Infinite Mortgages
The Bank of Canada’s efforts over the past year to hike interest rates are now at the point where you can call the policy utterly laughable, considering that whenever the policy threatens to have consequences, those consequences are speedily legislated out of existence. The government of Canada has just issued new mortgage measures whereby anyone who can’t pay their mortgage can simply make whatever payments they can afford. That’s a pretty sweet deal, if your goal is to turn homebuyers into blatant parasites.
…the government will allow 30-year mortgage amortizations for first-time home buyers purchasing newly built homes, effective August 1, 2024.
Third, the enhancements to the Canadian Mortgage Charter will also include an expectation that, where appropriate, permanent amortization relief will be made available to protect existing homeowners that meet specific eligibility criteria. Amortization relief means eligible homeowners can reduce their monthly mortgage payment to a number they can afford, for as long as they need to.
Socialist Progress
In the continuing saga of The Workers’ State of South Africa, there’s finally some good news. Well, sort of. It seems that there have been fewer power outages lately. Mind you, that’s not because supply is growing. Rather, shuttered factories have no need for electricity and the marginal consumer is simply going off-grid.
The weak South African economy, and the resulting generally flat overall demand for electricity.
Rapidly rising price of Eskom and municipal electricity of two to three times the inflation rate for many years, is dampening demand for Eskom generated electricity.
Load shedding and low reliability of Eskom and municipal grid electricity, particularly for the last four years, have been negatively impacting electricity supply.
Electricity customers are responding by moving to self-generation and alternative energy sources, including rooftop solar PV, battery energy storage, gas for cooking, solar hot water geysers, energy efficiency, and a general reduction in demand for grid electricity.
Woke Justice
Leaving The Left Coast
But not necessarily the left.
Calgary Herald- Why thousands of British Columbians are leaving for Alberta
StatCan estimates the number to be 37,650 in 2023 alone. For the first time since 2012, B.C. lost more people than it gained, and almost all of those who moved in the final quarter of 2023 flowed to Alberta — a break from a trend where people in the prairie province sought out the West Coast as a place to live after retirement.
BC Climate Scam
BC United Caucus- New documents confirm the NDP not only knew about 20 percent carbon tax kickbacks to high-paid government consultants, but it also signed off on them.
Business Intelligence for BC- B.C.’s opposition parties demand probe into alleged government grant kickbacks
The Orca- B.C. energy minister faces backlash, orders audit in wake of clean energy grant scandal
And He Invokes “Social Justice”
He’s “not inherently dangerous.” He just wants to molest little girls, you see, while pretending to be a woman.
Justin’s Woke Prison
When they get out at least they will use the correct pronouns when mugging you. Canada’s wokest prison.
Losses For The Masses
Maybe central planning didn’t work at this time, but trust us, it will work at some point in the future. The question remains, why do we even have such a bank in the first place?
The head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank defended $900,000 spent on a now-cancelled power line project, arguing the project will ultimately get built and the due diligence the bank did was entirely reasonable.
The bank agreed in 2021 to offer a $655-million loan to the project and spent $900,000 on due diligence involving lawyers and outside experts. The project has since been suspended and the original owner sold its interest to another company. The loan did not go through, but the $900,000 had already been spent.
Render Unto Caesar…
Fraser Institute- Canada’s Rising Personal Tax Rates and Falling Tax Competitiveness, 2024
Comparing the provinces with 51 US jurisdictions (includes all states and Washington DC) shows nine Canadian provinces occupying the list of the top 10 jurisdictions with the highest top combined marginal income tax rates, and all provinces are in the top 15.
Canadian provinces are similarly uncompetitive with US jurisdictions when comparing personal income tax rates at the CA$300,000, CA$150,000, CA$75,000, and CA$50,000 income thresholds.
Canada’s top combined statutory income tax rate is also uncompetitive compared to other industrialized countries. Out of 38 OECD countries, Canada’s top combined income tax rate ranks 5th highest.
Pharma Pressure?
Suneel Dhand is a British physician who has been openly critical of pandemic policy in many a YouTube video and now focuses his critical eye on another common medical issue: blood pressure.
“I believe it’s absolutely ludicrous that we would have this one size fits all approach to blood pressure [of ] 120 over 80.”
“Every passing year the guidance from the medical establishment gets more and more aggressive and on many levels this is a complete money grab…”
Taxing Measures
Boston is certainly not the first city to hit the wall of declining commercial property values, and it won’t be the last. The cheering was widespread when everyone worked from home during the pandemic, but now that many of those jobs have disappeared and downtowns are filling up with the homeless, there’s simply not enough commercial tenants left to fill the gap.
A recent report by the Boston Policy Institute found the city may lose $1.4 billion in tax revenue over the next five years due to empty office spaces. Boston could also face a recurring shortfall of about $500 million each year after that first half-decade, the report found.
