The Secrets Of Vancouver BC, Canada

Good News: Canadians Can Keep Borrowing

According to the Toronto Star, we can keep taking on more debt.

True to their Keynesian economics beliefs, even though several prominent economists, as well as the Finance Minister and Bank of Canada governor are ringing the alarm bells,  we shouldn’t worry about debt.

We are ONLY at 153% household debt to income – even though the US crash happened at 160% (as did the UK)… there’s nothing to worry about here.

We have homes that are of value. TD Bank’s chief economist Craig Alexander noties that comparing a fixed statistic, which is debt, to a flow of income that is repeated annually, is a bit like comparing apples and orange groves. He also says that while Canadians may have high levels of debt, they have something to show for it — namely valuable assets like homes.

So keep spending, and adding on to that home equity line of credit. Home prices never will go down in Canada.

Nothing can go wrong, can it (?).

photo credit: _Dinkel_

Gotcha – Newt Gingrich Says It All

CNN gets exposed, along with the media in general for carrying the left’s water.

Taking the media to task, finally. Newt Gingrich says it all:

“I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office.  And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that.”

5481 Reasons Why We’ve Seen Our Last Riot

They are hopefully going to charge the last of the rioters before the next Stanley Cup finals start. The police have been going through the pictures and video and are making an airtight case against each person. That is, if they can charge them before the statute of limitations comes into play.

If you are worried about another riot, you can thank Facebook and YouTube for making it so that only an idiot would try it again. With camera’s in everyone’s hands, we now have complete surveillance of all events.

What’s odd is that our newspapers are finally turning over their pictures (on a website that doesn’t really work). Not that they have done so willingly… first a couple of court cases, which they lost, now they’ve posted all for “innocent” people to go through to see if they are in any.

“The Sun and The Province are posting every photo online (5481 of them) so readers can see whether their images are included in the massive police file assembled for the riot investigation.”

Give me a break. The reality is that the social media sites have much more incriminating shots and statements that the newspapers have. Search Google for Vancouver rioters and you’ll find 81,700 images. They could have saved a lot of legal expense using this. There also are very incriminating images there. Or, does this not count?

Which kind of raises the question: is there any privacy left? I am kind of in favor of hanging looters and rioters, so it’s not an easy answer.

The issue won’t be going away anytime soon.

Send Us Your Drunks

From the what the “rewarding bad behavior” file:

Raise the Booze Tax and Then Give It Away Free…

The program is run by Vancouver Coastal Health near the Downtown Eastside. The building is managed by the Portland Housing Society, who also operates the safe injection site on Hastings Street.

Started in July, Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education has landed $52,000 in a research grant, with aims to gather clinical evidence across B.C. on the benefits of alcohol maintenance programs.

Within the next year they hope to produce research in order to help land a partner in the health care sector to fund a Downtown Eastside drinker’s lounge stocked with vodka, sherry and high-alcohol beer.

Advocates say at a cost of about $350 per month per drinker, alcohol maintenance programs can reduce policing costs and medical fees associated to frequent emergency room visits for illicit booze drinkers. Read more:

Meanwhile, as they provide free crack pipes, needles, and now booze, the count of homeless addicts continues to rise. It’s no wonder as they are doing everything possible to make getting wasted as comfortable as possible.

Why not move the free drug/alcohol program outside of the city to some remote area, and remove all incentive on Hasting street. Round up all addicts by promising the free stuff. The cost of caring for our homeless would drop dramatically, and we’d reclaim our city. They could then focus on helping these addicts without the distraction that the city provides.

The idea that the homeless addicts have a right to Vancouver’s most valuable land is absurd.

We’d then be able to open up this area to redevelopment, allowing for residents that contribute positively to the city’s tax base.

Problem solved.

photo credit: rageforst

The Question Becomes Why Divorce?

Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

Gay marriages in Canada are problematic to foreigners, as when they try to divorce they run into a few snags. The first is if their home country doesn’t recognize the legality of same-sex marriage, they cannot divorce there. (Which begs the question – why divorce, if you are not married?)

Canada doesn’t allow divorces here to non-residents. Which makes sense.

But, to make the most of the controversy, why not add to the gay marriage law an addendum to allow gays to divorce here. We may have hit on a tourism stimulus. After the fighting is over, gays that have been married in Canada would need to return here to untie the knot.

Think of the possibilities.

photo: Macleans

Buyer’s Remorse – The Left Is Throwing In The Towel…

Long-time supporter, Taylor Marsh gives up on Obama.

HotAir: “a simply jaw dropping editorial tirade this weekend from Taylor Marsh. (Actually Michelle Marshall). For those not familiar, she was arguably one of Obama’s most hard core supporters. A devotee of Gloria Steinam, to say that she embodies the modern progressive movement would be a bit of an understatement to say the least.

All of this is what makes her New Years declaration more shocking. Titled, “The Party’s Over,” she takes not only Barack Obama, but Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic establishment to task while pretty much running up the white flag for liberalism.

It’s a great read from the left’s perspective…

Best comment: Sums it all up.

Karl K:

You lefties just KILL me. How does it feel to be totally snookered by Obama? Of course, had you exercised an ounce of critical thinking before you all swooned over him, you wouldn’t have be so soundly and thoroughly snookered.

