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Friday Free-for-all!

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Yessir, another weekend in paradise! It’s the end of the week and you know what that means, it’s time for our regular news round up and open topic discussion thread! Here are a few stories to kick off the chat:

–Nice chunk of taxpayer money headed to BC!
–$100 million loss on Olympic Village?
–Green quits Little Mountain over “difference of opinion”
–15 Years of economic growth not trickling down
–Occupy Vancouver pretty laid back
–The pros and cons of being an absentee landlord
–Toronto house price growth could soon top Vancouver
–$500k: Buy a mansion get a US visa

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

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VHB
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Month end projections based on Thursday's numbers:

October 2011 month-end projections

Days elapsed so far 13

Days missing 0

Days remaining 7

5 Day Moving Average: Sales 118

5 Day Moving Average: Listings 212

SALES

Sales so far 1568

Projection for rest of month (using 5day MA) 829

Projected month end total 2397 +/- 217

NEW LISTINGS

Listings so far 3229

Projection for rest of month (using 5day MA) 1481

Projected month end total 4710 +/- 148

Sell-list so far 48.6%

Projected month-end sell-list 50.9%

MONTHS OF INVENTORY

Inventory as of September 30, 2011 16839

MoI at this sales pace 7.03

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7 years 7 months ago
4SlicesofCheese
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Saw the news story about the shipbuilding contract on a news segment.

They went to BCIT to interview some students, at the end of the segment he said maybe now he can afford to buy a house with a grin from ear to ear.

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7 years 7 months ago
patriotz
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Surprisingly informative article about that US house buyer's visa proposal in the Sun:

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/retiree+visa+w…

Big question: would that allow Canadians to buy houses south of Zero and commute to work in Vancouver? On the surface yes, but there's that little problem of not being eligible for Medicare if you don't live here.

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7 years 7 months ago
chip
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That trickle down story is pure farce, but I found this item interesting:

"Education has improved, especially with university graduation rates soaring. But our international rating has declined in literacy, math and science."

So education has improved because massive subsidies allow more kids to frame a bit of paper on their wall, even if little things like literacy, math and science are getting worse?

I don't know how Canada compares but in the US education spending has doubled in the last 30 years and student loans now total $1 trillion, yet test scores have flatlined or fallen and for the first time ever last year, most US PHDs in science and engineering were foreigners.

Speaking of education, here's a neat story on what Jobs told Obama upon meeting him last year:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/steve-jo…

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7 years 7 months ago
patriotz
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@chip:

Well the US is the only western country where anti-intellectual and anti-science attitudes dominate major religious denominations and one major political party.

Kind of hard to expect kids to do well in science when they are indoctrinated at Sunday school against rational thinking.

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7 years 7 months ago
Patiently Waiting
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@4SlicesofCheese: "maybe now he can afford to buy a house with a grin from ear to ear."

Maybe, but the commute from Chilliwack to North Van is brutal.

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7 years 7 months ago
900kCrackHouse
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@patriotz: Huh? Just when is an unproved theory that the universe evolved out of chaos science? Science is based on provable hard facts. Belief in a creator that created a universe that follows mathematical laws actually leads to the study of science and rational thinking. What chip and yourself says is only true if your definition of science is based on macro evolution being a scientificaly proven fact.

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7 years 7 months ago
Patiently Waiting
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Before North Van condo speculators count their gains:

"#9 smartalox on 10.20.11 at 8:43 pm

Speaking of those fat shipbuilding contracts, I hate to think what will happen to the owners of all those condos built at the foot of Lonsdale quay in North Van. The last time a ship was built there, a lot of those towers didn’t exist – and for good reason: shipbuilding is a very noisy, dirty business!"

http://www.greaterfool.ca/2011/10/20/next-5/#comm…

Not to mention stinky, I bet.

Driving somewhere in the BC hinterland 30 years ago:

Me: Ewww, what's that smell?

Dad: Jobs.

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7 years 7 months ago
patriotz
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@900kCrackHouse:

"Belief in a creator that created a universe that follows mathematical laws actually leads to the study of science and rational thinking."

Sure, that was Newton's point of view and he did pretty well by it. But he didn't believe the teaching of the Catholic church that the Earth was the centre of the universe, did he?

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7 years 7 months ago
Makaya
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@900kCrackHouse: "Belief in a creator that created a universe that follows mathematical laws actually leads to the study of science and rational thinking."

hahahaha, you made my day. I thought you people only existed in the US but no, you are in Canada too! Please do not change, I would love to meet one of you one day, out of curiosity, the same way I like to go to the zoo sometimes 🙂

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7 years 7 months ago
Anonymous
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"What chip and yourself says is only true if your definition of science is based on macro evolution being a scientificaly proven fact"

It is.

