Open Topic

Friday Free-for-all! Farewell 2016!

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211 Comments

Well, let’s call that year done shall we?

It’s another Friday at the end of another week and an another year and that means it’s time for another Friday Free-for-all!

This is our regular end of the week news round up and open topic discussion thread for the weekend, here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:

–Up, down or flat in 2017?
–Vancouver crowded or not?
–Reporting breaking news from May 2016
–Cant stop visiting useless boring blog
–Questioning value of BC homebuyer loans
–Accurate prediction
–Is the US in another bubble?
–

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

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bullwhip29

Kelowna Daily Courier: Liberals’ home-loan plan one of worst ideas ever
http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/opinion/article_7fe2a14e-d171-11e6-9d41-9b062eeea178.html

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bullwhip29

A helping hand for homebuyers provides a helping hand at the polls
https://www.biv.com/article/2017/1/helping-hand-homebuyers-provides-helping-hand-poll/

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bullwhip29

New downtown Vancouver schools signal families flocking to urban centre says expert
http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/01/03/new-vancouver-schools-signal-families-flocking-to-downtown.html

>>> these idiots are so far behind the curve it isnt even funny…

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bullwhip29

Studio apartment to heritage home: What $1,800 per month can rent across Canada
http://bc.ctvnews.ca/studio-apartment-to-heritage-home-what-1-800-per-month-can-rent-across-canada-1.3225091

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Newcomer

These stories really bug me because they make it sound as if they are showing you the most you can get in these places when, of course, they are more or less showing you the least you can get. There are lots of one and two bedroom apartments available for that price downtown, or you can have a whole laneway house to yourself, if you are willing to go out of the core.

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FOMO

Ummmmm. Competition isn’t really that tight anymore. They are behind the times with this.

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bullwhip29

Richmond BC Is Transforming Into A Ghost City Without A Plan
https://betterdwelling.com/richmond-bc-is-transforming-into-a-ghost-city-without-a-plan/

>>> every parcel of land sold off to the highest bidder to apparently do whatever they want with it whether that be residential, commercial or farm land. Now what?

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bullwhip29

BIV: Foreign-buyer tax won’t stop Chinese investment in Vancouver
https://www.biv.com/article/2017/1/foreign-buyer-tax-wont-stop-chinese-investment-van/

>>> the completely unbiased view according to the publisher of the Real Estate Weekly

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No Money Down

632 E 20th Vancouver sold in December for $1.1M

2017 Assessed value (July 1, 2016): $1.3M

https://evaluebc.bcassessment.ca

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history

According to yicai.com, although the foreign exchange purchasing quota per Chinese resident remains at US$50,000, Chinese resident now needs to fill in a personal forex purchasing application form when they buy forex via mobile banking, ATMs or bank counters.

The application form stated that such forex cannot be used for buying residential flats, securities investment, life insurance policies and other capital items that are not opened, and cannot be involved in money laundering and other illegal deals. Offenders will be listed in a “monitor list”, will not be entitled to US$50,000 purchasing quota in the next two years and may face a fine of up to RMB50,000.

aastocks.com

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Newcomer

Good thing they cleared that up about the money laundering.

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Just me

I have been reading about this all day. I doubt it will wirk, the Chinese are very skillful in getting around laws.
The government if China should do something more drastic to have any serious effect. Reducing quotas comes to mind.

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bullwhip29

Globe and Mail: Bitcoin’s bounce-back: $1,000 and rising Jemima Kelly LONDON — Reuters Published Monday, Jan. 02, 2017 12:19PM EST Last updated Monday, Jan. 02, 2017 6:26PM EST http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/bitcoin-jumps-above-1000-for-first-time-in-three-years/article33467132 Digital currency bitcoin kicked off the new year by jumping above $1,000 for the first time in three years late on Sunday, having outperformed all central-bank-issued currencies with a 125-per-cent climb in 2016. Bitcoin – a web-based “cryptocurrency” that has no central authority, relying instead on thousands of computers across the world that validate transactions and add new bitcoins to the system – jumped 2.5 per cent to $1,022 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, its highest since December 2013. Though the digital currency has historically been highly volatile – a tenfold increase in its value in two months in late 2013 took it to above $1,100, before a hack on the… Read more »

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Oracle

95% of money comes in via “import over invoicing” between Hong Kong and China. More specifically, imports into China from Hong Kong.

