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Old 12-28-2011, 03:03 PM   #61
Bill Bumface
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How so? The belief that giving someone a home without having earned it and without any conditions placed upon it should be questioned shows you what, exactly? Let's be honest here: you could have put together a well thought out post, but instead you chose to be glib and lay on the hyperbole. Don't try to back track now. Why do you feel that some people should simply be given something for nothing while others have to work hard for very same thing? I'm not trying to be closed minded, but so far you have offered nothing but nonsense and condescension. Perhaps that is all you have to offer?
Fair enough, the Cole's notes of my opinion on this:

You have a person, likely with mental illness, and also likely with an addiction problem. You can have all the free programs in the world designed to help this person, but a large portion of these people will never seek out help.

Often they engage in crime to feed their addictions, and there is a whole other class of people (the drug dealers etc) that are part of the economy of the lifestyle many homeless people bring.

These people are costing all of us money in two ways. They don't contribute to the economy, and they drain it by the existence of shelters, police officers, victims of crime, insurance claims for crime etc.

I think we can agree throwing money at a lot of the programs we have doesn't do much to solve the root of the issue, but only serves to keep these people alive (shelters, soup kitchens etc).

So if we can spend $X of government funds to keep Y% off of the street, and put them in an environment where self esteem and pride are restored, and a smaller yet Z% seek help and treat their mental illness and addiction problems, we very well might save more than the initial $X spent when you look at the long term life cycle of the project.

A native reserve is a pretty good example of what can happen when you have kids growing up in bad conditions to addict parents, rinse, repeat. People don't find their way out of these things easily, the cycle will continue. If you spend a ton of money in a way that will actually inspire major change in a generation, you set yourself up for a ton of savings in the future.

Imagine the property values of the NE side of downtown if it wasn't crawling with zombie hobos? How many less CPS would we need to chase these guys around all day? How much less prison space? How much would they be able to contribute to the GDP? What could we do with the lands currently used for our massive abomination of a homeless shelter and where could the funds used to operate it be better spent?

Forget the human aspect, the money alone makes it worth giving some new approaches a try.

You and I who grew up in good houses without mental illness are perfectly capable of going to work to pay for our houses, so we should continue to do so and just be glad we live in a city/country that is trying to address the problem.
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Old 12-28-2011, 05:08 PM   #62
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This reminds me of a Malcolm Gladwell article where he talks about homelessness and radical approaches to solving it.

http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_02_13_a_murray.html

I can't be certain that the Canadian program and the ideas in the article are the same (or similar), but it seems to be. Anyway, it's an interesting read nonetheless.
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Old 12-28-2011, 06:04 PM   #63
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If the history has taught us anything, it's that free stuff solves everything.
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Old 12-28-2011, 06:16 PM   #64
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You have a person, likely with mental illness, and also likely with an addiction problem. You can have all the free programs in the world designed to help this person, but a large portion of these people will never seek out help.
Thing is - some of these people don't want help. If anyone who lives in the Beltline/Mission area should know who Freedom is. Freedom is a homeless drug addict - the man has been beat up, arrested and stabbed and he is still "happy" doing what he is doing.

I was with a community association rep one night and she straight up asked him - This what we can do to help you

His reply - No i wanna do my drugs - I won't do it, take advantage ect...

He seems to be "happy" where he is with what he is doing despite all he has gone through

addication is a power thing.
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Old 12-28-2011, 07:56 PM   #65
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If the history has taught us anything, it's that free stuff solves everything.
This is more about teaching a man to fish instead of giving a man a fish .
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Old 12-28-2011, 08:41 PM   #66
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Selling oil at 1/3 of the price in October 2008 didn't save things. Oil surely didn't help Ontario,Quebec, New Brunswick amongst others either. I think thats an easy off the cuff response, but probably not accurate.
Oil saves things and makes them happen for Canada. Otherwise digging in mud would net the average Canadian Joe $4/hour like in the rest of the world rather than $100k a year.

Standard of living in Canada is massively inflated thanks to that. Alberta would be a cold wasteland if Canada was a net importer of natural resources.
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Old 12-28-2011, 08:51 PM   #67
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Oil saves things and makes them happen for Canada. Otherwise digging in mud would net the average Canadian Joe $4/hour like in the rest of the world rather than $100k a year.

