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ronthecivil

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Posts posted by ronthecivil

  1. On 9/8/2023 at 12:58 PM, Warhippy said:

    The math is in apparently.

     

    By the numbers the BoC suggests that the carbon tax has an almost nil effect on inflationary pressures.

     

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/carbon-tax-inflation-tiff-macklem-calgary-1.6960189

     

    There's some, and one could stress some, point to the Conservative Party's steady drumbeat.

    It's inescapably true that the federal carbon tax makes life for Canadians more expensive — before the "climate action incentive" rebate — and Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem reiterated this on a visit to Calgary on Thursday.

    He brought further clarity to the highly charged political discourse by putting a number on it.

    That number: 0.15 percentage points of the inflation increase can be attributed to the carbon tax.

    Uh still inflation is for real right? Like I dunno 8 percent? Taht's a lot!

  2. Well it costs money likely and who knows what someone will say (risk) so that would make Bill Wirtz angry.

     

    Rocky Wirtz wouldn't need a message board. You can just approach him in the stands.

     

    So let's just say I won't be surprised either way. They already got rid of one set of topics, so why not just get rid of all of them?

  3. On 9/4/2023 at 12:36 PM, Heretic said:

    Hands up everyone whose salary has increased by 7 times since 2005?

     

    I just saw a place for sale in Coldstream, BC, on 19.5 acres that sold in 2005 for $419,500 and now they are asking $3,000,000 for it.

    There needs to be capital gains taxes charged on houses when you sell them. 2.5M tax free if it happens to be your primary residence is not exactly progressive. And it doesn't help housing prices just letting all that free money pile into the system of those that already have money. So it's also inflationary to allow it to gain tax free.

     

    And it's also a good way not to get elected, what with 70%+ of Canadians in the "own property" camp. Don't tax me bro will beat that every time. Even if the 70% is unwittingly shooting themselves in the foot by doing so....

    • Like 1
  4. On 9/4/2023 at 10:04 AM, -DLC- said:

    I grow a lot of my own herbs, super easy to grow and cheap.

     

    My recipes are becoming "less is more" and using fresh and quality ingredients. Pasta....toss it with sautéed garlic, grape tomatoes, basil, mushrooms, a little evoo and some fresh parm.  Quinoa with a cut up chicken breast (or not), fresh spinach, grape or cherry tomatoes and a bit of seasoning (I like the Clubhouse mixes...some good ones). You don't have to have meat, which is getting ridiculously expensive, to have a nice meal.

     

    With that, I just buy cheap pasta when it's on for $0.99/box or bag. Fresh is becoming too $$ for me.

     

    Lettuce is also a really good grow in the summer...pick it fresh all season long.

     

    I was also given a nearly dead raspberry plant a few years ago...put it outside and not only has it taken off but it's spread into other pots. This year I had fresh wild raspberries...they were small but delicious. I grabbed a discount blueberry bush that was fading out too...we'll see how that goes.

     

    It doesn't have to get all crazy and expensive. And having fresh tomatoes, parsley, basil, cilantro (used to have oregano, thyme, rosemary...will get going on those again) on hand is always helpful. I'm making the most of my little patio garden.

    Herbs are like the only thing I have that's reliable lol. I do have a big garden but what I get depends on how well I can keep the critters away, etc.

     

    One good trick with herbs. If you have a ton of them at the end of the season, you can cut and wash them all up into one giant mix that you like. Like after washing put them into the food processor almost. And then you mix them together with a little bit of your favorite oil. Then you make little blobs like proto cookies. Then you put them on wax paper cookie sheet in freezer. Once frozen they can go in one freezer bag. I usually add garlic too, or just garlic ones.

     

    Herb bombs! Mow down the herbs, but in like an hour of work, and you have herb bombs to drop in like everything all winter!

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  5. On 8/31/2023 at 11:26 AM, Warhippy said:

    If he openened with "I balanced the budget" he might have a horse! \Which I think they haven'\\t compltely screewed up, but it's still posisble.

     

  6. 20 hours ago, Warhippy said:

    well....

     

    If this aint just the cake

     

    a 3 bed 3 bath rental in naramata listed as an "executive rental" by Chad Wozniak of the Chamberlain gougers group (if you live in the area and have dealt with them you know) is up for $7500 a month.  That is $90,000 a year.

     

    When I asked him how he thought any single person with $90,000 a year to spend would happily dump it on an unfurnished rental he scoffed and said it would happen.  I reminded him that anyone that could afford $90k a year would just be buying a home he laughed and said it doesn't happen.  

