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Friday Free-for-all! March 10 2017

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218 Comments

It’s the end of another beautiful work week and that means it’s time for another Friday Free-for-all! This is our standard issue 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:

–First time buyer loan problems
–China capital outflows reverse
–Early signs of financial crisis
–Interest rate hikes
–Laneway Stratas
–Elections BC probe fundraising
–Squeeze profits from customers
–

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

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[…] Southseacompany pointed out this article in Canadian Business about how the banks have become complicit in the housing bubble, which strikes us as a bit unfair since any bank would be foolish to not take part in the low risk high profit business of mortgages. […]

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southseacompany

“Mortgage expert warns U.S. Fed will cause rate increases in Canada”, CTV News

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/mortgage-expert-warns-u-s-fed-will-cause-rate-increases-in-canada-1.3322093

“James Laird, co-founder of interest rate-comparison website RateHub and president of mortgage broker CanWise Financial, says he has seen five-year fixed rates tick up about half a per cent since the fall. He’s calling for rates to continue pushing higher through 2017.”

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southseacompany

“Markets still aren’t convinced Fed chair Janet Yellen will keep raising rates: Don Pittis” CBC

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/yellen-poloz-interest-rates-1.4017106

“At some point Yellen must convince markets that rate rises are no laughing matter”

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UBC in Crisis Mode

After buy Retirement Concept in BC, Anbang now gives Trump’s son-in-law a lot of money.

“The planned $4-billion transaction includes terms that some real estate experts consider unusually favorable for the Kushners. It provides them with both a sizable cash payout from Anbang Insurance Group for a property that has struggled financially and an equity stake in a new partnership. ”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-13/kushners-set-to-get-400-million-from-chinese-on-marquee-tower

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southseacompany

“Toronto’s Housing Bubble Has 24 Months To Live: BMO”, Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/03/13/toronto-housing-bubble-24-months_n_15335246.html

“Toronto’s house-price juggernaut is two years away from the sort of peak it reached it 1989, when a housing bubble burst in the city, BMO Economics says.”

“At the rate we’re now going with 20-per-cent year-on-year price increases, assuming stable mortgage rates and continued income growth, we’ll be at 1989 valuation levels in about 24 months,” senior economist Robert Kavcic wrote in a note last week.””

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KickThemOut

Foreign home buyers’ tax won’t be enough: Ryerson report

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/foreign-homebuyer-tax-not-enough-to-stop-rising-toronto-home-prices-1.4021937

You need to increase the f*ing supply. GTA has ~10 to 15 days supply right now. How hard is it to understand? Guess very hard.

Increasing cost further means only the rich can afford housing, while the “smart” plebs are kept in financial serfdom through perpetual renting.

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KickThemOut

Man, I thought you were a forward thinking thought leader among the apologists on this blog, but I was wrong. I guess you don’t dislike the male HAM eh? But loves the female morons who can barely string together an understandable coherent sentence? Who got by only on their parent’s $$$ and caked on makeup looks?

Sheesh….
Guess you are no better than the faker SID and Newcomer, pretending to be loving real Canadians.

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Shut It Down Already

Fuck off, Oracle.

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KickThemOut

“The Biggest Show Of Force Since World War II”: Japan To Send Its Largest Warship To South China Sea

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-13/biggest-show-force-world-war-ii-japan-send-its-largest-warship-south-china-sea

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southseacompany

“How Vancouver’s House Prices Are Killing Social Mobility”, The Tyee

https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/03/13/Vancouver-House-Prices-Killing-Social-Mobility/

“Only a decade or so ago, for instance, the idea of owning a house in Vancouver was plausible for many residents. Now homeownership is a fantasy for all but the highest earners. ”

“The same thing is also happening in the U.S. Two decades ago, housing in the most socially mobile cities was pricey but relatively affordable. The price gap between cities like Seattle and places with less economic opportunity was about 56 per cent. Today, that gap has risen to about 147 per cent.”

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southseacompany

“How Canada’s biggest banks have become complicit in the housing bubble”, Canadian Business

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/economy/how-canadas-biggest-banks-have-become-complicit-in-the-housing-bubble/

“Canada’s big banks have become addicted to mortgages—and it’s been incredibly profitable. But now we’re seeing the consequences of that debt binge”

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southseacompany

“Demand fuels Toronto house prices, not lack of supply, study finds”, Globe & Mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/toronto/demand-fuels-toronto-house-prices-not-lack-of-supply-study-finds/article34279980/

“Recent house price increases in Toronto are being driven by demand from foreign and domestic buyers who are caught up in a bubble of growing price expectations, and are not due to a fundamental lack of housing in the city, according to a new study released Monday.”

