sbv @ sbv @sh.itjust.works

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2 yr. ago

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The problem is building an insufficient number of homes, below the rate of population growth, at government expense, costs taxpayers money without solving the problem. Worse, it takes the place of effective solutions.

When we learn more about this proposal, we can understand if it would lower the cost of housing. Until then, skepticism is warranted.

double Canada’s rate of residential construction housing over the next decade to nearly 500,000 new homes per year.

So it sounds like the goal is 500k houses a year at the end of a decade. I assume that means 230k-ish this year, slowly ramping to 500k in 2035. It only needs to be an extra 27k/year to make that goal.

CMHC says we need ~3.5 million houses by 2030 to get housing costs back to reasonable levels. I really want this proposal to be good, but it doesn't seem like it will be enough.

Is it better than nothing? That depends on who controls the final prices, and how much gets built.

The plan announced today by the Liberals would create a new federal housing entity that the party says would oversee affordable housing construction, speed up construction and provide financing to homebuilders.

Carney says the new agency, Build Canada Homes, would act as a developer to build affordable housing at scale, including on public lands, and develop and manage projects.

I really want to see the details on this one.

The second paragraph suggests BCH would do the building, while the first paragraph's "oversee" suggests existing developers would do the work. If BCH will finance construction, control where/what gets built, and control the final cost to buyers, then this has the potential to sell decent housing at below-market prices. That could start diffusing the housing crisis (although other reforms are necessary to improve costs in the near term).

That would be very different from what the Liberals and CPC have been proposing so far, which is to ask developers to pwetty pwease lower sale costs by making it easier and cheaper to build. It's hard to be optimistic given their track record.

We're all here for entertainment. This isn't news or information about the real world, it's a hypothetical that's asking for your advice.

If it's fake, it's a fun thought experiment.

If it's real, it's a fun thought experiment.

You can choose to

1. participate, thereby strengthening our community.
2. ignore it, having no positive or negative effect on our community.
3. shit on it, thereby weakening our community.

HERE STANDS A TRUE PATRIOT

https://github.com/fabien0102/ts-to-zod looks promising. Thanks!

The Line has assembled a panel of partisans, but fun ones! People we know and like. They’re going to help us analyze the campagin, but they’ve also agreed to give some honest feedback to their own parties.

I really wish they wouldn't do this. There are pollsters, political scientists, historians, and journalists that can provide the same colour commentary without being tied to a party.

to get through a federal election without any serious discussion about the fate of our public health-care system either would be lunacy.

This

THE INSURGENCY WILL RUN ON BLACKBERRY OS CIRCA 2006 ✊🍁🪿

looks like you found the bonus track

I'm curious what exactly that'd look like.

Either way, giving the rich more opportunities during an affordability crisis is bullshit.

The extra snark throughout the article is delicious:

CBC News has reported that sources within the party are complaining about a "dysfunctional" campaign with too much centralized power and the belittling and aggressive treatment of staff.

...

On Saturday, Carney met with volunteers at his Nepean riding office. Sunday Carney met with an Ottawa family before flying to Toronto where he met with volunteers. The Liberal leader has not taken questions from the media over the two days.

The Bloc announcement seems interesting:

Adding protections for defined benefit pension plans.

I really should.

There's also laziness. Until recently I didn't care about a will because I didn't have dependents or assets.

My older relatives have taken the appropriate steps: created wills, had discussions with their families about what is to be done after their deaths, paid for funerals, and arranged interment.

As are mortgages, car loans, and insurance.

The funeral home that handled my relative's death runs regular grief counseling sessions. They mailed me reminders about them near holidays. I didn't go, but I appreciate the service.

This may depend on jurisdiction. Joint accounts were not frozen in my case. A death certificate was only required to remove the deceased party from the accounts.

What happens if your partner sets up your home network and TV subscriptions and their email account is locked because you're not the account holder.

In my case I was able to present the death certificate to the providers and the accounts were quickly closed, with the appropriate billing and hardware returns. It was no more inconvenient than a normal return.

I was fortunate. The deceased planned ahead and did all of the things I haven't done: arranging a funeral and burial, keeping their will up to date, writing down their usernames/passwords, and making the appropriate joint bank accounts.

This is repeated across every single aspect of modern life. Your robot vacuum cleaner is linked to a single person, as are your IoT lightbulbs. It's absurd.

My experience was with established services in mature sectors: they have procedures for dealing with deceased customers' accounts. It was relatively convenient, even at a really shitty time.

None of that is easy, convenient or handled.

Why not?

Newer services don't have that institutional experience. They haven't existed long enough. But they're starting to: Facebook has the concept of deceased users. As time goes on, more "new" services will as well.

The Conservatives are not doing this to stand up on principle against China or stand with Chinese Canadians. They are doing this to help them win a seat, and to embarrass Carney to help win them seats elsewhere.

I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise. Our politicians use crap like this to score points. This is one of those occasions where they seem to be right, however.

Can you provide examples?

From what I've seen in Canada, death is handled like a standard event:

• Most businesses, banks, and government services have fast and convenient closing out paths when someone dies. In most cases a single phonecall/visit is enough to close an account and get the appropriate statements.
• Lawyers follow an established path when handling wills. Unless there's contention, it's pretty easy to "finish" the will.
• Funeral homes do an excellent job at handling the deceased's body, providing grief counseling, running the funeral, and ensuring the cemetery accepts the remains. So long as it's preplanned, the family and friends just need to show up.
• Government policy around executing a will is generally easy to understand and work with.
• Banks will act as executors. I'm not sure if they do a good job, but it's relatively inexpensive.
• Health care providers do not try to prolong life for the elderly. From what I've seen, they are quick to prescribe end of life care.
• Palliative care is handled by empathic and helpful professionals. There could be improvements in grief counseling.
• My social group was empathic and caring. Family helped as much as possible, as did friends. I doubt this is true for everyone.

What else are you referring to, OP?

The headline is inflammatory, and confirms our biases. Nobody's gonna read it unless they absolutely have to.

My machine is not a workhorse. I got it second hand. It has around 8gb of RAM, and an 80gb HDD I found in a laptop.

But it's enough to work as a testbed, so it's fine with me.