     

    2 sides of the same idiocy.  On one side the belief is that people with that money will happily just burn $90k without a single return on investment.  On the other the belief is that people that can afford $7500 a month won't just buy their own place.

     

    It's insane honestly.

     

    The bottom HAS to fall out now that the average 1 bedroom is now $1700 in Penticton BC where the average post tax income is only $2400 a month.

     

    Well, the catalyst to bottom out the market, higher interest rates, is already in place. It was putting a ton of people that had over extended themselves into dire situations. There was fear and news stories about prebuilds being worth less than what the people that put their deposit in being in very dire straights! But then the Feds came to the "rescue" and  instructed the banks to amortize to infinity if need be. So prices went up instead! This means that to finance a rental, you need to charge more in rent. A LOT more.

     

    How or why, you would say corporations, but my place is was just the dude that owned it (my place used to be a rental), have turned literally every single place I lived in as a welfare kid into a strata corporation. Even the super ghetto Cottonwood! This transformation and the provision of social housing etc. asks for tons of public money to be put in from all sources, but really, this is the cities fault. They didn't have to allow the change. It's not like it would be hard to have bonuses (to say floor space ratio, etc.) and lower property taxes for purpose built and maintained rental properties. It would not be hard to have costs when someone wants to switch it to a strata. It would not be hard to deny a conversion if you stuck to your guns on places that used the bonuses to say put in a greater floor space ratio, to not be compliant with the zoning, and stick to your guns. It just requires zoning regulations that encourage rental properties, secondary suites, etc. that encourage rental properties.

     

    Renter deserve protection and obviously you can't just toss people out in the streets, but the regulations are so much in favour of the tenants that many people don't even rent out things they could, because if you get a bad tenant, it's a LONG, DIFFICULT process to get rid of them, and they can continue to destroy the place and not pay you for a long time. It shouldn't be on small time secondary suite rental providers to cover the costs of housing the mentally ill or the drug dependent, covering the costs when they go through a crisis and can't/won't pay anymore, but that's exactly what happens. Needless to say that only happens once before people refuse to rent out anymore. Obviously that is an entirely separate conversation but it's part of the reason supply is limited and costs go up. Who to point the finger at for that? Pretty much everyone and every level of government.

     

    The power of NIMBYism is a massive driver of the zoning regulations that keep single family suburban style houses in what should be dense areas. "No Towers At Safeway" I saw in a lawn the other day. This references the Safeway at Commercial drive station, the junction of two skytrain lines and like a LOT of buses. Which of course has a giant suburban style parking lot next to it. Literally any other planning option would be an improvement.

     

    But does the bottom HAVE to fall out? So long as forces keep the bubble expanding, it's going to expand. It can keep expanding irrationally, for an irrational amount of time. Longer than most people can stay liquid. Given how property prices have doubled in the last five years, even a 50% drop would leave prices in the "very expensive" category. It wouldn't bother me, but it would cause massive economic damage and tons of misery, especially those that have big LOCs, but mortgages with little equity, etc. But what government wants to preside over that? The kind that doesn't want to be elected, that's who. Hence the decisions to keep everything working. That is, until it doesnt.

     

     

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  7. 4 hours ago, DeNiro said:

    Lol Aquilini is determined to cram a restaurant into every corner of that arena he can…

     

    Looks like nice upgrades though. Does this mean our scoreboard is bigger than the Oilers now. :bigblush:
     

    Was hoping they would announce a new practice facility as part of phase 3 but I guess that’s gonna take longer.

    Even if I can't afford them, and even if it makes Aquaman money, I count restaurants and things like that as "amenities" and the more of those I can get, even if I don't use them, the better.

     

    In fact, the new seats are a little wider. I guess they are going to sacrifice a few singles (there is one next to me for example) to fit them in. I sat in one during the ticket event and the new black ones are MUCH better.

     

    If they want to colour code it or whatever, then fine. I didn't think they were get it all done next summer (I thought it was going to take two more summers after this) but I was happy with the idea of EVENTUALLY getting a nicer, more comfortable seat either way.

     

    The old scoreboard was beginning to break (it glitched and had dead spots) anyways.

     

    But yes, kudos to these things, much more Rockey Wirtz than Bill Wirtz.

  8. On 8/19/2023 at 7:39 AM, Ghostsof1915 said:

    It makes sense. With the rise of Li-Ion batteries being smaller and light weight. More development in electrical motors (engines). Microchip systems, and lighter materials.

    Model Airplane and toy aircraft was always a thing. It just got more sophisticated. There's been RC cars and planes for decades. It's a spinoff effect of other industries and merging to drones.

