northeast canuck at greaterfool.ca 22 May 2010 10:08 am -
“I am Canadian and my wife is British. I lived in Britain from 1997 – 2009 (the whole of my adult life and professional career). Never intended to stay so long, and we tried to come back to Canada for many years but there was always something in the way – usually the job situation. But, last summer we did it anyway. Despite the fact that we love it here, I think career-wise and economically it has been a disaster. I hate to admit that but it is true. We know quite a few expats who moved here around the same time – all professional with loads of experience and had highly paid, sometimes prestigious jobs in the UK, and all with lots of pounds in UK banks. No one is currently working in their chosen profession, all are either seriously underemployed and unemployed. Myself – I have been able to find work – in Japan. We have all found that Canadian companies are seriously reluctant to hire anyone with experience that is not Canadian. They won’t admit it, of course, and many probably don’t even realise they are doing it, but if you don’t fit the standard cookie-cutter job applicant mold here, you are going to struggle. We are all watching our life savings vanish before our eyes as the pound gets more and more feeble by the day.
Vancouver is a beautiful place, and wonderful to live in if you have lots of cash. Just make sure you have that cash in dollars, and a job arranged before you come.
Immigrants want to come here. But we’re not going to stay. Unlike many locals we are able to leave whenever we want and we will not accept a life of stacking shelves or driving a taxi. Oh, and no one I know is buying a house or even thinking about it – that’s for the crazy locals. I just hope that house prices crash faster than the pound.”
With a 10 billion dollar a year illegal drug trade, an illegal drug trade that is the driving force behind Vancouver’s real estate magic market for over 30 years. Starting with the arrival of the Hells Angels in Vancouver, an arrival that took place to exploit the Asian invasion real estate boom, which was more myth than fact, however that was soon to change. Drug Cartels saw a wonderful opportunity in British Colombia, a land rich in talented financial confidence men who had learned their trade pushing deals on the Vancouver Stock Exchange, where penny stocks plays in mining companies would be used much the same way that real estate is used today, laundering vast amounts of dirty money into magical paper where tax could be avoided but assets could be gained. Opportunity that was created by a fraudulent immigration system designed by a Law Society that is more concerned at turning crime into a for profit business than protecting the interest of the innocent.
Using immigration as a perfect cover story, and creating deals that would recruit unsuspecting business
investors, British Colombia created a new kind of drug mule, one that did not carry drugs but instead laundered the suitcases of cash that these international drug cartels had made from their murders trade in illegal drugs. A profitable trade that enriches criminals and rewards War Lords, a trade supported by your North American dumb ass kids. It was the perfect economic hit man strategy, for the cover story was true, immigration was taking place and people where buying homes, and a few did have strong economic holdings. But the vast majority of the real estate growth was due to international drug cartels money laundering activities in Vancouver real estate. A story where the proceeds of crime in British Colombia where simply made to look like they came from Asia. A pay day and a Canadian passport was what the the mythical Billionaire from the third world got, and loyalty, silence and a clean revenue stream is what organized crime operating out of Vancouver’s financial district purchased.
Mysteriously, families and individuals from poverty conditions in third world nations where showing up in Canada with millions of dollars in capital assets. It was apparent from the number of application that there where far more millionaires in places like Vietnam, Somalia, India, Hong Kong, Brazil, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and a whole host of other very beautiful countries, than their was in the entirety of Canada. But for soft headed Canadians this did not seem strange. And for those that did see the anomaly, the cartels propaganda machine went into action branding such doubting Tomas naysayers as racist or Neo-Nazi.
The international drug cartels with the assistance of Canadian law firms went recruiting, for unsuspecting dreamers, with skills they needed that where required to look after the cartels interest. These organized crime syndicates where wise and knew that to suborn honest people to do their dirty work they would have to be creative. As threats to life meant nothing to people that had grown up in the tough third world nations, have nothing, except for their dignity, they would die before giving that up. No what British Colombia’s illegal drug syndicates needed as leverage to coerce these moral law abiding, talented, managers was not a threat on their life, but a threat on their hope. And with immigration to a new land they had the perfect leverage. Like a fish out of water, once the newbie arrived, in a unfamiliar land, strange language and customs, Organized crime had them right where they wanted them, If you did not do as they wanted, you would lose everything, your home, your business, your children future.
Not content to stop there, International organized crime invested heavily into political parties and politicians, looking to turn public assets into their private property. With drug dealers and money launders central to on going scandals, such as the sale of BC rail, a public asset which has been mired in government cover ups. It is little wonder that honest business is closing up and leaving, all the while leaving little doubt as to the power of International organized crime, and the scale to which International organized crime dominates ever aspect of both the political life as well as the business community.
Organized crime operates with impunity in British Colombia, with both the support of the political parties and the judiciary. Unlike Mexico where President Calderon has warned that if they do not get organized crime under control the next president of Mexico will be a drug dealer. British Colombia has already past this point of no return, with Drug Cartels running real estate agencies, law firms, security services, construction companies, busing and trucking companies and of course taxi services. It is little surprise that politicians have become associates in the service of international drug cartels, looking after shutting down investigations, staying of charges, the issuing of special permits for immigration. 10 billion dollars a year, in the marijuana trade alone, makes British Colombia the third largest illegal drug market in the America’s. An illegal drug trade that just calculating the lowest earning business enterprise, the trade in marijuana, accounts for over 6% of British Colombia’s GDP.