So why will Obama go down as a WORSE president that Jimmy Carter? Simple. He is an incompetent lazy hypocritical petulant charlatan.
That’s right, Obama is a charlatan, with neither the temperament, attitude, or intellect — yes, I said intellect — to be president. Because in the end, Obama is simply not that bright. More »

The Pot Calling The Kettle Black

Give me a break…

From our Venezuelan newspaper: China and India lead condemnation of Canada’s Kyoto withdrawal

I’ve spent a total of 14 weeks in China this year, and although the people are REALLY green focused, the reality is they are 10x as bad as we were in the worst era of our polluting. The government there knows now is the time to build -when it’s cheap, and does little to reign in polluters… in fact, they are the biggest polluters. India has problems that would take a book to explain.

The reality is that we are cleaner than since the beginning of the industrial revolution, have more trees than ever, and have water that we can drink in every city.

So what’s the problem?

We put an end to extortion, as well as an end to a dark era where we were sucked into making our manufacturing unaffordable. We have stopped wealth creation instead of enriching the Global Warming Cartel.

“It is regrettable and flies in the face of the efforts of the international community for Canada to leave the Kyoto Protocol at a time when the Durban meeting, as everyone knows, made important progress by securing a second phase of commitment to the protocol,” said Liu Weimin, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry.

Canada stopped the transfer of our wealth dead in its tracks.. now the howling from the cartel begins.

photo credit: MelbourneID

Class Warfare Aive and Well in Canada

A couple of stories that continue to fan the flames of envy in Canada…in their subtle way.

Shaw paid $25.5-million to retired CEO

The Globe and Mail story is about the retirement plan of recently retired Jim Shaw.. None of the shareholders were asked what they think..

The comments that follow here are 100% against the family that built one of Canada’s most successful businesses. It’s an expected response, and the Globe and Mail uses these types of stories to get people upset. It’s none of their business… if they don’t like Shaw’s rates, cancel. (I am mad at the CBC, but how do I get it off of my TV?)

On a different note, we’re constantly told of how bad off we are.. and how our poverty continues to increase.

Vancouver, the world’s #1 and most livable city, is now #22 in Canada for family income. We’ve fallen behind my home province, Saskatchewan. Oh, dear.

Real earnings show decades of decline in livable Vancouver

Some key points:

Why should we pay attention? My parents taught me that income is no one’s business. It’s a private matter and up to each person to make their own.

The creative among us have found a way to keep their income up:

B.C.’s rates may be skewed somewhat by a larger-than-average underground economy and the thousands of British Columbians involved in the production and distribution of illegal drugs, a source of income that few likely declare.

Drugs and Real Estate are the drivers of Vancouver’s wealth and economy… income that isn’t being accounted for. Let’s not talk about that. These folks are making a fortune. That’s what really keeps Vancouver going.

Blame the tax rate:

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calculates that the cut in provincial taxes between the turn of the century and 2010 is the equivalent of a $3.4 billion annual cut in government program spending. Since most of the benefit of tax cuts goes to the highest income earners, the diminished capacity of the government to provide services is, relatively speaking, a double whammy for the poor.

Because they cut taxes so income-earners could keep more of THEIR OWN MONEY, we now are in decline. No mention of the HST, Carbon Tax, and the other numerous taxes they’ve created to offset all of this..

You’d think that our generous social programs would actually be propping up our standard of living.. lord knows we spend enough.

• Poverty in BC represents a direct cost to government alone of $2.2 to $2.3 billion annually, or close to 6% of the provincial budget.
• The cost to society overall is considerably higher — conservatively estimated at $8.1 to $9.2 billion per year, or between 4.1% and 4.7% of BC’s GDP.

How poverty costs us (me) is something I am not really clear on. Aren’t we spending this money to help lift people out of poverty? If so, why does it keep costing me more?

Shouldn’t we be encouraging business growth, trying to attract high-paying jobs to BC?

Instead, we keep finding new ways to take from the “haves”, skim a chunk off for expanding our gov’t, and give away the rest to the “have nots”.

Encouraging the “poor” or “99%’ers” to blame the rich is the socialists way of extracting more money from all working Canadians.

Let’s call it what it really is – a wealth transfer. And a lousy one that keeps us all down. The game has been going on for far too long.

Canada Finally Exits The Emissions Extortion Game

The Canadian government is formally withdrawing from the Kyoto protocol on climate change-the first country to do so-though it said it would honor a separate, carbon-reducing agreement reached over the weekend in Durban, South Africa.

It is now clear that Kyoto is not the path forward for a global solution to climate change. If anything, it is an impediment,” Mr. Kent told reporters in front of the Canadian legislature.

Mr. Kent said the pact was futile in combating climate change because it didn’t incorporate the world’s three major emitters. He also said Canada would have faced 14 billion Canadian dollars ($13.6 billion) in fines under the treaty.

The NDP wants us to pay up:

Canada’s New Democratic Party, the major political opposition, denounced the move. “This government is abdicating its international responsibilities,” said Meagan Leslie, the New Democrats’ environment point person.

You’d think that they would have plans for more free daycare with that 14 billion we’re saving.

Good first step.

 photo credit: bjornmeansbear