     

    The same is going for e-bikes, scooters. What was luxury toys are turning into new products for consumers. Sad part is some e-bikes cost as much as buying a Triumph motorcycle.

     

    There's going to be issues down the line with scooters, and drones. All it's going to take is some jackass to fly a drone into a flightpath in Richmond while an aircraft is 3-4 km from final approach and it will get sucked into a jet engine and cause a catastrophe. I see kids and adults on scooters silently zipping around busy traffic. I've seen one scooter rider who actually had a bike helmet and some light padding for his chest, arms, elbows and knees. Everyone else is in flip flops and shorts, and t-shirts.

     

    All I'm asking if you are on an e-bike, scooter, or have a drone. Please use your head, and be responsible. End of speech.

    Yes especially the microchip system. That four fan method they usually use to lift and steer requires careful control that only a powerful microcomputer that weighs as much as a thumbnail is what made the difference.

     

    As for people that use them irresponsibly, given that some of them are quite expensive and thus would make a good punishment, is there should be a safe, reliable, easy way to shoot them out of the sky by border guards, prison guards, heads of fire crews, airport officials, etc. Like some sort of sky tazer that fries their electrical system and makes them plummet without the noise and associated hazard of say blasting them with a shotgun.

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  9. 20 minutes ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

    That would mean planners would have to not look at the money from developers but actually be pro-active in fire defence.

     

    Well....

     

    It would likely need support from the province to go in and buy up/expropriate land to make the barrier, though in some cases where say you have existing fire resistant properties on the edge, just making sure they STAY that way, as well as coming up with a plan to do it. And yes this will cost money, but how much are we spending fighting fires and rebuilding each year?

     

    And yes, I am talking about the outer band of fire protection. There would be an inner band, where, should something try to jump the band, that your houses are made of brick and it's actually zoned as fire resistant.

     

    And if a developer wants to sprawl out a new development on land that's on the edge of town? Sure! But you better make it as fire resistant development, and you better make sure the fire barrier (which can be community amenities for the new development, increasing it's value!) is part of the final development.

     

    In fact, adding a bunch of new developments might be a great way to fund this idea. But yes, we should be proactive in fire defence, just like we should be proactive in flood defence.

  10. 48 minutes ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

    I hear people who use those courts are combustible.  Or is it incendiary?  Maybe they're just flesh-covered firebrands!  :bigblush:

    What I am getting at is we can surround towns with non burnable things (perhaps it's a clay tennis court with metal fencing and so on) that can be considered community amenities if planned in the right way. Having these fire breaks won't mean the forest won't catch on fire, but it will definitely make a reduction in evacuations and damage to property. 

     

    No amount of money is going to stop the forests from catching on fire. Pretty sure in BC, having seen the results of forest fires through the cycle (a couple years in with the fire weed is when they start looking nice again) that the forests catching on fire is part of the natural process in large parts of the province. Climate change likely doesn't help. So we can spend money fighting nature or we can adapt by having a way to separate ourselves from the fire.

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  11. OMG Fires!

     

    Just like the towns where houses flood away, we don't build them back, but instead build wider rivers basically (which can simply be parks like Riverside Park in Kamloops which is designed to hold the flood waters of the Thompson River when it wants to flood), we should do something similar to mitigate fire danger.

     

    Towns that are in danger of being affected by forest fires (aka most in BC) should have (in addition to things like not having lots of combustible type materials in houses near the edge) fire breaks around them. This can take many forms. It can be well irrigated farms like vineyards and orchards, which so long as they are lush and well irrigated, should act as a break to the fire. Or it can be a green belt, that is either irrigated, or is made of creative non burnable materials (it can have sections of pickle ball courts lol). It can be walking paths. It can be ring roads. It can be rock gardens. And as a default it's (once again) parks, but this time, they are designed to not burn instead of flood. 

     

    And let's do it right! Partner up with First Nations to get their input. Perhaps we go back to lighting some of these parks on fire in the spring and fall with First Nation participation, as they used to do before we foolishly stopped them. 

     

    It doesn't need to be many kilometer wide desiccated scar. Which is what nature is giving us as the default option. So if we need to cut some trees down, spend some money, and put in irrigation to protect ourselves in the future, we just going to repeat the past.

     

    I recommend Kelowna as a good place to do a test version.

  12. On 8/16/2023 at 7:36 AM, bishopshodan said:

    She does? did she say this? How does she think that works?

     

    i replied to the poster you quoted because nothing he said was in the article. 

