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Friday Free-for-all!

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Hello!  It’s the end o’ the week and winter games wrap-up.  Let’s do our regular news round up and economic news discussion post, here are a few stories to kick off the chat:

–NYT: a $1 billion olympic hangover?
–ReMAX: few listings mean tight spring market
-Google search for ‘housing bubble’ in Canada and US
–a cooler take on a hot housing market
–Canadian inflation rates 1915 – 2010
–Automatic tipping makes some visitors complain
–Reports show US recovery losing momentum

So what are you seeing out there?  Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

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grandmaster GY:
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grandmaster GY:
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@Drachen: well i paid roughly the same in Germany, maybe 2% more – maybe because I was married or maybe because it's a while back? Main point is though that it feels you get a lot more for the taxes you pay in Germany.

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10 years ago
space889
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@Clarke: actually what happened in China is a lot more complicates than you appreciate and it is not as simple as Mao is a despot or hates traditional Chinese Culture. If anything, a bit part of drive to destroy tradition Chinese culture is to actually caste off things that ties China to the past and catches up/emulate what has made the West so powerful. So while you bemoan the loss of Chinese culture, consider that if the Europeans/Japan hasn't trashed and humuliated China so much in 1800s to early 1900s, China probably would not have changed so much as it did in the last 100 years and we would have maintained more of that culture you so loves and maybe the pigtails. 🙂

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10 years ago
space889
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@patriotz: As I said, taste is subjective. You think Chinese have bad tastes because they prefer Vancouver Specials. Well I have news for you, they think you have bad tastes for preferring and willing to pay more for old character houses over a more functionally laid out, easy to maintain Vancouver Special. So it's all subjective.

Don't mean to be mean here but there are lots of mainland Chinese who thinks large areas of Vancouver looks like a poor rural village. Would you tell them that they are all wrong and stupid and have no tastes because they don't agree with you?

Either way for me personally I'm happy you think that way because that means the kind of houses I want to buy will also be 10% to 20% cheaper 🙂

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10 years ago
Drachen
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@grandmaster GY:

"I worked in Germany and Canada with similar salaries (above avg but not major) and taxes are pretty much the same…"

My wife is German, she paid 40% of her cheque to the government when she was working there, even the highest tax brackets pay less than that here. I don't know what you're thinking about.

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10 years ago
patriotz
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@Anonymous:

Unfortunately the real rate of inflation was obfuscated throughout the ’80s and ’90s by things like the ‘hedonistic adjustments’ and ‘owner equivalent rent’

You mean the statisticians managed to fool the bond markets? Things have kept getting more expensive just like in the 70's? I don't think so.

As for rent, it's a plain fact that it's not going anywhere, and that's the largest component of CPI by far.

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10 years ago
patriotz
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@bestplaceonmeth:

Have to say that what the dancing Mounties, etc. reminded me of more than anything else was "Springtime for Hitler".

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10 years ago
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“I recently went back to my first home in Mount Pleasant, when I had lived as an immigrant back in 1989. There has been a lot of changes to the neighborhood, and blocks where I don’t recognize where I am” « Vancouver Real Estate Anecdo
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[…] February 2010 · Leave a Comment This response to Froogle Scott Chronicles Part 5 from space889 at vancouvercondo.info 26 Feb 2010 10:52 am […]

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10 years ago
Anonymous
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It’s an episode of ‘This Hour Has 22 Minutes’ or ‘ Wayne and Shuster ‘

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10 years ago
logic
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aw, i don;t know – the bits involving the russians have been quite classy….

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10 years ago
KoreanPatrick
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@Patrick: The comments patrick is making is from total ignorance and racism. You probably are some kind of sick loser who doesn't have any respect to other races. Koreans hate Canadians??? If so, please give me your rationales why more than 30,000 young Canadians applying working visa to teach English in Korea every year? Canadians are coming into Korea to earn decent wages and new opportunities because they are treated very well. I myself is Korean and choose to immigrate here 16 years ago because I love the beautiful nature Canada has offered. And by the way, speed skating or any other winter sports are NOT natioanl sports in Korea. They have very short winter and only one long track speed skating venue in whole country. Only One!!! Even national team members are allowed 2 hours a day 5 days… Read more »

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10 years ago
patriotz
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John Furlong is trying to speak French! PLEASE make it stop!

