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Friday Free-for-all on the new site!

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Hello everybody, it’s Friday and you know what that means.. It’s Free-for-all time, our end of the week news roundup and open topic discussion thread.

Here are a few recent stories to kick off the chat:

–BOC warns of ‘debt shock’ if house prices drop
–Inventory graph: growth slowing but still steep
–RRSP contributions shrink to 1970s levels
–Mortgage fraud blooming in Canada
–Our debt vs. pre-meltdown levels in USA
–Housing Collapse in mississauga. literally.
–Shill article linked by Forbes gone from Vancouver Sun?
–First time buyer bonus to make a difference in suburbs

If you haven’t been here for a few days you’ll notice some changes. We’ve done a full site overhaul and upgrades and that just might mean somethings aren’t fully working yet.

Please post any issues in the comment section.  We can’t promise they’ll all be addressed, but we’ve been pretty good about responding to requests so far.

A few new things of note:

Formatting Numbers:

For those that like to post numbers in a table format, we’ve added the PRE html tag to help control formatting and a new comment preview button at upper right of the comment box.

This new comment workaround and preview system might help when you’re posting number data.

Avatars

For those of you that don’t like Gravatar, we have a new local avatar feature. When you log into your VCI account you’ll see your user profile edit page. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you’ll find a place to upload an avatar.

User Account Cleanup

We’ve had lots of spam account signups lately and we’re starting to purge the user roles for both cleanliness and security. The best way for you to confirm that you’re human is to post an on topic comment after registering for an account. If you register for an account and don’t post any comments your user account will be deleted, especially if your registration email goes to something like spammer@wowfreemoney.con

That’s about it for now, let’s get on with the conversation.

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

 

Update: Patriotz linked to this image of the Macleans March 5th cover, it’s a doozy:

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trackback

[…] “Good little story about Kelowna. My buddy’s house has been on the market for a long time and out of the blue he got a bite. It sold for about 5% less than asking and when they were $4K apart he stood his ground and told his Realtor that if he wanted this to happen he and the the other Realtor would have to do something about their commission to make up the $4K because he wasn’t dropping anymore. At first they said ok, then they said it couldn’t be done, then they said they needed an extra day and sure enough the two of them ate $2K each and the deal got done. Good for him for holding his ground as the realtors tried to wait him out and hoped he would cave. Even better, he signed a… Read more »

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patriotz

@Anonymous:
In the context of a self-owned business yes you are correct.

Sorry for the knee jerk response, far too many people hold the fallacy that RRSP’s (for ordinary employees) defer rather than eliminate taxation on investment returns. Most specifically, many are using this fallacy to justify depending on owner-occupied RE as a retirement plan.

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Anonymous

@jumpin in:

iphones are made in China.

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Anonymous

@patriotz: “Wrong, because the compounded value of the tax refund on contribution is equal to the value of the taxes paid on withdrawl (assuming your marginal tax rate hasn’t gone up).”

Putting things in context the choice was drawing the money out of a business in the form of salary (so you can put 18% of that amount back in an RRSP) or leaving the money in the business to invest directly. I think the latter is better. If you disagree good luck with your finances.

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patriotz

@Anonymous:
“RRSP and pensions only DELAY paying taxes”

Wrong, because the compounded value of the tax refund on contribution is equal to the value of the taxes paid on withdrawl (assuming your marginal tax rate hasn’t gone up).

“and are limited in the amount you can contribute. ”

Right.

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Hibernating Renter

Sorry to clutter up the comments but I don’t see anywhere else to do this– could I please get an invite to Vancouver Peak?

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N

This is not a country where sustained growth is likely. This is a kleptocracy.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/02/26/bloomberg_articlesLZOPJT6JTSE901-M008R.DTL

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Laibach

@Anonymous:

Do I feel lucky getting all that garbage like Zhang Yongjun and his family from China and wasting all my hard earned tax money on those parasites?

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Drachen

@Meh:

Forget his parents. The article says he ‘plans to apply…’

He hasn’t even filed papers yet. China will melt down before he gets out.

