“Incredibly, one of the candidates on tonight’s nationally televised US republican nominee debate mentioned Vancouver. He wondered aloud why Vancouver’s real estate has such high growth, suggesting the US should implement immigration policies similar to ours!
If that’s not an anecdotal sign of a bubble, I don’t know what is!”
- from ‘S’, via e-mail to VREAA, 7 Sept 2011.
Transcript:
Jon Huntsman: “Let me say one thing.. let’s not lose sight of the fact our legal immigration system is broken. And if we want to do something about attracting brain power to this country, if we want to lift real estate values, for example, why is it Vancouver is the fastest-growing real estate market in the world today? They allow immigrants in legally, and it lifts all boats.”
You would think that a US citizen, circa 2011, would be capable of questioning the merit of having “the fastest-growing real estate market in the world”.
Wow, two ‘jump the shark’ incidents in a couple of days. Jesse is right, we need that special category, now. Will set up. – vreaa
Sure, even Ireland was the economic miracle of the EU. Until it wasn’t. They had a housing bubble too, surprise surprise. Obscenely high housing prices are a symptom that something is amiss, not a reason to cheer. You think they would have figured this out in the US by now.
Republicans don’t figure things out. They have “unswerving principles.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/perry-swings-romney-sings-as-gop-frontrunners-face-off-in-first-debate/article2157553/
1) Vancouver is now world famous not for the Olympics, not for the nature, but for high real estate prices!
2) It still amazes me that fast growing real estate prices are considered a good thing. Did people, especially Americans, learn nothing from the Great Bubble and Crash?
It still amazes me that fast growing real estate prices are considered a good thing
Some might attribute that as a sign of affluence, i.e. the measure by how much wealth we can put into economic sinkholes.
Well that is what happens when debt is increasing everything looks really good interesting graphic from NY times.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/09/04/opinion/04reich-graphic/04reich-graphic-popup.jpg
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/jobs-will-follow-a-strengthening-of-the-middle-class.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print
America has NO problem attracting brain power to the country. Take a stroll around Silicon Valley and look at the ethnic makeup of the people you see there. Or, look at the MIT graduate student population: 38% international.
http://web.mit.edu/iso/stats_10-11/general.shtml
Yeah, rising tide, swimming naked, austerity, liquidity trap, upper class tax cuts, and Vancouver real estate, all peas in a pod now…
Here’s some interesting data.
Canadian immigrants are 17.4% from the Skilled Worker category. If you include their dependents it’s 42.5%. Actually this doesn’t paint the whole picture because a decent fraction of the provincial nominees are skilled workers.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2010-preliminary/01.asp
US immigrants are only 14.2% employment based. It’s not clear how to include their dependents. If you include the “Spouses and children of alien resident” category that brings it up to only 23%.
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/lpr_fr_2010.pdf
So Huntsman does have a bit of a point: the fraction of the Canadian immigrant population comprised of skilled workers is larger than that fraction in the US.
One more thing. (I posted this a few days ago.)
Buffett also points out that letting in a bunch of rich immigrants would solve a lot of the US’s economic problems. (Because they would consume the glut of houses, then new house construction would pick up, which would lower unemployment.) But he is not saying this as a serious suggestion; he is joking.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11845
18:20:
“You could have a bunch of rich immigrants come in, and they’d all need houses, for example. If you wanted to change your immigration policy so that you let 500,000 families in, but they had to have a significant net worth and everything, it’d solve things very quickly.”
Clearly Warren has been studying the “Vancouver Approach” to economic prosperity!
Huntsman is the outlier in the field. It’s looking like Perry. Maybe Romney, but most likely Perry.
Republicans are rad.
can’t deny that rising valuations can increase standard of living … at least for a while
and I remember reading (here?) about some hurt by the bubble actually demanding that prices go back up, which might help them out of a tricky situation … at least for a while
“and I remember reading (here?) about some hurt by the bubble actually demanding that prices go back up, which might help them out of a tricky situation … at least for a while”
Homeowners who want to sell (or refinance) would love to see a house prices increase in the States. Likewise for baby boomers who want to retire.
With apologies, Yank… but Margaret Bourke-White had something to ‘say’ about this in 1937…
http://tinyurl.com/3cgghjo
In ‘other news’, Nem (who’s been in ‘stealth mode/flying under the radar’ for the last few days conducting ‘field work’ throughout the Kootenays/Selkirks/Rockies) saw the BritishColumbia ‘Shattered RE Dreams’ equivalent of that iconic image in Fairmont Hot Springs… Totally beyond eerie/creeeeepy…
An enormous tattered foreground hoarding, boasting the fluttering copy, “Invest In Luxury!” [I kid you not]… set against a backdrop of rows ‘o half completed, abandoned, rapidly decaying particle board monstrosities that made “TheVernonAtlantis” look almost palatable by comparison.
All that was missing was a Realtors™ breadline. Apologies All, the light was gone [and we do 'have our standards'] – so an illustrated account ‘o that scene will have to wait for Nem to ‘do a GenMacArthur’.
Yeah, people “demanding” to the apparent ‘powers that be’ that “something be done” about falling prices in a crashing market is commonplace, and we fully expect to see that happening when Vancouver RE pops.
I thought y’all said no one has even heard of Vancouver? =)
Coming soon to Vancouver?
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/k3zrz/by_request_from_the_jobs_thread_why_my_job_is_to/
Anecdotal sign of a bubble? I think this is anecdotal sign that the US is starting to see the benefits of immigration and might be opening it’s doors to more soon..
No – the US is getting more protectionist.
The base is quite nativist. Unfortunately, that sort of things gets worse during economic downturns.
“anecdotal sign that the US is starting to see the benefits of immigration”
If you believe everything coming out of a GOP presidential candidate’s mouth it seems the US is starting to “see the benefits” of all sorts of fascinating ideas. That means… yup.
I agree with Yank. Rollie has much to learn about US culture.
Rollie,
Huntsman isn’t going to go anywhere because the Republican base will reject him. Everyone knows it. He’s perhaps looking to be Vice President, but more likely trying to keep his name in the ring for a position in a future administration — maybe Secretary of State. He’s positioning himself as “the adult in the room” as everybody else is going to be fairly anti-immigration. Perry might even have a bit of trouble because he hasn’t been totally anti-immigration in Texas.