Things are expensive not because of carbon taxes. Maybe a little... but not enough to move from $10 a meal at food court to now 18-22.

As a matter of fact, it didn't get more expensive in real term. It's just your income didn't keep up with the pace.

Our gov't needs to cut its spending, otherwise prices are going to continue to increase. It's our Maple Peso that's not having the same value as before, not because things are actually getting expensive in real term.

Think Argentina, the Argentinean gov't just kept spending and spending. Looking at prices in ARS went from $10 a meal to $10,000 a meal in a matter of 15yrs. Looking at prices in USD, it stayed roughly the same. In fact, if you were in Arg before Millei took office, things were shockingly cheap thanks to Dolar Blue. A meal at a decent restaurant with enough food to make you full for 2days would be like U$20. My buddy got 4 tomahawk steak, chicken, lamb and the whole 9yard of Argentinean Asado from a boutique butcher was only like U$90 for a group of 7

Ozempic is $1000 in the US but is less than $250 in Canada and can be less than $100 if you know where to look.

sure, if you have CDN/USD....but the people down there aren't making north american comparative money

I wasn't referring to the income/cost of goods ratio, but rather looking at how the increase of goods in nominal terms is heavily correlated to inflation/governmental spending. And when looking from an alternative, or more stable unit of valuation, the real value is nearly constant.

Gold is usually a good measurement of real price in long term.

Gold price in 2007 was between 700-800USD. USD:CAD was roughly at par. A meal (say a benton or a noodle soup) at food court in Richmond was about $5-7. Thus, for simplicity sake, let's say an oz of gold would get you 150 meals.

Today gold is at 3000USD, or ~4300CAD an oz. A meal in Richmond food court is now 15-20, meaning an oz of gold would get you 200 meals. Of course, you can say gold is slightly inflated as of now, but looking in term of gold, which its valuation is stable (adjusting merely to inflation) in long term, our meals didn't get any more expensive than it used to be.

Comparing Canada of 20 years ago to the Canada of today, the differences are like living on an alien planet. The non-stop march of time, yet I can hardly point a finger at anything that is really "better", the end of the good times was officially when Red Robin stopped serving their "macho nachos" fully loaded for like $9. The salsa, sour cream, and guac in those nacho-bowls... massive piles of cheese, chips, chicken and more toppings... for $9. A similar plate of nachos is now $40 and the toppings are half-assed at most pubs or restaurants.

Even the shitty nachos at Foundation on Main were at least a decent price 10 years ago, the body odour of the waiters came free.

We have to go back.

Here's an honest question I've never really understood the basis behind.

Why do all countries... and cities for that matter... feel like they absolutely must continue to increase their populations?

The above isn't possible due to inflation, so you can't just cherry pick the time WE grew up in as the best... I mean that plate of nachos was probably 10 cents in 1920 but who the fuck wants to go back to those times? The only way anyone wants to do that is because you know what's become now, so you could get ahead by inventing something you already know about if you went back in time or invest in something you knew was going to blow up lol... but actually being there at that time probably sucked quite a bit.

I am genuinely interested in what drives constant expansion though. I agree personally that the 90's and early 00's were the best for ME.. and well a lot of people here... cuz we were in our 20's and that was a great time of our life. Every generation is going to think their time of x age was the best.

Lots of places are kinda like that though. Like New Zealand from anyone I know who has moved there they always says it's like Vancouver 20 years ago.

Even Calgary to be honest, since I've moved there, it reminds me of Vancouver 20 years ago... the feel of downtown, people still having fun on mediocre wages... parking free after 6pm on all downtown streets and free all of Sunday. You can reasonably have a family/home here even on a service industry job. That used to be true in Vancouver before it became a "world destination city" but I am sure as time rolls forward that will all disappear. Perhaps the perpetual march of time as Jason is saying above, but I often wonder why so many people think that is somehow better?

Calgary is very quickly becoming expensive too (in terms of housing). A little over a year ago 750k would have been considered expensive for a single detached home. The number of people moving there from Vancouver/Toronto etc has been massive enough that they cover it on the local news.

I agree though, Calgary definitely feels like a more old school version of what we used to have here. A little simpler, a little outdated at times and people I find are generally a little more kind to each other. Things like saying hello to strangers on the street still happen there from my personal experience. Here? Pretty much never lol.