He greeted the Prime Minister of Provence (southern France), among other gaffes.

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10 years ago
Fandango
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I think Sarah Mclachlan lives in BC. Michael J. Fox moved away decades ago and Ryan Reynolds many years ago. Not sure about the others. Why couldn’t they at least use people that actually LIVE here? It’s embarrassing. You’ve got to be here, but to make a living you have to be in LA? WTF?

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10 years ago
Nowwhat?
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Nowwhat?
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Get those people back in here! Turn those machines back on!

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10 years ago
Big Crash
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Get ready for the olympic bills and the cost over-runs. Gordo, I'm going to slap you in the mouth with my d**k!!

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10 years ago
logic
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can they please also buy Nickelback and make them move to China. Oh, and make them STFU.

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10 years ago
richasian
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Best closing ceremony ever! Every rich asian is going to now buy a condo in Vancouver just to be close to all the beavers, moose, good hockey, and canoes. I'm keeping my smock and moose ears forever.

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10 years ago
Anonymous
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@patriotz:

@domus:

Governments see it (inflation) as a benign phenomenon, because it would decrease debt liabilities.

No they don’t, because inflation inevitably results in higher interest rates. The bond markets are not going to be cheated out of their real returns.

Unfortunately the real rate of inflation was obfuscated throughout the '80s and '90s by things like the 'hedonistic adjustments' and 'owner equivalent rent', not to mention the massive purchases of debt from governments hoping to keep their currencies down relative to the dollar.

See:
http://www.shadowstats.com/

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10 years ago
Absinthe
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Absinthe
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Hey, Arit! You picked my birthday!

PARTY!!!

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10 years ago
VHB
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VHB
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Arit: When your number (4) comes true, I am quite sure that my head will explode.

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10 years ago
ulsterman
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Patriotz, as an Irishman who hated French in high school I could feel John Furlong's pain as he butchered the language. However, if i were him i would have spent months working on my accent with a tutor. It was painful to listen to him chew each syllable to death. Jzzzeu Sweeze…

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10 years ago
arit
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********************************************

!!!PARTY TIME!!!

********************************************

I declare the opening of the Post Olympic Era!!!

This is the time we have been waiting for! 7 years of expectations, here it is. This new epoch shall be known as:

"You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out"

Among many exciting venues:

1. "The unveiling of the bear/bull truth: Who was right and who is poor!"

2. "The Great Chinese Drywall!"

3. "The dissapointment of the specuvestor!"

4."The -Nobody could've seen it coming- headlines!"

5. "The economic massacre of the realtor(tm)." aka "Please take over Hummer lease".

The events will span across the coming six years, culminating in a magnificent "Post Olympic Era" closing party at arit's place (cash only) where everybody here will be invited, mark your calendar July 27th 2016!

Regards

arit

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10 years ago
logic
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140 – you make me laugh. nice summary.

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10 years ago
stagnate
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patrick, points taken; the truth is probably somewhere in between.

the olympics were a success but indeed most elements of the closing ceremonies were somewhat embarassing. i especially thought gordon campbell acting like a drunk 20 yr. old granville street meathead to be an embarassment to his position.

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10 years ago
Best place on meth
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Best place on meth
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Great closing ceremony! In fact it was my favorite part of the Olympics along with the sounds of packing and leaving. Furlong spoke French like Tom Vu speaks English. Neil Young was inspirational as usual. Shatner and his hairpiece were both hilarious. Gordo, the only one still wearing red mittens continued to flail away like a Special Ed child. The only thing missing was an all star rendition of "I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok". That would have been truly sweet. As far as the early part of the show went – Fantastic! The Russian portion of the show was spectacular and injected a much needed component to the games that we haven't seen for a while. Culture. Some of the less interesting things were the cheesy Canadian stereotypes: Buble singing in a Mountie uniform against a backdrop of mountains… Read more »

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10 years ago
gorkyy
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gorkyy
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134 was me, sorry logic.

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10 years ago