Friday Free-for-all!
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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March 1st, 2010 at 12:01 pm
@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.
March 1st, 2010 at 10:35 am
@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.
March 1st, 2010 at 10:19 am
@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
March 1st, 2010 at 9:51 am
@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.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:45 am
@Anonymous:
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.
March 1st, 2010 at 5:35 am
@bestplaceonmeth:
Have to say that what the dancing Mounties, etc. reminded me of more than anything else was “Springtime for Hitler”.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:03 am
@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 a week in the venue to practice. Their national sports are Taekowndo, Soccer,Golf and Baseball. Just go check the last Summer Olympic stats(won Gold medal in Baseball even though they had to play against Major league players).If you are golfer you will notice alot of Koreans in golf courses.They have many world class golfers including Antony Kim, Michelle Wie, Y.E. Yang, KY Choi, etc. They only have 15-20 long track speed skaters, less than 50 short track speed skaters,2 figure skaters(including Yu na Kim who won the gold medal in Vancouver Olympics. Why Yu Na Kim has to train in Toronto with Brian oser? No indoor venue for her to train!!!
Government support is almost non-existent. Korean Government is not allowed to use tax payers money to specific sports or ahtlete. Koreans pay very little income tax because tax from the big corporation is huge. Have you noticed many visiting students from Korea? Some companies even pays your child’s University education to secure workers. Samsung alone hires 2 million people world wide and they have many companies like that.Big korean companies like Samsung or Hyundai are sponsoring elite athletes like Yu Na Kim but there was no support for the Long track speed skaters who won the Gold medals. Canadian winter sports athletes are blessed with world class facilites and support.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:48 am
Get those people back in here! Turn those machines back on!