Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

What about all the charities that depend on the door to door mail? What about all the small businesses where a lot of stuff comes through the mail? What about Christmas cards, Birthday cards, personal letters, etc.?, packages and parcels etc.?

It may not be a right to receive door to door mail, but it certainly helps make life a lot better and easier for many people.

And you can be assured that the money you save, by dispensing with it, will be spent by your government on things that are of much less benefit to society.

The charities depend on mail, not door to door mail. Are you suggesting that people will not donate to charity if they get a flyer at their community mailbox versus at their house?

If the savings are not worth it, that's an argument to consider.

But there are lots of people who manage just fine getting their mail at a community mailbox and to suggest that others are special and cannot handle that is silly.

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by Locke

I think they beat a puppy to death with ULINE catalogues, but that is an unconfirmed rumour.

They delivered 4 goddamned catalogues to my office one time. 4!

These are 300+ pages of glossy-paged catalogues from a company from whom I have never purchased anything in my life.

I have a Vendetta against ULINE and Canada Post is simply enabling them, which is a set of circumstances I simply cannot tolerate, come Hell or High Water I shall see to the demise ULINE.

I defeated Sports Illustrated...I can defeat ULINE.

They just dropped a catalogue on the puppy from 2 feet? That would do it.

I fully support your quest, or perhaps we should call it a... jihad?

That feels right.

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

The government isn't creating the waste. They are just a middleman. I support our door to door mail carriers especially the ones that actually have walking routes. That is a sweet gig and I'm a bit jealous of them.

Please, please, tell me I don't have to explain the role the 'middle-man' fulfills in this and many other areas of life. Please?

I support the workers to the extent they are delivering (pun intended) something of value at a reasonable cost. They are not. The Pony Express driver sounds thrilling as well. There is not much need for them either.

I agree it is a sweet gig. Even sweet gigs go away, some particularly because they are sweet gigs.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Titan2

They just dropped a catalogue on the puppy from 2 feet? That would do it.

I fully support your quest, or perhaps we should call it a... jihad?

That feels right.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Locke

Yes. And?

I dont need daily mail delivery. I probably could suffice with Monthly mail delivery and even then, thats because those idiots cant get everything online.

I have asked Telus SEVERAL TIMES to stop sending me a bill. I get the bill online. I do not need a physical paper copy. But they keep sending it.

I fought Sports Illustrated for YEARS! And I won that one!

Do I want my ULINE catalogues? Nope. They can shove that #### right where it came from. It goes from ULINE printers to a truck to a Canada Post sorting area to a man with a van, to my mailbox and then directly from there into my recycling bin where another man with a truck picks it up and delivers it to wherever to be deconstructed into whatever the hell it was in the first place without so much as a page being ruffled.

Beautiful use of resources, dont you agree?

I check my mail maybe once every two weeks. I often forget. Unless I'm expecting something specific I just dont care. My bills are online.

So pardon me if I'm unsympathetic to people in shorts driving vans all about delivering crap we dont want.

Maybe I wont get 30 cents off my next teen burger at A&W...the struggle is insufferable but I shall persevere.

The whole point is that the issue isn’t the junk mail. The junk mail will continue . It funds the operation.

It can be weekly mail and you are still getting the junk mail.

So yes delivering Junk mail along with required mail at what ever frequency is deemed neccessary is a good use of resources.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Locke

I think they beat a puppy to death with ULINE catalogues, but that is an unconfirmed rumour.

They delivered 4 goddamned catalogues to my office one time. 4!

These are 300+ pages of glossy-paged catalogues from a company from whom I have never purchased anything in my life.

I have a Vendetta against ULINE and Canada Post is simply enabling them, which is a set of circumstances I simply cannot tolerate, come Hell or High Water I shall see to the demise ULINE.

I defeated Sports Illustrated...I can defeat ULINE.

you're going to feel pretty silly next time you want to masturbate during a power outage.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Titan2

Interesting. Do you have a more specific link? I would like to read that. I have felt that but would like to see the numbers.