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7 years 7 months ago
nxt
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Oh delightful, we've gotten into a debate on evolution. 🙄

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7 years 7 months ago
Anonymous
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"Kind of hard to expect kids to do well in science when they are indoctrinated at Sunday school against rational thinking."

bullshit. you make it sound like kids actually listen. if such indoctrination were so effective, how do you explain the variety and contradiction that exists in society? eventually everyone grows up and makes up their own minds, and some will agree with you and some won't.

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7 years 7 months ago
Don Lapre
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From the interwebs: " When scientists say "evolution is a fact", they are using one of two meanings of the word "fact". One meaning is empirical: evolution can be observed through changes in allele frequencies or traits of a population over successive generations.

Another way "fact" is used is to refer to a certain kind of theory, one that has been so powerful and productive for such a long time that it is universally accepted by scientists. When scientists say evolution is a fact in this sense, they mean it is a fact that all living organisms have descended from a common ancestor (or ancestral gene pool)in that predictions made by the theory have consistently been supported by empirical observations."

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7 years 7 months ago
Anonymouse
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@Anonymous:

"you make it sound like kids actually listen."

They manage to learn their parents language. That implies that they listen.

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7 years 7 months ago
Economics anonymous
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@4SlicesofCheese:

"They went to BCIT to interview some students, at the end of the segment he said maybe now he can afford to buy a house with a grin from ear to ear."

Yes, that comes from a steel trades student.

He was going for a Phd in physics, but changed his mind.

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7 years 7 months ago
jesse
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Also Sprach: Chinese Homeowners Are Angry That Developers Have Cut Prices

Hmmm… sounds familiar… I anticipate we'll be hearing similar complaints in Vancouver (again) in the coming years.

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7 years 7 months ago
Anonymous
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@Don Lapre: or you can determine what is a fact for yourself by studying the evidence with an open mind…hopefully with something close to a reasonable IQ

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7 years 7 months ago
Don Lapre
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@ Anonymous: As long as my "fact" is falsifiable then yes.

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7 years 7 months ago
Yalie
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@Anonymous:

bullshit. you make it sound like kids actually listen. if such indoctrination were so effective, how do you explain the variety and contradiction that exists in society? eventually everyone grows up and makes up their own minds, and some will agree with you and some won’t.

Hmmmm… since "everyone grows up and makes up their own minds", I suppose it's just a coincidence that 90% of Arab kids grew up and decided to be Muslim, 90% of Italian kids grew up and decided to be Catholic, and 90% of Indian kids grew up and decided to be Hindu?

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7 years 7 months ago
CanNeverQuiteRemembe
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slowdown"postponed"? So it doesn't just happen on its own, I guess.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business…

apologiesif this was already posted

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7 years 7 months ago
Yalie
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@jesse:

… and who could forget this gem from Florida a few years ago when developers slashed prices on unsold units by 50%

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10WoQZKZkNs

My favorite quote from the video: "They promised us they would not sell below the market value!"

Kinda reminds me of a line from an Onion article a while back, "Poverty is widespread: statistics show that a shocking 50% of citizens earn an income below the national average."

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7 years 7 months ago
Jim
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"Well the US is the only western country where anti-intellectual and anti-science attitudes dominate major religious denominations and one major political party." Uh, I don't know if you can pin this on Christians. Take France, where anti-scientism is entrenched in the culture. A large part of the war against science and the Enlightenment has been conducted by post-modernist 'theorists'. These are people who deny that there are truths, who view science as but one of many equally 'valid' ways of 'knowing'. Our kids grow up in high schools and universities that denigrate the search for truth as an elitist relic. The destruction of scientific culture is not merely a result of ignorant Christian fundamentalists. To a large extent, it has been accomplished by secular Jews, including Freud, Lacan, Derrida, the Frankfurt school, etc. To their credit, asian cultures (among others)… Read more »
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7 years 7 months ago
cgh
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@Yalie: "Kinda reminds me of a line from an Onion article a while back, “Poverty is widespread: statistics show that a shocking 50% of citizens earn an income below the national average.”"

I cannot laugh at this because of the confusion between "median" and "average". Carry on.

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7 years 7 months ago
patriotz
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@Jim:

"Take France, where anti-scientism is entrenched in the culture."

Well I don't think any student in France would have trouble naming a few prominent scientists from their country. Try that in the US. You'd probably get someone like Einstein (who of course was from Germany) or Steve Jobs (who was not a scientist).

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7 years 7 months ago