In a sane world, the solution would be to cut spending and align it with revenue. But in the insane Keynesian universe, the “solution” is to tax the remaining commercial property owners even harder than they already are. I can’t imagine any negative consequences arising from that, can you?
The measure would give the city the flexibility to temporarily shift more of the property tax levy onto commercial and industrial property owners. If approved, new tax rates would only go into effect if commercial valuations come in low as expected, Wu said.
The Libranos: Grifter General
Two days ago, Trudeau was in Alberta, promoting modular construction as a way to solve the housing crisis he created.
He chose NRB Modular Solutions as a backdrop for his press conference. NRB is part of Dexterra Group, a leading support services and solutions company in Canada.
Who recently joined Dexterra’s Board of Directors? None other than Justin Trudeau’s favorite “Uncle”, the 28th Governor General of Canada from 2010 to 2017. Mr. David Johnston. […]
Not a bad gig, if you can get it. Johnston attended 6 board meetings in 2023, for which he got paid $122,861.
He owns 78,938 shares of the company, worth $437,317.
Are You Not Affirmed?
A tale of modern romance – with a modern twist.
Canada’s Bolshevik’s: The Art Of The Shakedown
Rob Shaw: B.C.’s opposition parties demand probe into alleged government grant kickbacks: An electric vehicle manufacturer said it was solicited by the firm administering certain programs; the province says it has found no wrongdoing
This alleged shakedown has an eery similarity to the Shumiatcher Deals of the Tommy Douglas government in Saskatchewan.
Morris Shumiatcher was a lawyer and former Attorney General under Tommy Douglas who would help people secure business development grants from the Saskatchewan government. The process worked that an existing business person would hire Shumiatcher and Shumiatcher would then put together a deal inwhich the applicant would sell shares in their business to Tommy Douglas and Clarence Fines, Fines being the Minister of Finance. Once the shares were purchased Shumiatcher would arrange for the business to receive a very generous grant from the Saskatchewan government for business development. Shortly after the grant was paid the business person would buy back the shares from Tommy Douglas and Clarence Fines at an enormous profit. This scheme was repeated numerous times. The similarity to the current allegations in BC are obvious.
To read more on this scandal and several more I suggest picking up The Road to Jerusalem.
Shumiatcher had numerous legal shenanigans throughout his career and often found himself on the wrong side of the law.
In the early 1960’s Clarence Fines ran off to Grenada with his secretary and a ton of Saskatchewan taxpayer money. One of the last things he did was write a letter to the bank explaining a cheque for $1,500 from the Alberta Distillers was to be deposited into a CCF party slush fund and that Tommy Douglas would be looking after the account henceforth, but that’s a Saskatchewan Mafia story for another day.
Odd Behaviour
Manitoba’s NDP government is doing something that’s seemingly out of character: they’ve slashed a spending item by 50%. The opposition Tories are critical of that move, but for the wrong reasons. If they were real conservatives, they would demand to know why the government stopped at a 50% cut.
The provincial government has set funding for park-related capital investments at $6.8 million in its first budget, delivered Tuesday. That’s down from about $12.7 million last year, when the PCs were in power.
“It’s obvious this government doesn’t value parks, the experiences they provide or the tourism dollars they bring to the province,” [Conservative MLA] Nesbitt said during question period.
The MLA for Riding Mountain told reporters later on Thursday that Manitobans and other visitors to the province’s parks will all be disappointed by the funding cuts.
The Doctor Will Mutilate You Now
National Post- Quebec man has two healthy fingers amputated to relieve ‘body integrity dysphoria’
“He is now living a life free from distressing preoccupations about his fingers, with all his symptoms related to BID resolved,” Nadeau wrote. “The amputation enabled him to live in alignment with his perceived identity.”
Broken Records
It’s about time that Zimbabwe switched off the broken record and admitted that decades of scientific socialism have only yielded abject failure, but Maximum Leader seems intent on forcing the citizens to bang their heads against the wall yet again.
On Friday, Mushayakarara is expected to announce the introduction of a gold-backed currency to replace the worthless local dollar, which is currently trading at around 30,000 to one U.S. dollar and, unlike the South African rand, does not circulate in neighboring countries.
Zimbabwe has introduced and abandoned at least five currencies since independence in 1980, all of which lost value to become almost worthless.
Zero Income Earners
The emergence of another casualty of California’s decision to hike the minimum wage to $20 per hour comes as no surprise to anyone who understands basic economics: the real minimum wage is actually zero.
When making their way to work Monday morning, Navarro and her team learned upon arrival that the restaurant owner had made the decision to close its doors for good. The owner, Loren Wright, told local Fox affiliate KMPH that this was the “last thing” they wanted to do, but knew by Friday night the business likely wouldn’t be able to absorb the wage hike…
“And those who are still working in the areas around us that went up to $20 an hour, they got their hours severely cut.”
Pressing Legal Issue Of The Day
National Post- Court to decide if Ontario must pay for surgery to make vagina if patient also wants to keep penis
h/t Cameron