Key points from the article:

…A recent 30-country poll by Ipsos finds that 31% of Gen Xers say they are “not very happy” or “not happy at all”, the most of any generation. David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College finds all sorts of nasty things, from unhappiness to anxiety to despair, top out around the age of 50. This is consistent with the “u-bend of life” theory, which suggests that people are happy when young and old, but miserable in middle age.

… Although Gen Xers will in time escape the u-bend, they will remain losers in other ways. Consider their incomes. Gen Xers do earn more after inflation than earlier generations—the continuation of a long historical trend, and one from which both millennials and Gen Zers also benefit. But their progress has been slow. A recent paper by Kevin Corinth of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, and Jeff Larrimore of the Federal Reserve assesses American household incomes by generation, after accounting for taxes, government transfers and inflation. From the ages of 36 to 40 Gen Xers’ real household incomes were only 16% higher than the previous generation at the same age, the smallest improvement of any cohort (see chart 1).

Gen Xers have, to be fair, faced difficult circumstances. People’s earnings typically rise fast in their 30s and 40s, as they move into managerial roles. Unfortunately for Gen Xers, when they were in that age range labour markets were weak, following the global financial crisis of 2007-09. In 2011, for instance, the median nominal earnings of British people in their 30s rose by just 1.1%. Earnings growth in Italy, which was hit hard by the euro crisis, was just as poor. And in Canada from 2011 to 2017 the real median earnings of people aged 35 to 44 years did not grow at all.

Gen Xers have also done a poor job accumulating wealth. During the 1980s, when many boomers were in their 30s, global stockmarkets quadrupled. Millennials, now in their 30s, have so far enjoyed strong market returns. But during the 2000s, when Gen Xers were hoping to make hay, markets fell slightly. That period was a lost decade for American stocks in particular, coming after the dotcom bubble and ending with the financial crisis.

What about home-ownership, the ultimate symbol of intergenerational unfairness? The conventional narrative contrasts perma-renting millennials with boomers who enjoy six spare bedrooms. Yet data on American home-ownership, provided by Victoria Gregory of the St Louis branch of the Fed, overturns this received wisdom. In fact, the big decline in home-ownership rates happened from boomers to Gen Xers. Starting in their late 30s and early 40s, Gen Xers of a given age had a similar chance of owning as millennials do (see chart 2).

https://www.economist.com/finance-an...ser-generation

[Slava]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The people who had menial jobs in the 60s may have been able to afford a detached home, but in every other respect they lived in what we would regard today as poverty.

The 70s were not a great period economically. Runaway inflation, the energy shock, stagflation, high unemployment. The postwar boom was over by ‘71. So really, this golden period that we still look to as a touchstone lasted only 20 years, and it ended more than 50 years ago.

The Canadians who enjoyed the fruits of that golden era in adulthood are now all dead or in their 80s. For the rest of us - Boomers, GenX, Millennials, GenZ - it’s all just a matter of when in our adult lives we’re dealt economic gut-punches. The Economist (avert your eyes rube) recently posted an article arguing GenX were the big generational losers, as their first decade in the workforce had such a weak economy that many never caught up.

I would add to this, that the single detached houses that were built back then (and are glorified today) are nowhere near housing today. They were significantly smaller, had one bathroom for 4-6 people, no garage and the list goes on. The reality is that our preferences have changed, and what people saw as adequate at that point no longer is. Our houses are much bigger, have many more amenities and if you put one of our average houses back in the middle of a 1960’s neighbourhood (not including the obvious technological advances), it would be a mansion and people would be in awe.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Slava

I would add to this, that the single detached houses that were built back then (and are glorified today) are nowhere near housing today. They were significantly smaller, had one bathroom for 4-6 people, no garage and the list goes on. The reality is that our preferences have changed, and what people saw as adequate at that point no longer is. Our houses are much bigger, have many more amenities and if you put one of our average houses back in the middle of a 1960’s neighbourhood (not including the obvious technological advances), it would be a mansion and people would be in awe.