    I dont know enough about inflation but it seems tied heavily to gas, isn't that the oil companies doing that? not the feds?

    Also, is being the best in the g7 mean anything? 

     

    Well based on giving out tons of money in the so called effort to fight inflation (but mostly to the poor so it's at least progressive as they call it) that you have to borrow to get, which increases the money supply, which is the main driver of inflation. The oil companies wouldn't be able to charge what they charge if there wasn't money in people's pockets.

     

    And of course, she also directed the banks to not go heavy on people that overstretched themselves financially buying max mortgage places at historic low rates with no regards as to what would happen if they went up, as foolish as that is, she simply told the banks to extend the mortgage for 100 years if need be. This just takes what should have been a cautionary tale on the public borrowing too much (which is also inflationary) and tossing it to the wind. 

     

    So even with good intentions, it doesn't mean it's not inflationary. You can be progressive tax wise but still balance the budget, you can tell the banks not to overleverage themselves in the first place instead of just letting them lend to much to people that can't handle rate increases. If you did that, some people would pay more taxes, some people wouldn't be buying their dream home, but you could still have a progressive tax policy, a balanced budget, and lower house prices.

  13. 1 hour ago, 6YPE said:

    But Freeland thinks it's going down and we're headed in the right direction. How do we have a minister of finance that has zero financial background? Should we not have professionals that are highly trained running things and making decisions?

     

    https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-s-finance-minister-calls-inflation-rate-dropping-within-target-range-a-milestone-moment-1.6484594

     

     

    Our financially inept finance minister that thinks you can spend your way out of inflation? (That would be like fighting fires by dousing it with gasoline). 

     

    The causes of inflation, other than the supply chain slowly (but not yet completely) being fixed, and the amount of unfilled job positions going down (but still lots of them, and lots of labour strife, and still what used to be coveted jobs being unfilled, but not as much as before) are still there. Specifically huge money printing spending by the feds on social programs that for the most part aren't really needed (like dental care, it was by an large already in place) and paying people to sit on their ass when they could be working are still very much in place, and until fixed, there's going to be a bigger Canadian debt, more money supply in the system, more inflation, higher interest rates, and a more painful correction coming until, as I frequently put it, people get religion on spending within ones means.

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  14. Well this is a decent signing.

     

    While I am pro rebuild, instead of retool, I will give them credit! They are at least doing retool correctly!

     

    The terrible salary cap situation is still bad, but it's not AS bad as it was.

     

    The defense isn't going to be anything to write home about, but at least it's decent now.

     

    The PK might have a chance this year, instead of being non existent the last two seasons. Does Petey do PK duty? Maybe, at least it's probably an option instead of a requirement next year.

     

    Does the team make the playoffs? Maybe. Do they go far if they do? No, but the team is getting better.

     

    Is the farm team a wreck? Nope, it's getting better.

     

    Is the team deep enough that are prospects can develop on the farm? Finally, it looks like yes!

     

    Can some of the obvious prospects that were on the team, or might have been required to be on the team without the additions (like Raty for the PK), make the team? Well, if they earn it they can! That's the right answer!

     

    What do they do if someone on IR comes back and they are over the cap? You trade someone. If it's later in the season, someone will take SOMEONE, even if it's for a bag of pucks. They can take a pick of a one of our many forwards  if Pearson comes back. It Poolman comes back, the low cost and one year cap hit on Myers means SOMEONE will take Myers. If it's at the deadline, you might actually get a return!

     

    I just hope that the Canucks, playoff position or not, are sellers at the deadline. For example, there will be takers for a forward, and probably Myers, at the deadline. That said, if Myers wants to sign a third line player salary extension, I might actually keep him! But I don't let free agents walk, they are either deadly close to signing, or I trade them at the deadline, for the next couple seasons.

     

    So the team is not yet close, but it's closer. Most importantly, there is starting to be hope again, that the team will get better. 

    • Cheers 1
  15. On a more serious note...;

     

    There are lots of options for moving goods to the island (containers) and if they need more container capacity on the island, build that. Because when things get busy there should be NO transport trucks on the ferry. None. Zero. There are literally for real other options.

     

    When it's quiet, sure, if they think it's cheaper. But you want to take a truck over on a long weekend??? Pick a different time or way.... 

     

    And while a bridge to Vancouver Island from the mainland is not actually practical (a multi billion dollar freeway from Williams Lake to Campbell River?!?) connecting more of the Gulf islands together so they could consolidate the services and make it more efficient would allow for the Gulf Islands to have better service.

     

    And they are getting more boats so the obvious answer is already being done.

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