Flying First Class - Week 91.5 - Jan 28-30

Oh boy.  Look at how folksy and amazing Stephen Harper is!  Twitter!  High Fives!

Holy shit!  It cost a million bucks to fly Harpo's limos to India?  That's crazy.  Couldn't they have bought armoured transport for less?

Oh.  Wait.  We sent Special Forces to Mali as well as an airplane.  Oops.  Steve forgot to mention that.

Stats Can released some data on income equality/inequality in Canada.  The poor 1% only earns 10.6% of the Nations total income (2010) vs. the 12.1% they earned in 2006.  This is interesting, but largely academic.  However, what I do find interesting is the earnings that would put you in the 1%.  Where an American 1 Percenter is probably making at least a few million a year (I can't back this up right now, but when you look at their numbers, their income inequality is staggering), $201,400 per year ($16,783 per month) in Canada puts you in the 1 Percent.  Now, don't get me wrong, 200 grand a year is a healthy chunk of cash, but I figured it would require far more than that to beat out 99% of the country.  The National Post of course has an interesting take on this.  Surprisingly, they take it as an opportunity to poke fun at the Occupy movement.  Is this news?  Infotainment?  Anyhow.  I digress.  What is interesting is that they manage to point out the median income of the 98%.  $28,400 per year.  Ouch.  Anyhow.  Scroll down to the bottom of this post for my take on how this proves we have a ridiculous Real Estate bubble.

Canada!  Pillars of the World Economy!  Banks made of granite!  Oh.  Wait.  All downgraded due to our ridiculous housing/debt bubble.  Just wait.  Years of post recession praise of our banking?  Yes.  All thanks to the Conservatives.  Followed by a precipitous decline thanks to the above mentioned issues?  Whose fault is that going to be?

So, I heard on the news that the Conservatives are going to "open up a dialogue" with First Nations.  But apparently "opening up a dialogue" means "we'll talk, but don't expect anything to change."  Peter Van Loan even suggests that the bills that they have the biggest problem with (the two Omnibus Budgets) will actually make them some of the "greatest beneficiaries".  This just seems like an amazing strategy.  Somebody tells you that they have a real problem with something and you come back and tell them that they are mistaken and this will actually be really good for them.

Hey.  You didn't think the Ashley Smith thing could get worse?  Well, turns out they tried to buy the guards silence.  After more-or-less firing them.

Which leads to...  A 12-year-old girl gets thrown in adult jail for 11 days.  No word in the article as to whether or not she is large for her age.

Two things from this story about Corporate Income Tax:
1 - Corporations pay lower tax rates than humans.
2 - Corporate tax cuts are not creating jobs.

Did you hear about Israel coercing Ethiopian Jews into accepting birth control?  I think Stephen Harper is still drafting the memo that Canada is 100% in support of Israel's right to do this.

So, as I mentioned above, let's talk about Real Estate.  This gets a bit number crazy.  Let's look at what $201,400 yearly income means.
Yearly Salary - $201,400
After tax take home - $153,580 (plug it in here if you don't believe me)
Monthly take home pay - $12,798 per month

So, you're a fancy 1 percenter.  You live in Vancouver.  You deserve a big house, right?  Chances are, your bank is going to give you a fat mortgage, but you're not greedy.  You're going to buy the average Greater Vancouver house at the benchmark price.  You get a lovely teardown for $904,000.  Here's where it gets tricky as no two mortgages are the same.  Let's assume a 15% down payment and let's assume a 5 Year, 3.5% fixed rate.  Not too shabby.  What does your mortgage look like?
Down payment - $135,600
Monthly payment - $3,900

So, you're paying $3,900 to live in the Greater Vancouver average detached house (trust me, this won't be a fancy place).  That is over 30% of your income.  According to some, anything over 36% is an unhealthy income/debt ratio.  So.  If you live in Vancouver.  And you're in the top 1 percent of all income earners in the entire country.  You can just afford to buy the average detached house.  Which leads me to wonder about how all of these properties are paid for.  Is Vancouver composed entirely of 1 percenters?

Rememberings - Week 91 - Jan 21-28

Our mid-week post covered the happenings of Monday to Wednesday.

Stephen Harper quietly named a new batch of Senators.  Conservative fundraisers, relatives of former MP's and oil industry types...I've included a photo of Stephen Harper above, just in case you forgot what he looks like.

Details from the Ashley Smith inquest are seeping out and it is just a really sad catastrophe.  For a long time I've wondered how guards could have just sat there and let it happen.  But then you find out they were threatened with all kinds of bad things after previous incidents in which they intervened and it makes more "sense"...sense being relative in this case.  Hopefully the people who created this situation are found accountable.


Some more information has come out about the sternly worded letters from Environment Canada.  Apparently two of the letters were in response to oil spills.  There were no public reports created about either of them and the public only found out about them when the story about the letters broke.  And, well, one of the spills was approximately two barrels worth.  And the other was approximately 3,000 barrels worth.  And lasted for 36 hours.  Wonder if they got the same letter?


A report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer highlights that "spending cuts" completed by the Conservatives haven't really done much of anything except with regards to front line services (i.e. they've cut the shit out of front line services).  Lots of other things just keep going up and up.  So.  Essentially - "We're going to cut all the shit that we don't like in the name of 'cost savings' while spending like drunken sailors on stuff we like."

Remember a few months ago, when there was that story about the Canadian lady being jailed in Mexico for plotting to smuggle one of Gaddafi's sons in?  And it just seemed so completely insane that it couldn't possibly be believable?  Well, it kind of makes a bit of sense now as we find out details of the graft paid by SNC Lavelin.  Although, why would you feel so indebted to some guy that you paid millions in bribes to?  Unless you figured he would somehow make it back into power.

Oh ya.  Nobody at all is going to learn how to take advantage of the Entrepreneur visa program.  You're required to have venture capital funding in place before you can come?  "Hello rich Canadian uncle.  I would like to move to Canada.  Can you provide me with $100,000 for my imaginary business?  Thanks."  Or "Hello Venture Capital firm in Canada.  I would like to buy my way into the country.  Can I front you $100,000 that you can then front to my 'business'?  Great."

Well, the National Post finally gave a voice for a left wing editorial...about how disappointing it is that Thomas Mulcair isn't left wing enough.

Theresa Spence ended her hunger strike. And then promptly stepped in it by calling Brazeau a...just let me make sure I get this right...a "typical colonized indian asshole" on Twitter.

I saw this article on the Globe and Mail yesterday (don't go read it).  I stopped reading.  Apparently, not everybody else did.  Boingboing has a nice response to how ridiculous it is to write off everybody as hackers and copyright thieves.

Remember how big a deal Mo Farah was for the UK in these past Olympics?  Well, apparently in the US, he gets questioned as a potential terrorist.  At least they're equitable in their pour treatment of brown guys.

This Bloomberg interactive display on the worlds Billionaires is fascinating.  Play around with it a bit.  The "inherited" filter is quite interesting.  Look at how those Waltons stack up one after another.  And...only one Canadian billionaire.  And he's not on Dragon's Den.

Nothing to do with Canada...but a State Legislator in New Mexico wants to outlaw abortion by rape victims as they will be "tampering with evidence".  Cue the outrage from the "hateful" e-mails she is about to receive.  She attempted to backpedal a few days later, but I'm not sure you can really step back from something like this.