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fomostyle

Toronto looking to go one better than FBT tax.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/foreign-buyer-tax-alone-won-t-fix-toronto-housing-crisis-report-1.3322547

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Best place on meth

Article 50 will trigger formal Brexit as early as Wednesday.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/brexit-set-begin-bill-enters-final-stages-020554858.html

The death of the EU begins!

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patriotz

More likely, the death of the UK. The Northern Ireland election last week failed to produce a unionist majority for the first time in history. Next move, Scotland.

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Best place on meth

Blast from the past, 5 years ago: “Chinese investors shutter Vancouver neighbourhood while apologists cry ‘racism'” Last Friday, Colin took me on a Trafalgar tour. Street after street with many vacant homes. He pointed as we walked. That’s empty. That one. That one. The whole side of this street almost. Colin, not his real name, wishes to remain anonymous, fearing backlash and smears. You see, as illustrated two weeks ago in the Courier, if you dare note the ethnicity intrinsic to foreign real estate investment in Vancouver, you court charges of bigotry from industry benefactors. Of course, local realtors and developers have no problem racially profiling potential buyers. For example. Sutton West Coast Realty orchestrates Vancouver home auctions in Shanghai and West Side bus tours for Chinese investors. Yet Larry Beasley, retired Vancouver city planner and former vice-president of Aquilini… Read more »

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Just me

Apparently not enough, if you read this blog and listen to some news coverage. The racist accusation is still used liberally, targeting people who have never even considered race as an issue.
This is about money, not race.

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Best place on meth

Nah, just a couple of douches on this blog still do race-baiting. They’re idiots.

How ’bout that photo though? NDP should use this 50 times a day in TV ads.

http://images.glaciermedia.ca/polopoly_fs/1.388751.1373150603!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_804/img-0-6468131-jpg.jpg

The caption ideas for what’s going through her thick skull should be plentiful.

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Shut It Down Already

Race is not an issue, hence your constant trawling for anti-China news and refusal to accept market statistics when they challenge your prejudices. What a joke.

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Just me

It is about money and greed. Different interests coalesced and took hold kf power (older home owners, developers, right wing politicians, energy/mining companies and son). They are all pulling in the same direction. And you with them, as you are obsessed by race issues and see them everywhere.

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Just me

B.C.’s finance minister will unveil new exemptions and rebates for the foreign buyer tax on Metro Vancouver real estate this week

http://vancouversun.com/news/politics/shaw-column-on-foreign-buyer-tax

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Just me

ARTICLE
How Australia’s best houses are being sold on Chinese social media site WeChat

Read more: http://www.afr.com/technology/social-media/how-australias-best-houses-are-being-sold-on-chinese-social-media-site-wechat-20170309-guv0z9#ixzz4b9zFV7Rh
Follow us: @FinancialReview on Twitter | financialreview on Facebook

http://www.afr.com/technology/social-media/how-australias-best-houses-are-being-sold-on-chinese-social-media-site-wechat-20170309-guv0z9

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Just me

From the article.

“Social media is the ultimate tool if you want to tap into the Chinese market,” she says briskly to camera. “I’m on them all, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, but the truth is I can close a deal in three days on WeChat. I just closed a $10 million house in Vaucluse last week.”

The extent of Ms Tu’s property sales are astonishing enough, but then so is almost anything scalable when it comes to China.

Some 800 million people in China use WeChat, the social media platform that not only offers the usual multimedia bits and pieces but also a payments service enabling users to pay and be paid without leaving the app.

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Shut It Down Already

And the majority of those 800m earn under $10,000 per year.

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Just me

The richest 1% is 8 million individuals. Enough for you?

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wechat

Shut it down needs to see a doctor he has not done so already

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Shut It Down Already

That would be meaningful if you told us in absolute terms what the 1% threshold is.

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patriotz

But but but… I thought it was illegal for offshore buyers to purchase existing properties in Australia.

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Just me

Does slower capital outflows mean zero outflows?
I really think you guys need to chill out and accept you may have been wrong about this one.

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patriotz

Hey, I’m not the guy who’s been holding up Oz as an example of how to control offshore RE investment.

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Just me

Without thise controls, OZ would be in an even more dire shape. It is next door to a hungry country with 1.4 billion people.

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Shut It Down Already

With a median annual income of about the same as a round trip airfare to Australia for a family of 3.

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Just me

‘This is Vancouver deja-vu’: How Seattle’s housing market is making way for foreign buyers

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/this-is-vancouver-deja-vu-how-seattle-s-housing-market-is-making-way-for-foreign-buyers-1.4021262

“The real estate community is taking plenty of lessons — including Mandarin.”

Hey guys, are these also locals on credit driving up Seattle prices?

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Shut It Down Already

Many think the US is now back in bubble territory. Not just Seattle, but most of the country.