Standard of living in Canada is massively inflated thanks to that. Alberta would be a cold wasteland if Canada was a net importer of natural resources.
Sure, I don't deny that its good for the country. Oil didn't save us from recession in 2008 though. We got smoked along with everyone else; what saved us at that point was the stringent regulation of our financial institutions. They weren't involved to as great an extent and so didn't get hurt as badly. Same goes on an individual level where people were not allowed to get into adjustable mortgages, NINJA mortgages and things like that, so they suffered less when it fell apart.
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Old 12-28-2011, 09:05 PM   #68
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Sure, I don't deny that its good for the country. Oil didn't save us from recession in 2008 though. We got smoked along with everyone else; what saved us at that point was the stringent regulation of our financial institutions. They weren't involved to as great an extent and so didn't get hurt as badly. Same goes on an individual level where people were not allowed to get into adjustable mortgages, NINJA mortgages and things like that, so they suffered less when it fell apart.
Can you maybe expand on this? I'm not familiar with regulatory law concerning Canadian banking sector, were Canadian banks prohibited (for the lack of a better word) to "invest" for example in Greek bonds? Or maybe it was just a coincidence that they didn't? From what I read, Greece was a "home turf" for few selected French/Dutch/German banks anyway. What regulation do you think saved Canadian banks from toxic investment?
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Old 12-28-2011, 09:24 PM   #69
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Can you maybe expand on this? I'm not familiar with regulatory law concerning Canadian banking sector, were Canadian banks prohibited (for the lack of a better word) to "invest" for example in Greek bonds? Or maybe it was just a coincidence that they didn't? From what I read, Greece was a "home turf" for few selected French/Dutch/German banks anyway. What regulation do you think saved Canadian banks from toxic investment?
I'm not as informed as Slava is, but the biggest in my opinion was stopping RBC and BMO from merging. Amongst other things, it prevented the merged megabank from investing heavily in the US banking market, and kept those two from getting too involved in the deregulated mortgage mess the Americans were busy with.
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Old 12-28-2011, 09:25 PM   #70
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Well most of the impact for Canadian banks that saved them was leading up to 2008 and not so much the european issues that we see today (although the exposure is minimal for other reasons). There is no one thing, but the mortgage industry for example didn't allow for the products that were the cause for trouble in the US to begin with. We have had limits on amortization and qualification standards in general that prevented borrowers from taking on increasing interest rates. The subprime market is minimal in Canada so while house prices increased the borrowers could still rely on a set monthly payment that wasn't due to rise by a few percent based on the calendar. The NINJA mortgage I mentioned is the "No Income No Job" and while surely some people managed to pull that off up here it would be a small percentage.

There are also many financial institutions regulated here through OSFI (Office of the Superintendant of Financial Institutions). These regulations force certain amounts of capital to be held in certain ways for different purposes. The easiest example is insurance. Basically to write an insurance policy for $100 the issuing company has to have $150 set aside. Regulations like that specify how much must be present and how it must be held. Its all to minimize the damages and repercussions in a doomsday scenario.
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Old 12-28-2011, 09:36 PM   #71
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How were Canadian banks leveraged compared to their American counterparts?
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Old 12-29-2011, 07:55 AM   #72
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I haven't seen any facts about the amount of leverage the banks employ. I'm not an expert here, but I would say its more about how the banks were lending and not about their borrowing. By their nature banks are basically insolvent; they take deposits and immediately lend that money out again. This is why a run on the bank is a catastrophe.

In the US you had a lot of banks lending money to people who should never have had the loans on properties with values that were ever increasing (until they weren't). Part of the efforts of the government at this time was to backstop the mortgage backed securities that were floating around to try to give some stability to the whole system.

Really though, I don't know the answer you're after here Azure. I can only take a somewhat educated guess as to the major differences.
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Old 12-29-2011, 04:04 PM   #73
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How were Canadian banks leveraged compared to their American counterparts?
Much more modestly - the banks were furious during boomtimes because they couldn't get in on all the speculation and wild profits that other world banks could - including mergers blocked by finance minister Martin.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ideas/article/557552

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/op...28tedesco.html
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Old 12-29-2011, 04:31 PM   #74
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There are thousands of Canadians that should be grateful to Paul Martin for protecting their livelihood. I say that as someone who votes Conservative.
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Old 12-29-2011, 05:54 PM   #75
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How were Canadian banks leveraged compared to their American counterparts?
The Basel Accord is a standard that international banks must adhere to in regards to capitalization, and Canadian banking regulation exceed those standards. For example banks are required hold a certain percentage of capital. International regulation requires 4% and 7% for the two tiers, while Canadian regulation required 7 and 10%.

On the mortgage side only 3% of Canadian mortgages were subprime compared to 15% in the USA. In Canada only 30% of mortgages were securitized compared to 60% in the USA. This helped really limit how many other people/institutions were left holding the bag when the housing bubble burst. There are other regulations in Canada that limit the amount of risky investments that the banks can take part in as a percentage of capital.
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