The truth about Vancouver Real Estate, the illegal drug trade and British Colombia high finance reads like a bad crime novel, the unfortunate fact for the home owners in this third world state is it is not fiction.
It would be even funny if only this tragedy, that the political support for organized crime has brought, was not heaped upon such a depressing place like Vancouver. But what could be sadder than to live in another Narco state, a third world slum, with a nice view, but with out the nice weather, the nice beaches, the cheap beer and Salsa dancing until the wee hours of a warm tropical night. It might be the reason that so many people turn to drugs in this socially dysfunctional wet cold damp place to begin with, to take the machine like monotony out of dancing to the tune of this Neo-Maoist parade.
With the financial district of Vancouver being inundated by international organized crime, and known as the Swiss Bank for criminals, it is little wonder the homelessness rate has increased by over 385% since 2001. But now the question has to be asked. “Why does Organized crime go un-prosecuted here, why do the courts go out of their way to protect the interest of organized crime, either by making the proceeds of crime untouchable or making income tax fraud investigations impossible. Why are the police constantly hampered in their investigations by the crown council, that seems more interested in suppressing bad press for the real estate market than in putting criminals in jail, cutting back on funding for investigation or intimidating officers into not doing their jobs. But it does not stop there, as the attorney generals office has also been active in pressing the crown council to throw cases and shutdown investigations. The most notable was the Air India terrorist case where members of the government that had vested interested in protecting their political supporters went out of their way to harass police and hinder a criminal investigation.
This economic disaster is being amplified many times over, by the culture of crime that has blossomed, and become omnipresent in every day life in British Colombia from the highest offices, to the media rags. It is clear by the policies taken by the political parities in British Colombia that organized crime syndicates and their financial backers are their preferred business partners. That the political leadership will bend over backwards to ensure that they get their slice of dirty money, regardless of the destruction such blatant unethical and immoral behaviour is having on legitimate business in the province. Continuing to push money laundering of dirty money through Vancouver real estate will only continue to make British Colombia economically uncompetitive and a haven for third world business practices that has already put the Canadian province on an international watch list for investment crimes. With huge budget short falls and declining revenues, and an ever continuing rapid rate of decline, politicians and political parties continue to roll out the welcome mat to international drug dealers and the economic havoc that they bring. With Vancouver being the industrial laundromat for proceeds of crime, the world over, there is little hope for this new third world city, as the nose dive into manufactured slums and slave labor continues at a rapid and ever increasing rate.
http://therunagatesclub.blogspot.com/2008/09/bc-gangs-infiltrating-real-estate.html
http://www.macleans.ca/canada/national/article.jsp?content=20080507_26032_26032
With that said, the issue that needs to be addressed is not just how we finance home ownership in Canada but also on what we build an how we build it. The current policies of municipality are screwed to either A. Increase the property tax income for the city or B. Protect the forest industry via building code that pushed the wrong kind of development, IE 4 story walk ups.
The shortages are in fact manufactured scarcity that maximizes the benefits to a few, at the expense of the the many. The unintended consequence of these short sighted manciple polices has been, double and triple digit inflation in the cost of housing, in the lower mainland, and a corresponding inflation of the cost of doing business in the GVRD.
This has made British Colombia international uncompetitive, a net loser of current and future opportunities, as its land costs, drive up the cost of doing business to the extent that profit margins are far to low to justify doing business here. This has meant that Tertiary industries such as packaging, printing, re-packaging, distribution, logistics, that would normally grow in a international port city, situated between three of the most prolific world traders has simply stagnated and died on the vine.
Why?…. costs. The value that you get for the dollars that you spend in British Colombia is very very poor. As Shipping companies will tell you, in British Colombia no matter where you go you pay a 10 star price but get 1 star quality. Does not matter if you are talking hotels, restaurants, apartment rentals… you name it everything 60% over what you would pay right next door, whether that be, Alberta, Washington, Idaho, Montanan, Portland. All same region all very beautiful all doing much better economically. Why, value for dollars.
The bottom line is Jack Pool, rest in peace, and his crew of hustlers where wrong. You do not build a city focusing on the rich. You build a city focusing on the middle class. And right now the middle class has been left out of every planning proposal since the late 1970′s. The end results, a city that has not had a signification increase in residential rental units in over 4 decades. The rapid growth of illegal suites that have simply lowered the standards of living at the same time as increasing the cost of it. More for less is not keeping the best and the brightest nor is it attracting any industries of the future. With the average employee spending 70 – 80% of their income on housing the red flag is up, there is a signification economic crises about to happen in British Colombia.
The fact is while we have been determined to not build the right housing for the city under the pretext of support for the forest industry and revenue increase to the city coffers, the most important opportunity in British Colombia has been missed. Building with steel, stone, cement, concrete, aluminium would not have just saved the forest industry but would have turned our natural wealth into competitive finished product. Finished products the world needs, a solution very achievable , that would have eliminated the housing crises, transport crises and many many others social ills.
But alas, it is the idea that British Colombia is a adult entertainment centre, where gated communities and multi layered security hardened downtown condos that sell for hundreds of millions of dollars is there norm. Where the old man plans of simply finding another corn field to build on dominate. And the middle class, either pack up and leave, slide into poverty or get involved in the largest industry that British Colombia has, illegal drugs and money laundering.
The end results of following public policy that enriches the few and impoverish the many has created emergency rooms that are so dangerous that 24 hour security is needed, public transport has had to have a full blown armed police force implemented, schools have become safety nightmares and public places war zones where machine toting gangsters fight battles.
It’s a theory…