Do you think Denver is awash with Chinese buyers too?

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2016/08/30/denver-home-price-gains-hold-steady-at-double-the.html

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Banned Oracle

Show us the data that says Seattle ISN’T being driven up by Chinese foreign money!

Real data! Don’t supply us with fake data and something off topic.

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Shut It Down Already

Enough with the the “if you can’t prove me wrong I must be right” BS. It’s lazy and stupid.

Sorry if you think Case-Shiller is “fake news” or off-topic on a real estate website.

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Just me

You claim that. chinese money is only a minor disturbance.
That is a bald statement, hence it dioes need some kind of support. Yet, all you come up with is rather unrelated material. So I would refrain from preaching, if I were you.

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Shut It Down Already

Um, it’s not unrelated. Use your brain. If, as you claim, Chinese money is driving markets higher rather than cheap credit then it shouldn’t be possible to have a market like a Denver emerge. It’s called a counter-example. In fact there are many such counter examples as most US cities are now back into bubble territory.

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Just me

I don’t doubt other cities might experience rising prices for other reasons. Never said that, despite your cheap attempts.
But Seattle is experiencing, according to most accounts by locals (not just realtors) the same “China disease” that hit Vancouver two decades ago.
Of course, people will deny and point fingers to “racists”.

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Best place on meth

Dude, you’re wasting your time debating the last couple of race-baiters on this blog.

They’re becoming extinct, like tigers and rhinos.

Oops, that was racist wasn’t it?

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patriotz

Price in Vancouver were falling two decades ago, i.e. in 1997. Not trying to be snide but do think over statements like that.

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Just me

Then something happened and the whole thing took off. I wonder what that was…(not trying to be snide).

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patriotz

The article is based on a single source, a Seattle realtor, and contains no numbers except for his claim that “roughly half of the luxury homes sold in the area were to foreign buyers, up from a third in 2015, and 25 per cent in 2014”, with no definition of “luxury”.

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Just me

Perhaps I should point out that this article is just the last in a long sequence of reports/articles reporting about the influence of Chinese buyers in Seattle following the introduction of the tax on non-resident buyers in Vancouver.
While realtors have certainly a vested interest in promoting real estate, I find it hard to believe that such an extended body of commentary on the topic may be based on fantasy and not fact.
Of course, I am sure there is a large part of the contributors to this blog that will dismiss this as race-baiting. It is not: if you can’t accept what has been happening in this part of the world in the past 15 years, you must be either blind or complicit.

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Banned Oracle

I’m starting to wonder what agenda the Admin here has. The likes of Newcomer, YVR, and Shut it Down are clearly here for vested interests (Chinese $$ inflows to continue) and not for a true discussion.

If I can be banned once, at least do the favour of banning these 3 as they are PURPOSELY polluting a discussion. Paid maybe? or relatives with huge interests in housing.

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Just me

Stop seeing conspiracy theories everywhere. There is NO agenda, this blog does not count for anything at all.
These guys genuinely believe (for reasons beyond me) that Chinese buyers have little or limited influence on RE valuations in Vancouver.
I personally think they need to get their heads checked. But suggesting there is some kind of conspiracy is ridiculous.

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Shut It Down Already

Yes, damn those people who are persuaded by evidence and statistics rather than baseless assertion.

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Just me

Your statements would not even fly in a kindergarten. Your data has been debunked multiple times over, yet you insist.

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Shut It Down Already

Yet I insist on you bringing better data to the table? Yes, I do. But you don’t. So much for kindergarten….

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Shut It Down Already

I get paid $10,000/day to hang out here. Moron.

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Banned Oracle

More BS from the Immigration Canada worker…

…nuff said.

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Best place on meth

Overall, buyers from China bought about $1.6 billion in homes across Washington last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The state drew 6 percent of the $27 billion that Chinese spent buying U.S. homes last year, putting Washington behind only California, New York and Texas.

Still, the Seattle region is nowhere near catching up to the land rush experienced in British Columbia, which had about $760 million worth of home sales to Chinese buyers just in a one-month stretch earlier this year, according to news reports.

Chinese money now accounts for about 55 percent of all homes purchased by foreigners in Washington, the Realtors association says.

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-becomes-no-1-us-market-for-chinese-homebuyers/

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Shut It Down Already

In March 2016 total sales volume across BC was $9.69bn.

So assuming “earlier this year” meant some time in spring then we’re looking at approximately 10% foreign transactions. Where have we heard that figure before I wonder?