I'm not sure it's preferences so much as people got spoiled with homes with way more than what is necessary(bonus room!) and they think they require all this indoor space to survive. People made do back then because it was what they could afford. Bigger homes cost more. And now people say they can't afford a home, but what they really mean is they can't afford all the space they think they are entitled to, not what they need to get by. "Good enough" isn't a term a lot of people are comfortable with.

You can tell this is the case because people think they require a garage for their vehicles, but end up filling it with junk they never use. So they don't actually need the garage or the junk, but they feel it's necessary to have.

[Fuzz]

Finding a million more Conservative votes: 'It’s about figuring out a way to speak to women'

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/finding-mi...130033135.html


Alternate headline: Post election naval gazing Conservatives realize women exist, have concerns deeper than being on the clock.

“So I think it’s going to be about figuring out a way to speak to women … on issues that affect them,” Ben reflects, in ways that don’t alienate other people. But, he admits, it’s a challenge to thread that needle.

This I think is key to Conservative strategies. They view everything as two sides. "We must not alienate our base by respecting things like a women's right to chose, but we really want their votes." They've built themselves an impossible box in which the only way they can see women belonging in it is by having them adapt the views of the others in their party. And it's not just women, it's all types of Canadians that don't fit the mould. "Force 'em in it" isn't a winning strategy, particularity when it revolves around boundaries and moral positions.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I'm not sure it's preferences so much as people got spoiled with homes with way more than what is necessary(bonus room!) and they think they require all this indoor space to survive. People made do back then because it was what they could afford. Bigger homes cost more. And now people say they can't afford a home, but what they really mean is they can't afford all the space they think they are entitled to, not what they need to get by. "Good enough" isn't a term a lot of people are comfortable with.

You can tell this is the case because people think they require a garage for their vehicles, but end up filling it with junk they never use. So they don't actually need the garage or the junk, but they feel it's necessary to have.

Well, I heard of a guy who spent multiple summers to build a garage, so you would probably have a hard time convincing him that a garage isn’t a need!

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Slava

I would add to this, that the single detached houses that were built back then (and are glorified today) are nowhere near housing today. They were significantly smaller, had one bathroom for 4-6 people, no garage and the list goes on. The reality is that our preferences have changed, and what people saw as adequate at that point no longer is. Our houses are much bigger, have many more amenities and if you put one of our average houses back in the middle of a 1960’s neighbourhood (not including the obvious technological advances), it would be a mansion and people would be in awe.

That's not all that relevant though, because those exact houses which lack those amenities still exist, and they're often extremely expensive still.

The examples I used in the post that Cliff linked are exactly that. They are houses that my grandparents owned and I know for a fact that they are in essentially the same condition as they were when they bought them (1,300-1,500 square feet, 3 small bedrooms, 1 bath, no garage, minor updates to maintain the condition but no real upgrades/retrofits, etc.) yet they're worth $1.5-2M.

If modern house sizes were driving unaffordability, then the existing stock from the '50s and '60s would would be affordable, but by and large they're not. And that's because land value is driving prices in cities. And I don't even know that there's anything policy-wise that can be done about that. As cities grow, land is going to become more valuable. But we can't just pretend that there isn't a fundamental difference between now and then.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by opendoor

That's not all that relevant though, because those exact houses which lack those amenities still exist, and they're often extremely expensive still.

The examples I used in the post that Cliff linked are exactly that. They are houses that my grandparents owned and I know for a fact that they are in essentially the same condition as they were when they bought them (1,300-1,500 square feet, 3 small bedrooms, 1 bath, no garage, minor updates to maintain the condition but no real upgrades/retrofits, etc.) yet they're worth $1.5-2M.

If modern house sizes were driving unaffordability, then the existing stock from the '50s and '60s would would be affordable, but by and large they're not. And that's because land value is driving prices in cities. And I don't even know that there's anything policy-wise that can be done about that. As cities grow, land is going to become more valuable. But we can't just pretend that there isn't a fundamental difference between now and then.