Yah you can still find tonnes of houses in the 650 range even in really nice neighbourhoods if you're patient. If you're willing to live in he NE or SE it's even cheaper. And in some ways those are both more convenient... just the landscape sucks more on that side of the city. Ie: flat and brown and a lot of industrial.

I'm ways up in the NW and people think it's to far from the city but coming from Vancouver that's a laughable take, I can drive to downtown even in rush hour in 23 minutes.

Even if you're on the lower end of the spectrum economically, there are a lot of brand new townhouses in like Sage Valley and stuff for $300-400k. That's perfectly fine for a family even if the parents work at like fuckin Walmart as a greeter or something. Condos are even cheaper.

It's extremely livable, even after the price surge. I think you will see it eventually get to like 75% of today's Vancouver prices one day though (who knows if Vancouver has doubled again by then). They can, however, expand outward almost infinitely here, which isn't true in the lower mainland at all.

Or we all become the much cherished 51s state by force lol

Countries and cities do it for different reasons - countries proactively do it because of economies of scale, it increases supply/demand for goods/services, it provides a bigger tax base to fund programs like OAS/Pensions, and (probably most important) it gives them more power on the world stage.

Countries need a workforce that's young and bigger than the infrastructure that they support (this is both paying for old people and for physical infrastructure).

Cities, OTOH, are more ambivalent about growth - they generally are just reacting to the circumstances. People are migrating from small towns to big cities b/c there are better opportunities and better resources there (those Costcos don't show up in Cache Creek). Even basic stuff like the dating pool matters when it comes to big vs small cities.

Cities have done lots to avoid growing - witness the housing crisis, they deliberately prevented housing from being built to keep people out and it's required Federal and Provincial leadership to try to push that change.

That's the thing I don't get though, its only in the interest of people looking to increase profits or taxes or power to keep pushing things forward population wise.

The average person should not be in favour of this.

One of the worst things to happen to capitalism is the stock market, as soon a a company goes public it can't stop increasing profits for fear of its own shareholders so they'll do literally anything to increase their bottom line no matter what ever year, which eventually involves circumventing society in some way.

Population growth fuels the economy. More workers, consumers, and taxpayers sustain the system. Oligarchs and cronies own the banks, phone companies, food providers, big pharma, big tech, big media, government... and, by extension, the education system.

For one example, higher education, think UBC's immense wealth and fees, which could be replaced with far cheaper AI teachers to create a highly educated population, this shit is intentionally designed to limit who can learn what and be certified as "educated". Essential services like quality healthcare are deliberately kept scarce.

The elite manage this cycle, extracting wealth while maintaining control. Just look at the gains of the billionaire class during COVID. That was not a coincidence. Capitalism isn't about fairness; it's about survival and dominance.

Growing up, I naively believed that society and capitalism were inherently benevolent… boy, was I wrong!

“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”
— Vladimir Lenin

https://media0.giphy.com/media/4GRj3...gt&rid=200.gif

I think the average person typically benefits (a lot) from population growth - the standard of living typically goes up and those young workers are paying into a retirement fund that the average person will depend on.

It hasn't been that way the last few years in Canada though (productivity per capita is down and housing is as bad as ever) which is a consequence of decisions made over the last 30 years around capital investments and housing policy but generally it's a good thing to grow the population.

The alternative is what's happening in Japan - stagnation for 30+ years due to no population growth. China is now facing up to the same demographic crisis - their 1 child policy is going to cause an economic collapse worse than Japan's as they run out of workers and have far too many seniors to take care of (maybe they will just start putting them in wood chippers).

Canada would be in a recession without the immigration. That is what its masking. Fuck JT and good riddance

Have you considered that it was better 20 years ago because back then you were living your best life at the time, with no responsibilities, no child, and seemingly took no personal accountability over anything?

Screw the concept of delayed gratification, instead you took every gratification 20 years ago; to profit, get high, and screw; maxing out on life with little thought on future consequences.

I find timing surprising that it all changed when you suddenly did have responsibilities and a personal accountability for a child, and that's when everything flipped for you.

No society is perfect, every era has its bullshit. In my perspective Canada is just doing what developed societies do, grow. And rather than trying to keep up, you've tried to cling on to the past and blaming society for doing what society does; change.

At the very least based on your posts, you are self aware and transparent with the shit that you've gone through and your current struggles.

That's a oversimplification of what happened - it was a combination of what he inherited, his lack of action, and the conditions he had to manage through. Recessions don't happen in a vacuum (unless you're Trump and decide to wage a WILDLY stupid trade war against all your partners).

