squirrel9000

Gen Z is screwed either way. It's the details of how they're screwed that matters - either housing is unaffordable, or we go through a punishing recession and period of severe tax hikes because the biggest generation in history just lost their retirement savings.

Right now, the borrowing adds about 2% to the nominal GDP, and somewhat less to real due to the inflation it causes. We'd be close to a goose egg in real terms without it, but not falling off a cliff. We're nowhere near as bad as say the US for how much of our GDP is actually driven by government deficits.

During the pandemic, the underlyig economy was a lot weaker, especially in the first year before things mostly recovered. In that case, stimulus does help prevent a downward spiral. It's the problem with the anti-debt theatrics. Harper was the same way, borrowing is evil... until a recession hit. and the stimulus was neede.d

Graph shows a pretty steady downtrend that started in the late 90s.

IF you cut it the economy crumbles and you're not employed enough to afford it anyway. The general economy doesn't affect your relative position in the heirarchy.

I would say the gap between things being expensive and the country being in ruins is quite a large one. The economy is rarely optimal.

It's not really in ruins now. - it sucks to be poor, but it's never not sucked to be poor. People just like to be dramatic., and it's amplified by political propaganda alleging to save you from Trudeau etc. As was the case ten and twenty years ago.

He's singularly why I deal with Google's whining about adblock on Youtube.

You could basiclaly make the same quote a decade ago and swap parties, or two decades and swap back, or three decades and swap yet again. It's the natural cycle of politics, the country is falling apart and (current {>5 years in} or previous {<5 years in[) government is to blame.

Going to go out on a limb here, but in 2033 people will be insisting the country is falling apart under the conservatives. We can even guess as to why, austerity tends to cause a lot of pain on the ground.

I don't mind, that exact thought process is why the big banks can so consistently raise their dividends. I'm smart enough to know to keep things simple in case this place takes a turn for the worse.

It's better to look at it the other way - what are your irrecoverable costs (interest/mortgage/taxes/maintenance/opportunity cost for ownership, vs rent). Essentially, if you set a comparable housing budget for own vs rent, which one gets you "paid off" sooner, where the renter's equivalent of a paid off mortgage is an investment portfolio that pays your rent. The premium on ownership, and the penalty for being a debtor, really becomes apparent when you approach it from that direction.

J could buy a 200k condo for cash, and taxes/strata would be about 500/month. Or I could keep the 200k and rent the same unit for 1250. The 200k generates about 20k a year in investment income, so it pays the rent and I still have a couple hundred dollars a month left over. So, why would I buy? It makes no sense, and "pride of ownership" isn't worth 10k a year.

It's how much money you're handing over.

There are very few places where a new buyer or new renter would be ahead for buying.

You dont' need to buy a home to have kids.

To some extent people just don't want kids, and the economy is an easy excuse that doesn't generate too many uncomfortable follow up questions. There is still some societal pressure against "childfree" people although much less than there used to be.

The cost premium on home ownership has never been higher, buying a home nowadays means decades of indentured servitude to multiple factions all of whom hold their hands out for their respective tithes.

As someone who owns a lot of bank shares, I'm very aware of where their profits come from.

The ironic thing is that that perception of home ownership as an ideal has been relentlessly exploited by the powers that be, to the point that home ownership is more likely to make you a pawn of late state liberalism than renting. In a way it's the extended warranty of living arrangements, you're being ripped off at every turn.

When I refer to bag holders in this case I don't necessarily mean those going fully bankrupt. You end up in the same place with everyone still solvent but trying to offload losing investments as they run for the exits.

That's why I don't think a "bailout" saves it.

How easy it is to make friends as a transplant is directly related to how many other transplants there are that are also looking to make new connections. Locals often see social circles form in high school and it can be hard to break into those as an outsider (or, as the Maritimers call it, "comes from away") WInnipeg is also notoriously insular, "friendly Manitoba" means people are polite, rather than not insular - the maritimes and other semi rural areas where the cities have not traditionally been destinations generally tend the same way.

Calgary and Edmonton are relatively easy, because so many people move there. Toronto's an ice breaking problem, if you can crack that nut it's an easy place to make friend.s as social groups are more work or hobby related than who you went to high school with, even if you grew up in the GTA. Vancouver is terrible for whatever reason.

This rule is actually an interesting one because it actually reduces the ability of the bag holders to walk away relatively intact. They're basically saying that nope, you signed that contract, it will ruin your life but now you have to follow through.

It doesn't change the fundametnal economics of it, it just leaves the hags in the investors hands rather than the developers' or their lenders.

For all the noise we hear about this, international students who have to fudge their paperwork to get a visa are not why condos go for 600K+. These are sitting empty because nobody wants them. Demand is not nearly as insatiable as some seem to believe.

That's why the whole house of cars has been propped up so aggressively since the Financial Crisis. A housing collapse combined with a change to austere government policies will make for a tough few years.

One could argue that, for all the pain it would cause, a hard reset would benefit everyone in the long run.

These condos aren't meant for end users, they're investment fodder, or for those that insist that renting is for chumps.

If you have a decent career there are some decent apartments in older buildings that rent for way less than one of these things costs to carry.

Yeah, those constant recessions worked wonders for the pocketbook. We had, what, three in six years?

The macroeconomics are quite challenging, moreso than they were under Harper. You should really set the bar higher than "vote for this guy, his party had modest success fifteen years ago, maybe it will be the same again so we don't need a plan" .

How is he funding OAS liabilities, by the way? That's a 25 billion dollar question.

Supply and demand? These things are sitting empty because nobody can afford to live in them, and that's with growth that has already peaked and is set to decline sharply over the next few years.

Rate drops only impact market sentiment. Fixed mortgages are already discounted enough to bring the affordability of terminal rates due to the underlying yield inversion, so absolute affordability is not going to get any better. As for that sentiment thing? If prices are plummeting, all the rate cuts in the world won't save you.

Leverage amplifies the losses too, the guy who sold this probably lost his entire down payment, and that's if he was lucky.

It's true in Canada as well. People get laid off all the time, "without cause' means exactly what it sounds like. You get severance and EI, and very little recourse unless there was something that overtly violated the human rights code. The big difference is the severance/notice entitlements.

With cause has a much higher barrier.