The 50's and 60's houses are now inner-city so fetch a premium. If builders built these basic houses in the new subdivisions they should be noticeably cheaper than what is typically being built there.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Titan2

This is an absolutely ridiculous argument. First, we are talking door to door. All those things can be dropped at a community box. Second, when was the last time your, or anyone, went to a local business because of mail? That Google could not have done better?

Packages and parcels are what got them into this jam in the first place. Be competitive or die.

And finally, if we don't do anything, because the gov't will just waste it anyways is not an argument. Maybe, again, just maybe, hold the ####ing gov't to account and don't vote blue over and over and over, despite their wicked ways.

I mean, the last time we had a Conservative government Harper announced a switch to community mailboxes from door to door delivery. The transition was in progress when he lost the election, and the Liberals immediately cancelled it when they came to power.

It doesn't seem like voting Conservative has caused this problem to me.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well, I heard of a guy who spent multiple summers to build a garage, so you would probably have a hard time convincing him that a garage isn’t a need!

Sure, we bought what we could afford at the time and lived 10 years without it. It's a luxury we built when we could afford it. "Good enough" was fine for us. We made do(and that meant a shared laundry/wood shop so it wasn't exactly ideal). It also meant we could pay off the mortgage far sooner, because we weren't paying interest costs and higher insurance on excess space, plus lower property taxes.

The garage is awesome though, but only because I built it right once I could.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by Slava

I would add to this, that the single detached houses that were built back then (and are glorified today) are nowhere near housing today. They were significantly smaller, had one bathroom for 4-6 people, no garage and the list goes on. The reality is that our preferences have changed, and what people saw as adequate at that point no longer is. Our houses are much bigger, have many more amenities and if you put one of our average houses back in the middle of a 1960’s neighbourhood (not including the obvious technological advances), it would be a mansion and people would be in awe.

I think you're right that expectations have changed, but almost everyone buying these older homes in the inner cities is also needing a rental suite in them to afford it.
So that spacing is not just for their family anymore, it's 3 bed,1-2 bath for the family and 1-2 bed/1 bath for the rental suite.
The home owner is only living in 1200-1300 sq feet of the house.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by edslunch

The 50's and 60's houses are now inner-city so fetch a premium. If builders built these basic houses in the new subdivisions they should be noticeably cheaper than what is typically being built there.

Is this true though? These are just two random first click finds:

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...lgary-highwood

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...-skyview-ranch

With a difference of $160k you can make up a lot of the shortcomings on the bungalow, plus you will probably spend less on commuting(including time!), property taxes, and have the bonus of a massive yard. Hell, rebuild the garage with a suite and you can rent it or house extended family. I think a lot of the value of these older inner city places gets overlooked, but I might be biased. When I bought, I could never understand why it was cheaper than all the new stuff at the edge of the city.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Is this true though? These are just two random first click finds:

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...lgary-highwood

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...-skyview-ranch

With a difference of $160k you can make up a lot of the shortcomings on the bungalow, plus you will probably spend less on commuting(including time!), property taxes, and have the bonus of a massive yard. Hell, rebuild the garage with a suite and you can rent it or house extended family. I think a lot of the value of these older inner city places gets overlooked, but I might be biased. When I bought, I could never understand why it was cheaper than all the new stuff at the edge of the city.

I was responding to the poster talking about a 60s house going for $1.5 to $2 million. Your post is a good example of an older house being relatively affordable. Put a 3000 ft.² monster on the same plot it will not be going for that price. I believe that simpler smaller houses should be cheaper except where property values reign like inner-city.

[Fuzz]

Spoiler!

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...view=imagelist


700k, and this is the yard! I dunno, I'd rather have an old bungalow. As they say, they aren't making more land.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Spoiler!

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...view=imagelist


700k, and this is the yard! I dunno, I'd rather have an old bungalow. As they say, they aren't making more land.

…….Northeast……..