In the 90s we finally had to come to grips with our overspending (mostly caused by the first Trudeau) which resulted in deep cuts of foundational programs (like social housing) - that underinvestment continued through the Harper govt (see below) and continued through the JT govt. Harper rode a strong economy and then made oil a priority but then prices collapsed (and the investment did as well).

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/.../c-g02-eng.png

We're paying for the sins of the past - my hope is that someone like Carney, who knows a thing or two about economics (that's what I keep hearing) can help set the ship straight but the payoff isn't going to happen this decade.

GDP per capita data:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...D?locations=CA
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/.../00001-eng.htm

I do agree that the whole immigration and tfw scheme did "mask" the recession (or you could call it economic intervention to avoid a recessed).but if course in hindsight it came with significant inflation

That said it's all hypothetical at this stage, we were heading into a recession already, PLUS the stagnating economy of COVID, Canada could have been in a way worse position had they not brought in the mass immigration to prop up the economy coming out of COVID.

Although the impending recession was not JT's fault, the decision for immigration was, and I think that was a mistake. People were hoarding cash and saving money through COVID (anecdotally if you look at how people were gambling on memestocks and crypto at the time, as well as huge in luxury watch pricing). They were ready to blow it all on vacations and other things they were deprived of during COVID. I think that could've been enough to restart the economy.

However the excess cash, in combination with a huge influx of immigrants, caused the huge inflation (in my uneducated opinion)

Great question. I've been asked this before. I'll try and keep this short since I got to get back to coding the software that will get the money flowing again.

Even when I had a 9-5 job prior to the adult industry, the culture, wages, living conditions, everything was pure KINO coming out of the grunge music era and the idea that we didn't have to become the miserable assholes our fathers were.

But, to understand where we're at today, we have to look back at the influences growing up and what sprouted from them. Hipsterism, my favourite period that helped me learn how to be comfortable as myself and make art, in the glory ages of the late 2000s and early 2010s, was a direct reaction to the corporatization and homogenization of culture on the horizon. Especially post-Occupy Wall Street.

Hipsterism was the death rattle of true indie resistance before everything was fully swallowed by algorithms, social media, and relentless capitalism.

In the 90s, grunge and punk were the prime forms of rebellion, rage against the machine literally, rejecting materialism, rejecting polished pop culture. It, like all organic movements, became co-opted and quickly died out for a period of time before Hipsterism took that same anti-mainstream sentiment but, instead of pure rebellion, it embraced irony, nostalgia, and obscure cultural expressions as a way to separate from the masses and seek authenticity, especially if it meant being seen as weird.

But why, like all organic movements did it die?

The mainstream absorbed hipster aesthetics in a hurry. What started as a subculture of thrift-store finds and DIY music became the default marketing scheme for big brands. We saw it everywhere, and mock subcultures became the norm, like those "speakeasy" bars that make you feel like you're onto something exclusive, but they're all paying their taxes and as corporate as McDonald's.

Post-Occupy, the 2010s saw the massive, utterly colossal rise of social media dominance, influencer culture, and the algorithmic takeover of taste. Instead of curating cool from obscurity, blogs, underground scenes, etc etc, people started being fed curated aesthetics directly by Instagram and TikTok. The rebellion of taste-making is now just big tech opening its trenchcoat and whispering, "psst kid, want the latest trend?"

Hipsterism thrived because young people could still afford to be broke artists, bartending part-time and studying and still could afford to live the dream to an extent in Vancouver or Toronto. Go back and re-watch Scott Pilgrim VS The World for a taste of that ridiculous era. Then, as housing markets exploded and gentrification priced out creatives, slackers, and hipsters alike, the indie lartist ifestyle became unsustainable. By the mid-2010s, a lot of former hipsters either had to grow up and get "real jobs", overdosed on fentanyl, or embraced the very corporatism that they fought in the first place. A very, very small percent of people kept finding ways to make non-corporate art.

Self-awareness of the hipster paved the way for more openly political identities, indirectly leading to the rise of wokeism that we saw first budding at Occupy Wall Street when the human mic-checks started prioritizing speakers by race, and then nobody was allowed to speak unless they were an angry black woman. The very real anti-corporate sentiment had the volume turned down, and the racial greviences were cranked up to the max. I remember, I was watching it myself!

You're not entirely wrong about me, and rose-coloured glasses are absolutely a thing, but that doesn’t mean the world didn’t actually get worse.

