And every once in a while I'm accosted with ads that show how my online existence has been tracked, the "Targeted Ads". Cookies, crumbs, are swept from my browser's history, used to assemble a profile of who I am, what I'm after...ads for gems, (am I to be married? They're misunderstanding my research...), self-publishing (where do they get this?), ads to correct wrinkles and grey hair (hmm. Apparently my tastes are age specific), ads to sell me on Senior women or Russian Mail Order brides, (Ooops), but the best one, he crops up on YouTube, I think it's a targeted ad, but I'm not sure.
Some asshole, in his garage, showing me his new Masarati...no, he's not really about the money, he's got lots, he's really about the books and he's just bought 2000 books for his personal library, he can afford this because...
I've never made it further than this. Time, perhaps, to clear my cookies and start again...
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- Category: Rants
There are no half-million dollar houses in Calgary
It's a new thing, new to the past dozen years or so, this half-million dollar average price for an average home in Calgary. And the recent drop in the price of oil and gas has meant that as the workers flee the city these prices are being artificially held in place...
Let me take a moment to assure you, there are no half million dollar houses in Calgary.
You are buying into a fiction. How, a mere 12 years ago, a bungalow worth $160, 000, is now suddenly worth $500,000? There was a sudden bout of insanity that swept the markets, a boom in the oil and gas sector, and prices doubled, and then tripled, almost overnight.
Think about it. What you are buying is/are:
- Low interest rates, and predicting that they hold forever...
- Optimistic economic forecasts that predict the price of oil and gas will endlessly rise...("and how has that worked out for you, may I ask?")
- You are buying into a system that has allowed banks and landlords to speculate and gamble on your ability and willingness to overpay for a shelter that should be a basic human right. You are being sold a home, not on the basis of "what it's worth" but on the basis of "What can you afford to pay?", and not paying for it's value, but rather what your willing to pay for month after month, year after year, for the next 25 or 30 years...
- You're buying an imagined job security, a commitment to a job at a certain rate of pay for the next 25 or 30 years...
- You are enabling landlords to treat your "right" to shelter as a commodity, to buy up properties, speculate, create artificial scarcity and so inflate prices.
- You are paying for every realtors dream, where every minute of every day is the perfect, the best time, to buy or sell your house...Prices will only rise or drop, depending on what your considering...
- You are paying for the infrastructure - water, cable, sewage, electric, road, not only of your own far flung suburb, but suburbs even further out, these costs averaged over the city, you're buying a commitment to pay for these things your entire life, for in your life they will surely break and property taxes will increase.
- You're paying for 3 months half-hearted labor from a part time cowboy builder, a 3 month project dragged into a year of absent construction workers and tradesmen.
- You're buying into a billboard advertising a suburb filled with idiots just like you, the dream of success and carefully rationed coffee's and packed lunches
- You're buying the bank out of poorly managed investments, out of inevitable foreclosures and NINJA loans, out of poorly concealed bailouts and fixed interest rates
- You're buying insurance on a property you will soon come to hope burns down, and when the storms come you will watch the sky and pray with anxious eyes that the tornado strikes you, that the hail flattens this cardboard monstrosity into the field, that your own poor judgement will be mediated, alleviated by the wrath of God...you'll be praying for the end of the world so you can recover some slight measure of what you've paid...
How much do you earn? 3 times what you earned 12 years ago? Lucky you, few people are doing so well. What do you make now? $100K per year, less taxes, say $65K, less car payments, car insurance, house insurance, less property taxes, maintenance, a 30 minute daily commute if you're lucky, 15 minutes to groceries, and while you're praying the price of gas rises so you keep your job every nickel more at the pumps is crushing you, that SUV, everyone has one, but it's hardly fuel efficient, and those twice-a-week fills are starting to hit you a bit hard, and your mortgage alone, with property taxes and insurance, that's half your take home pay...
And this is a country with more land per capita than any other country on earth, barring Australia. And our land, (Sorry OZ), you can grow things on it.
When the Oilpatch EI runs out, that's when things will start to get interesting...
Links: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/will-this-circle-be-unbroken-rising-house-prices-sinking-dreams/article25889749/
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It started at 3:00 AM, like a fucking crime wave hitting the neighborhood, honking, beeps, sirens, ambulance, one of those old school alarms that screams "rape" loud enough for the entire fucking city to hear, only letting up intermittently, finally, 7:00 AM and I've had enough, walk down the street and get a license plate. Already the truck is papered with notes from other light sleepers and well wishers in the area, another neighbor is there taking a plate, he thinks the truck is stolen and dumped, I'm not so sure...If the truck isn't stolen, license plate BNJ-6946, you are Calgary's "ASS HOLE OF THE DAY". This in a city that offers pretty stiff competition.
As for the police, well, Bankview is hardly central, and easily 7 blocks from the nearest Tim Hortons, how could they be expected to break up their Friday night over something as trivial as this? Mind you, if it were a crime spree and you were breaking into cars in the downtown core, expect a 6 hour head start before the cops pop out their earplugs...
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Gas now peaking at $122.9 per liter, no explanations coming, little, if any, reaction from consumers.
Here's a chart displaying historical gas VS oil prices:
The last time, you might note, gas prices came close to this was when Oil was close to $150/Barrel. (the last blue spike actually rises up to the 122.9). Now this strategy of "randomly" varying price without correlation to supply or cost, is something we could call "Learned Helplessness", where we, the consumers, are being tested for reaction, and so far we're failing badly. It can be expected, then, that prices will continue to be set without regard for cost, and, ironically, with oil companies in Canada alone making over $100 million/per day with NO OVERHEADS for staffing & extraction (we laid off everyone in the oilsands, remember? And lets face it, we can't compete with $32.00/Barrel) yet we'll be expected to accord them every tax break when production resumes.
Hmmm. It's cheaper at the moment to buy a barrel of oil than it is to fill your car with gas.
We are, of course, not helpless, but in playing and paying along we're setting a very dangerous precedent and overlooking our right, our responsibility to civil disobedience. This could be approached in a variety of ways, including demonstrations outside corporate head offices, certainly I'd not recommend sending letter bombs or Anthrax through the mail unless you were careful to take precautions and not be caught. Really, folks, it's time...
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- Category: Rants