Why does Susan Anton still have a job with the city of Vancouver? She was on the previous city council, the boobs that were stupid enough to negotiate a terrible deal. Why aren't these people held accountable?

just to clarify, the "Bild" is comparable with the national enquirer, or the British Sun… they don't take truth to seriously!

Anyone think the emerging story of the bad rep these games are garnering will have an impact on short term prices/valuations?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/ar…

@Declan: Unfortunately, you'll never get the editors to make that correction. In fact, the omission was purposeful.

David Letterman is somewhat right – the luge track could have been safer. (Incidentally, so can the ski jump, half pipe and a ton of other venues.) However, the hypocrisy of the bears on this forum far exceeds anything that VANOC can dish. They love Vancouver so much that they're clearly trying to influence with hopes to own. Normally, I don't mind some trolling, but it's so transparent that these people don't believe what they're writing that it's comical.

This may or may not be the case also, but typical construction in Germany and Europe (or at least the ones I've been in) have massively thick walls, like 1.5 feet thick. So comparing the typical constructing materials used there vs here, sounds is generally more of an issue here than there. But it still wouldn't surprise me if the walls uses minimal materials still considering how fast they built those buildings

Little Boxes on the Hillside

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN3rN59GlWw

VHB spuppose to buy in 2010 whenever he don't buy market goes up.Hey Arit? I thought your dementia is under control but it's getting out of whack again,Nope?

Best Regards.

Control Arit Control.

I'm in my mid forties and have no time to wait for the pyramid to collapse. So I stopped waiting and made my peace. I rent a nice place for a good price in a convenient location and enjoy life. I travel, I buy things that are fun to own, I give flowers to my wife for no reason at all. Watching the rat race where paper-millionaires topple each other struggling to become the "best slave ever" is amusing and puts things in perspective. I guess different things make different people happy – and in the end happiness is what all of us should strive for. It all reminds me of the "Planet of the Apes" on so many levels… Someone said that in today's world, Olympic athletes are merely modern-day gladiators for governments and corporations. I think this is… Read more »

@arit:

First, all the existing “great fools”, haven’t even acknowledged that they were suckered. That needs to happen before the pyramid collapses

Nope, that happens after the pyramid collapses. Who got wise to Madoff's scheme before it collapsed?

The reason pyramid schemes collapse is simple – they require exponential input of capital from new participants to pay off the old ones, and that cannot continue indefinitely. No matter what.

Your future tax increase will go indirectly the banks.

CMHC are taxpayer insured motgages.

The banks are enjoying their biggest spreads ever.

We are being controlled and screwed by the banks.

The banks have no competition.

Money is the REAL power.

@Drachen: Very good points you raise. And in principle there is nothing wrong in letting banks fend for themselves. However the lack of any insurance would effectively restrict credit, also for people who might deserve (at least some). Right now we are awash with credit: zero interest rates, bad loans made to unworthy borrowers, rampant speculation and government-sponsored moral hazard (I know, it sounds like a rant, which makes it even crazier since every word is true). However that is not always the case and private markets, with some serious regulatory oversight, might still be granted. This discussion is completely pointless i our current predicament: in Canada the government has swamped any natural pricing mechanism in the RE market. Think of this: if foreclosure rates on new issued loans were to go up, the CMHC and the government of Canada… Read more »

Sitting in an office lounge this am, read the Jan 9 edition of the Economist. It said that another asset bubble is ready to pop and that Canada Australia Spain and British RE prices are at least 50% overvalued. Economist is an elitist international socialist non IOC/Vanoc rag with a hard on for vanshithole though, so nobody pay attention. The local media knows best.

You got to read this article

http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/2010winterg…

the bottom paragraph is best:

"Under the headline, "Vancouver Games Continue Downhill Slide From Disaster to Calamity," Lawrence Donegan of the Guardian writes: "[Unfolding events are] threatening to make these Games the worst in Olympic history. It is hard to believe anything will surpass the organizational chaos and naked commercial greed of the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta or the financial disaster of the 1976 Summer Games, which bankrupted Montreal, yet with every passing day the sense of drift and nervousness about the Vancouver Games grows ever more noticeable."

Well maybe everyone will get their wish the olympics will be viewed as crap Vancouver as crap housing prices will go down and you’ll all be happy

@domus:

…

In any case, we have NO PRIVATE skin in the game. Banks get to free ride on riskless bonds, speculators save half their interest costs and tax payers subsidize a system which support artificially high RE prices. Why? Why is such a system in place?

…

The question is rhetorical: Canada is moving to socialism. Why – is another issue. We socialized already education and health care. Both work badly.

Accommodation is the nest victim.

@Drachen:

Why not the banks?

As demonstrated south of the border (and this side by CIBC especially) the people running the banks cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of their shareholders. Market failure.

Now that of course is the case for other corporations too, but the taxpayer is not holding the bag for them.