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Just me

OK, let me take your (flawed) estimate seriously for once. How many months in a year? 12. If 10% of total transaction value is by foreign buyers, it is as if in any given year there was a period long 1.2 months (roughly 35 days0 in which every single property is bought by foreigners. That is a lot of properties (let’s amusingly call it “foreigners’ happy hour”!) Now, your flawed figure and other estimates are based on flows of money that are voluntarily disclosed because a foreigner is on the title. What is the size of the money flows that are used to buy housing in other names? Especially at the top end of the distribution many homes are held through numbered companies and proxies. proportionally those few units account for a disproportionate share of the total dollar value. Add… Read more »

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Shut It Down Already

What was the point in that exactly? I already gave you the fucking sales volumes.

And if it’s 10% that’s 10%, regardless of how many properties sell in 35 days.

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patriotz

“So assuming “earlier this year” meant some time in spring ”

I’m pretty sure it meant July 2016, which included the stampede to close sales before the August 2 deadline for the FBT. The article is dated Septempber 15.

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Just me

Zolo indicates that average prices in Kits are already much higher than this time last year.

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Banned Oracle

I think something needs to be straightened out in this blog.

People living in Canada must put Canada’s interests first and foremost. Secondly, our most trusted ally is the USA and we must side with them when push comes to shove.

Those posters here that seem to be spearhead mouthpieces for corrupt illegal Chinese money laundering need to evaluate who their allegiance is to or go the fuck back. I’ve done that with India.

So you know who you are. Your not welcome here if you put Canadas interests 2nd while leeching off its genorosity.

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patriotz

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-property-taxes/11585/

It appears these are total rates including school tax. Total property tax rate in CoV (including school tax) is 0.32%, which puts it just a bit higher than the lowest rate among the 50 states. This makes CoV RE an attractive place to park money.

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Just me

True. I have alwats wondered why property taxes are so low in BC.
We are like Hawaii: a resort for the rich to buy property and leave it empty for much of the year.

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Bear Vancouverite

Have you guys seen this yet:

“We sold 2469 E 40th Ave this past week for $815,000 above asking price. Not surprisingly with the lack of large lot inventory this 66×140 RT11 lot following an extensive 38+ Point Marketing Plan drew 15 buyers to the table with offers. In a Round Robin negotiation at the house we sold this home listed at $2,188,000 for a record $3,000,000. It’s a strong sign our market is quickly recovering from the damage done by local, provincial, and federal governments attempting to cool our market.”

I looked up the property. The 2016 assessed value was only $2.3M, so this sold well above assessed. It is pretty infuriating reading stuff like “the damage done by local, provincial, and federal governments attempting to cool our market.”

https://evaluebc.bcassessment.ca/Property.aspx?_oa=QTAwMDAwMzdXUw==

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Just me

Nothing infuriating about it. It was s simply the way a large part of the population feels about this city.
They would rather sell land to african dictators than see lower prices.

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bestplaceonearth

damned the home owner – should have given it to the freeloaders instead. greed!

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Just me

Certainly not. The honest homeowner should in fact accept buyers’ money, no matter how it was acquired. It is right and privilege.
In fact, I think we should abolish money laundering legislation as it is an unnecessary impediment to pursuit of wealth by our honest and law-abiding population.
Christy Clark is voted in office on exactly these premises.

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Newcomer

That is surprising and suggests that there was something else going on that was not factored into the assessment.

I’ve got to wonder what they mean by “record.” Which record was broken?

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Best place on meth

Calling all race-baiters, circle March 20 on your calendars as UBC presents:

“Examining Whiteness: What’s at stake for Canada? a frank discussion on the realities of racism and critical reflection on white privilege in Canada”

http://equity.ubc.ca/2017/02/10/examining-whiteness/

That’s right, white privilege. Can you feel the privilege, white folks? Especially all you renters fighting over craigslists ads trying to find a place to live while recent arrivals from china launder 3 million in a west side house?

I sure can feel the privilege, and when I look in the mirror and see my skin colour I feel nothing but shame and hatred towards myself.

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Shut It Down Already

Maybe you should attend so that you can ask the panel whether you sound like a bigot.

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Just me

Who anointed the panel? Just asking, since you mentioned it.

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southseacompany

“Bank Of International Settlements Flags Canada For Financial Crisis Next Year”, Better Dwelling

https://betterdwelling.com/bank-of-international-settlements-flags-canada-for-financial-crisis-next-year/

“The credit-to-GDP gap is a scary accurate indicator that’s used by the BIS to monitor where the next financial risks will occur in the world. Generally speaking, any time a country’s credit-to-GDP gap is higher than 10% for three years, a banking crisis follows (along with a recession). ”

“Canada has now been in that territory since 2015, and there’s no sign that Canadians are going to have a sudden windfall to correct it.”

“Canada approached a dangerously high credit-to-GDP gap, then kept going. The BIS’ latest quarterly shows that Canada’s credit-to-GDP gap is now at 17.4%, which is way above the 10% warning threshold. “

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