Ex: rocks imported into China and $2 million sent to Hong Kong for the purchase. Once in Hong Kong, free to move anywhere in world and any amount in corporations.

This $50,000 is a distraction by media.

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HAMster

95% of money comes in via “import over invoicing”.
How do you know any of this? Any data or a link to support this or do you just pull numbers out of the air ?

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Just me

Sinc countries like Canada have chisen to do nothing and just pocket thr illicit cash, the Chinese goverments decided to step in.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/china-drills-down-into-forex-transactions-as-money-exits-abroad

Oh no, Christy! Is this going to reduce the hard earned equity of our millionaire nimby homeowners? Will they starve and die? Hiw about okd ladies relying on house equity to buy the scant essentials?

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Just me

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/singapore-home-prices-fall-for-third-year-amid-government-curbs

If prices fell in the rich city-state of Singapore (landlocked, open to foreigners) it is possible to have the same outcome in Vancouver. It is feasible, if politicians really wanted to do it.
This means that the biggest obstacle to more affirdable housing are the BC Liberals and Christy Clark.

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Shut It Down Already

The biggest obstacle is the local population who want to buy at just about any price because “real estate always goes up!”. It’s a winning lottery ticket to them.

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Oracle

Nice try. Buts its foreign money inflows. Got to tax the hell out of these local assholes with overseas stashes.

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Shut It Down Already

Not only is it a nice try but all the available data is in agreement with me.

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Best place on meth

China’s new rule on yuan transfers not a capital control measure – Xinhua

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-rule-yuan-transfers-not-040249781.html

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would-be buyer

Boom! If true:

Customers must pledge money won’t be used for overseas purchases of property, securities, life insurance or investment-type insurance. While such rules aren’t new, citizens previously didn’t have to sign such a pledge

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/china-drills-down-into-forex-transactions-as-money-exits-abroad?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

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Oh NO

https://www.ratespy.com/latest-mortgage-rate-changes

FYI dozens daily for the past 6 weeks…..up up and away!

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UBC in Crisis Mode

Van West SFH sales (after 15% foreign buyer tax):
57, September, 2016
76, October
65, November
39, December

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fomostyle

UK building 200k new residences to alleviate housing shortage. On the green belts no less.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/02/new-garden-towns-villages-provide-200000-homes-ease-housing/

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Spec

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2017/01/02/Canada-Disclosure-Laws/
(The Shell Game: Canada’s Lax Disclosure Laws Open Door to Tax Fraud, Money Laundering)

Also: Oracle – stick with one handle. Your sock puppet theatre (among other things) is tired. (New Oracle, Statistician, TRT, etc.. all pretty obvious)

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Just me

Great article. Clear, detailed and to the point. Why are our goverments doing nothing on this score? I doubt they are unaware of the ongoing criminal behavior. Mire likely, they quietly encourage it!
Disturbing on so many levels. Write to your MP. Do it this week.

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realist

“$2,000,000,000,000 in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, Australia, Canada and Netherlands”
By Christine Duhaime | January 2nd, 2017

http://www.antimoneylaunderinglaw.com/2017/01/qa-on-the-2-trillion-in-proceeds-of-corruption-removed-from-china-and-taken-to-us-australia-canada-and-netherlands.html

In case you were in doubt:

“Q: In Canada, where does the money end up and why?

A: Vancouver is the preferred destination, by far, because of perceived more relaxed anti-money laundering on-boarding compliance and more importantly, easier access to better schools and lifestyle for children of Chinese foreign nationals.”

Happy New Year!

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Oracle

Good post.

So we have 100,000’s people now living here who think laws exist to find loopholes and exploit. (That’s what they did by getting money out of China).

How can locals compete by being so honest? They can’t.

In any other time, this would be grounds for civil war.

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Newcomer

Where did you see any mention of “100,000’s people now living here who think laws exist to find loopholes and exploit”?

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Did he have to read about it in someone else’s report before he had evidence for it?

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Newcomer

Yes, she does if she wants to start her sentence with “So.” That’s what “so” means. It means, “in keeping with the foregoing.”

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

No, not always. Sometimes people use it conversationally to bring up a new topic.