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Anonymous

A business owner should compensate himself with wages and dividends as the wages give Rrsp room and yes you are correct Rrsp only delay taxation but it also can give creditors protection if done properly

Again if you have a successful business I would recommend using an accountant to determine the proper ratio and setting up the Rrsp or pension plan

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jumpin in

RE: Chinese export slow down. Is it really the Euro crisis or is it that people are fed up with buying crap Made in PRC that breaks in no time, while PRC brags about their up coming supremacy? May be people buy differently for the sake of their kids’ future. I boycott Chinese products as much as I can. Call me a racist if you want, but I do not mind buying from Vietnam or India. I would love to by made in canada, but this is not a option anymore (if you know a shop that sells such products, please let me know). I noticed a shift at MEC, they even sale Canadian products now (like sweaters)! Also SEARS is now posting flags to tell where products are coming from. Products that used to say “made in china” are… Read more »

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Meh

@Anonymous: He’s going to be disappointed if he really believes that. The gate has closed for most elderly immigrants, from what I hear.

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Anonymous

@McLovin: “I didn’t post it so you could critique my friends business, his tax planning, his saving or his decisions.”

You actually gave information on his business, his thoughts on taxes, his estimated savings/down payment and asked for thoughts/commnets. FFS what did you expect?

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Anonymous

Wang says that several of his friends have already emigrated to Canada and that “None of them has tried to talk me out of my plan.” He eventually wants to bring his parents to Canada, as well, so they can benefit from a Western welfare system.

More:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,817092,00.html

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ReadyToPop

“With a meaningful rebound of domestic demand not in sight, external weakness is starting to bite, adding more downside risks to growth. The PBoC, after delivering this year’s first RRR cut, should step up policy easing as inflation pressures continue to ease.”

China’s new export orders slump in February – HSBC

Some good news for BPOM

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Anonymous

@Anonymous: “In fact you do need to pay yourself in regular wages not just in dividends that way you can take advantage of maxing a Rrsp or some other type of pension plan and other tax deduction so unless your a professional tax planner who knows the guys business your just another speculator”

RRSP and pensions only DELAY paying taxes and are limited in the amount you can contribute. The beauty of running a business is you can AVOID paying taxes if you plan properly. Drawing everything out in a salary is the worst thing you can do. Of course compounding that would be putting the money into Vancouver real estate.

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Best place on meth

@Anonymous:

Of course the market is driven by locals, and locals are driven by fear stoked by scumbags like this.

The point here is that this prick helps launder dirty money yet he’s quick to use the racist card in an attempt to squelch any debate about foreign buyers.

The guy is absolutely vile.

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jesse

@McLovin: If the guy made mega off his good fortune, sounds like overpaying isn’t a big deal. My free worthless advice is to tell him the risks involved (ie 40% correction or whatever), state you might be wrong but also might be right it’s a severe risk, and change the subject.

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RippedtoShit

Chill out McLovin, get a life or a wife.

And stop that nasty business your in. It may be the oldest industry on earth, but come on man there has to be a better way to earn a living than THAT!!!!

Please, change your nasty ways.

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Anonymous

@Best place on meth:

The market is being driven by locals, not foreigners, not mainland Chinese.

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Best place on meth

The nastiest lowlife douchebag in Vancouver says if you blame mainland Chinese for driving up prices then you’re a racist.

http://watch.bnn.ca/the-street/february-2012/the-street-february-23-2012/#clip624734

Thankfully the worthless sack of dogshit does admit that the US is becoming more attractive than Canada for these corrupt commie pigs.

And yes, they are corrupt. The scum basically says as much when he proclaims “the wealthy there have become wealthy based on their relationships with government”.

I think he may however be too stupid to realize that he just called them corrupt.

I wonder if he’ll be arrested in Beijing some day for helping corrupt Chinese siphon billions out of China and into Canada.

Would be nice, yes?

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Anonymous

I have to agree with Mclovin some of you started speculating on his frieind compensates himself with absolutely no idea what you are talking about
In fact you do need to pay yourself in regular wages not just in dividends that way you can take advantage of maxing a Rrsp or some other type of pension plan and other tax deduction so unless your a professional tax planner who knows the guys business your just another speculator
I would still advise your frieind not to buy Vancouver RE though

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