A generation that could once afford rent for a downtown 1 bedroom apartment in their late teens and early 20s and STILL afford to travel, save money, buy the latest CPUs and GPUs, have a 1997 Cobra, go out 3+ nights a week to dance and party before celphones...now faces skyrocketing prices, even in small towns, I did the math at one point and someone living in Vancouver would have to make like $50+ an hour to have the lifestyle I had when I was like 19-20. At the various jobs I worked, my rent was so low, like 25% of my income or less. Food was so cheap it was practically free in comparison to today.

Wages stagnated.
People are working harder for less purchasing power.
Culture is more controlled than ever.
Social media has killed organic subcultures and replaced them with influencer-led trends.
Freedom has been curtailed. From mass surveillance to increasingly authoritarian policies, governments have more control than ever.
Take your COVID vaccine, or be kicked out University, lose your job, no more gym, no more pubs. If you question it, everyone will dogpile you and call you a nutjob, schizo, nazi, etc etc.
The vibes are just off.
Go to any urban area in Victoria or Vancouver, or the towns and villages across B.C. and you will find fentanyl zombies everywhere.
People are lonelier, angrier, more anxious, and more overworked. Society is not growing in a positive way and centralized power is squeezing people out.
It’s not just nostalgia for a time when I was young. The world was freer.

Okay, now to log out of RevScene so I can get back to building my comeback. :badpokerface:

Coming back from living in Texas, I'm finding myself becoming more and more racist against all the influx of brown immigrants here, and I'm not happy I'm becoming this way.

As much as I hated Texas, it was refreshing to see every racial background working service related jobs, it felt more balanced from that perspective. Coming back to Vancouver it's become so jarring how Indians have become this weird feudal class of cheap workers for all our businesses. You can tell they know they're being taken advantage of too because they're quality of service writ large is just garbage, I think that's what causing me more frustration day to day. I find sometimes they can't even speak basic English, and I wonder "How were you able to immigrate without even speaking the native language?".

I just bought a new flat screen for the front room and I'm selling my prior one on FB, and I'm not kidding 99% of the messages (over 50) are from Indians, haggling with me, asking me to drop whatever item off in Surrey. I feel like an asshole because I dug through all the messages just to find the one Vietnamese guy in the sea of crap to specifically sell to him instead.

When my GF sells stuff on FB, she gets nothing but messages from brown dudes wanting to meet up and "buy" her skirt, she's becoming the same way now :lol

It just feels like these immigration numbers don't add up, at least from daily anecdotal experiences, it's so heavily skewed in one direction, to one diaspora of people.

I'm venting here, and I love my brown friends, but god damn this city is pushing me in a direction, and changing me to the kind of person I don't like.

How are the costs in Alberta? I thought things weren't really that cheap, well cheaper in bc, but things like insurance, heating, electricity cost is higher. Due to their colder weather.

You will feel better once you add some bumper balls, no farmer no food and Punjab stickers to your car

Canada is just taking advantage of them and treating them as disposable labour. A lot of these immigrants come to Canada and are registered to sham colleges learning about "business" or "IT" or some other completely useless thing and whenever they apply for a job here with their degree, its instantly thrown out into the trash. Quite frankly, a lot of these Canadian franchise owned chains take advantage of them and rely on them completely to operate their chains and the lowest wage possible. It is hard for them to ever get ahead. Obviously this is a subset of the immigration population. The first good step Canada made was to reduce the number of international students. The second should be to allow TFWs to work only in very specific industries, not just propping up fast food chains or sham "colleges".

I live in Toronto now and the housing costs have ballooned so much from the pandemic. I am looking at purchasing a home now and feel like I am almost priced out. Its tough being 29 in Canada

One of the funniest ads I ever saw on fb was from a brown guy saying he would specifically sell to anyone other than another brown person. He added at the end "you all embarrass me" :lol

Even though I'm a mark carney fan I think the widespread immigration and TFW during trudeau will sink the liberals even though TFW was a conservative thing. To the small town folks who lost their job at the mill/mine/plant that closed down and seeing their local coffee spot (tim hortons) workers change with people that speak english that's had to understand; it'll be tough to change their minds.

I don’t remember the last time the McDonald’s by my house had great quality. I keep getting stale fries, nuggets and filet o fishes now. Went to a McDonald’s in Japan last year and it felt like I was at an actual restaurant.