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Newcomer

Not when replying to something on a blog. If you wanted to use “so” to emphasize a new topic, you would also go to the top and start a new thread.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

oh come on. why pick on the way people naturally talk?

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Newcomer

It’s not a question of how we talk, it’s a question of how we reason. And how we talk is the only insight we have, here on this blog, into how we reason. The alternative is to ignore what other people actually say and just write in response to what we assume they meant. That approach has a poor track record.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

I’m with Chomsky. People talk the way they talk. You can’t police it unless the person doing the writing is submitting an essay in a formal review process. Just because someone says the word “so”, as Chilled did, does not mean that he or she is indicating the conclusion of an argument. Do I have to go into youtube and find recordings of people using the word “so” for the purpose of starting a new topic to convince you? Just notice at the next party you attend how people talk and you will probably discover a person starting a conversation this way. All that said, let Chilled himself or herself resolve the issue. Chilled?

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Oh actually it was Oracle I guess, not Chilled.

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Oracle

Nice try, but your true colours shining thru you money launderer.

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Newcomer

Busted.

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Just me

This is exactly why we should talk about China every day!
And why we should not vote the BC Liberals back in office for a fifth consectutive term: they are more than happy to sell the whole province to the Chinese to appease their great electors (the developers and real estate industry).
2017, could it be the year the corrupted and opportunistic Christy Clark is booted out? She won’t have troubles making money in some third rate talk show or working as the “face” of the real estate industry with a cushy job at the Urban Institute or the such.

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fomostyle

New New Zealand. Middle class local folk getting displaced quickly.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/01/02/fears-massive-global-property-price-crash-amid-dangerous-conditions/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw

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Newcomer

Looks like a different article, but an interesting one nonetheless. The bubbly places are the Commonwealth plus Sweden. I wonder if the Chinese are buying everything in Sweden. The article shows that, in the case of the UK, the Swedish are buying as much as the Chinese, which is noteworthy considering that China is a little larger than Sweeden.

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Abdul Lahazi

When will we get to this point of desperation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS4aiA17YsM

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fomostyle

https://youtu.be/8jIw22XXSso

^ and this movie was in 1976!

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The New Oracle

2017 Agenda:

1) BPOM and Space should call it a truce. Don’t respond to each other.

2) People should be criticizing our politicians/ bureaucrats as opposed to China. They are just exploiting the rules.

3) People should out posters like Patriotz/Newcomer who are very attuned to a different agenda.

4) Personal attacks should end. Post China BS but do remember the rage should lie against our ‘elected’ officials.

5) Everyone should take a math course. See how housing mix of condos, townhouse, and detached can make the latter unaffordable when demand rises (see both temp and perm immigration) couple with land use restrictions.

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Just me

We must not be scared to criticize and discuss China. The emergence of that large and undemocratic country is the big issue of our times.

I actually think that we talk to little of it, as if it was a sudeshow. It is jot. It is the force that has been changing the world for the past 30 years or so, shaping it in ways that worry me deeply.

As for our politicians, we do discuss the sad reality of their wimpy and opportunistic behavior. We do it on a daily basis.

But we should not refrain to address the reality of China and its horrible effects on our daily lives.

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chilled

Blame our ‘elected’ officials? How would they get elected if they spoke of anything contrary to Canada’s immigration/multicultural fiasco that is promoted by the MSM, indoctrinated Public & Post Secondary education institutes and NEVER challenged publicly by anyone who wants to work again? No dude, I will continue to call out and put the blame where it belongs; On the backs of the fucking stupid, politically correct Canadian, greedy boomers and mindless millennial that, through there conformist PC thinking, brought us where we are today. Blame the politicians, that’s fucking hilarious. So many of you dunderheads here wailed about Trump possibly winning the election, SPECIFICALLY his policies that would stop North America from being crapped in by undesirables. MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND. This country is getting exactly what it deserves. Hold on for the ride and wait for the… Read more »

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Newcomer

Dude, how did you go from overpriced RE to bombs going off?

While we are chatting, may I ask why to put ‘elected’ in quotes like that? It seems to imply that they weren’t legitimately elected, but the rest of your post makes the argument that they were, in fact, wanted and elected.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

: I think Chilled’s scare quotes are appropriate. He obviously thinks that we vote without adequate information and so in that sense the politicians are not really chosen (elected) by us.

