine up to $20 tip/bottle (provided, for an expensive bottle, that the service and glassware were correct). If that's not enough for the Yanks, they can go screw themselves.

Generally it's around 15%, maybe 20% if they gave really exceptional service. I just do 15% and round up to the next dollar.

cowofwar
Jul 30, 2002

by Athanatos
Dear lord don't start a tip derail

Risky Bisquick
Jan 18, 2008

PLEASE LET ME WRITE YOUR VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT SO I CAN FURTHER DEMONSTRATE THE CALAMITY THAT IS OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM.



Buglord
Tip HST and round down, welcome to banking.

unlimited shrimp
Aug 30, 2008
I used to tip 10%. Now that's a faux pas I guess, so I tip 15%. It's rare I think a waiter/waitress deserves any sort of tip at all for the service they provide.

And if "They make less than minimum wage!" is supposed to be an argument then I'll gladly pay the $1.45 difference for every hour I'm at the restaurant in lieu of a tip.

namaste friends
Sep 18, 2004

by Smythe
Hey fuckfaces shut the gently caress up about tipping

unlimited shrimp
Aug 30, 2008
gently caress you, dad

AVeryLargeRadish
Aug 19, 2011

I LITERALLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO NOT BE A WEIRD SEXUAL CREEP ABOUT PREPUBESCENT ANIME GIRLS, READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE!!!

unlimited shrimp posted:

I used to tip 10%. Now that's a faux pas I guess, so I tip 15%. It's rare I think a waiter/waitress deserves any sort of tip at all for the service they provide.

And if "They make less than minimum wage!" is supposed to be an argument then I'll gladly pay the $1.45 difference for every hour I'm at the restaurant in lieu of a tip.

Ehhh, it's worse in the US. I know that here in CT the minimum wage for service employees is about half the minimum wage for everyone else so you need to make about $5 an hour in tips to reach the normal minimum wage of $9.15 an hour. I do wish that they would just raise the minimum wage in general and for service employees to something livable but until then I'm not going to begrudge people their tips because if I were in their shoes I'd need those tips to get by.

Cultural Imperial posted:

Hey fuckfaces shut the gently caress up about tipping

Calm down man, everyone is being perfectly civil here, no need to blow a gasket.

namaste friends
Sep 18, 2004

by Smythe
What's next on the sa tard argument agenda? Foreskin? Men's rights? Perpetual motion? 0.9999999 = 1

sat on my keys!
Oct 2, 2014

Cyclists versus parking spaces again.

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Vaginapocalypse
Mar 15, 2013

:qq: B-but it's so hard being white! Waaaaaagh! :qq:
I don't want to hear any more about tipping unless you are literally Steve Buscemi

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