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Newcomer

Welcome to democracy.

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patriotz

” He obviously thinks that we vote without adequate information”

Well for starters I think most people do know what they are voting for. Christy Clark is premier, and may well remain so, because so many British Columbians are a bunch of self-absorbed greedbags and she’s giving them what they want. And regardless, it’s up to the voters to decide how informed they want to be. That’s democracy, whether you like it or not.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Chilled, honestly, there are ways to resist rampant greed-driven globalization without going all Trump. Trump is a fascist and no matter how much things need to change, we should not have to pay the price of Trump and his minions. They’.l destroy the US and harm Canada as well.

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Newcomer

Things don’t destroy as easily as you think.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Hope you’re right. We and civilization may be more vulnerable than you think.

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Newcomer

I guess we’ll find out.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Some of us may not know what we’re looking at until it is too late. That’s how history says it usually happens. Witness the transmogrification of Vancouver at the service of greed.

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bullwhip29

Chip Wilson’s Vancouver home now worth over $75 million
http://globalnews.ca/news/3155464/chip-wilsons-point-grey-home-now-worth-over-75-million/

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Abdul Lahazi

Wilson is buying up commercial properties all over Vancouver through his investment holding company. He owns the Gastown building that Kit & Ace head office is located in.

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Statistician

Blog going downhill. Personal attacks.

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space889

Really?? Personal attacks just started now? BPOM and CO had been doing rude & personal attacks for years now.

And it wasn’t the racism hateful messages that’s tolerated and promoted here that made the blog went downhill? Never mind the wrong prediction for the last decade?

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Best place on meth

No asshole, you started the personal attacks.

You couldn’t stand me attacking china so you started attacking me personally like a little bitch. I didn’t start shit with you.

You’re no different than those mouthbreathers who launch personal attacks against people who badmouth a political party that they have some sick attachment to.

What’s your fucking obsession with defending china against every negative comment anyway? Are you Canadian or not? If you are then try defending our country for once.

If not then fuck off back to your motherland, commie trash.

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Shut It Down Already

I’m Canadian and that’s exactly why I call you out on your ignorant, intolerant bigotry. There’s nothing Canadian about being a racist twat.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

@ Shut. I don’t think you know what racism is, and I don’t think you get out enough. Have you ever visited China? And I don’t think you live in Vancouver.

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Shut It Down Already

Both of those things are irrelevant, but yes to both. And yes, using racial slurs is racist. What confuses you exactly?

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Are you saying you don’t live in Vancouver?

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Shut It Down Already

I live in Vancouver and have visited China (only for a 3 week vacation, but I think it counts within the context of the question you asked).

Do you even have a point? Do you support the use of racial slurs?

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Shut It Down Already

No point then, I see. Figured.

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StupidityCheck

I missed the slur. Can you point it out?

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Shut It Down Already

Come off it. Check his previous posts.

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CanNeverThinkOfAGoodName

Whose?

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bullwhip29

GEORGIA STRAIGHT: 2017 predictions for B.C., Canada, the United States, and the world
http://www.straight.com/news/849796/2017-predictions-bc-canada-united-states-and-world

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Newcomer

Doesn’t make sense, they predict and NDP win, but forget to predict a recession in BC.

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Sebastien

HNY Everyone,

Here’s some real estate doom porn for everyone: http://www.myrealtycheck.ca/

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C.Junta

Let’s see how long it will take BCREA to shut down this nice little hobby project.

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TRT

We are into 2017.

Now the moment of truth. What will inventory be like in 90 days when the busy spring season starts?

And what will the excuses be when inventory remains seasonally low? And prices find a floor and resume their upward trajectory. Should be an interesting 90 days.

Patriots and newcomer are doing a masterful job of keeping the bears here confused. I think the ‘great grammar ‘ does it. It gives the false believe of superiority to the inferior. See GT blog.

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Newcomer

Newcomer is a proper noun and should, therefore, be capitalized.

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Spec

LOL Looks like Moronical is back as TRT. How was “Hawaii” you lying scumbag?

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Statistician

did you miss the boom over the last decade?

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Best place on meth

Hey oracle, what does TRT stand for?

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