Canadians who have a home equity line of credit (HELOC): 36%
Proportion who are “quite confident of their level of knowledge” about HELOCs: 79%
Proportion of questions that tested their basic knowledge of how HELOCs work that they answered correctly: 43%
Proportion of HELOCs used for renos and ‘major purchases’: 37%
For car or vacation: 29%
For a down payment on an investment property: 9%
– from a Leger Marketing Poll [n = 1,501 adult Canadians; conducted online; late Oct 2011], commissioned by TitlePLUS program, reported at Canada Newswire 15 Nov 2011 and G&M 15 Nov 2011
Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive 
Did you know that Peter Schiff is actually renting? Guess why?
The presentation he gave (link below) is dead on. The way he explains why he is renting is actually hilarious (his landlord told him he doesn’t understand how real estate works!).
The whole interview is worth to see, but if you want to only see the part where he talks about him renting, it starts at around 10:00 on the video:
fleckenstein too. the 2011 hazlitt lecture by stockman – one of single best thing i’ve seen/read in the last few yrs. pay careful attention to anything stockman has to say.
Hey I heard Rich Dad rents too! 😉
Because assets are liabilities and liabilities are assets. He was on KCTS right after Nova.
Altucher is renting too.
No, Shiff bought at the end of last year I believe
See minute eight of the video below
THIS IS THE BEST POST EVER. Ok not really but it’s a microcosm of a whole smackload of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Everything’s easy when land prices are rising to bail out bad decisions. Even if prices stagnate in real terms (3% annual appreciation say) that’s not enough to keep people from facing the reality that, on balance, they aren’t as good as they thought at fiscal management. Now that the bubble’s gone on for so long, I’m afraid there may be more than a few “downside” surprises in store.
China is bankrupt http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/chinese-tv-host-says-regime-nearly-bankrupt-141214.html
I posted this one already in the previous post.
Saw that too, wouldn’t surprise me with how corrupt that government is. But there is a huge difference between the chinese government is bk versus china is bankrupt.
On the upside, China is the world’s biggest savings nation. Its savings rate is something that NA can’t even fathom. So the Chinese people are not bankrupt at all. However, the government is another story, considering how much tax revenues get lost with the amount of bribes that gets passed around. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.
The savings rate in China is a problem. China needs to increase consumption.
I’m not bearish enough to be predicting a hard landing, but there are some economic issues, including over-capitalization.
“The savings rate in China is a problem. China needs to increase consumption.”
Savings do not just sit somewhere in a bank vault. They are invested/lent out to someone else. So saying that savings rate is a problem is incorrect.
The reality is that China had an unsustainable crack-up boom, and now it is coming to a halt.
Here is the audio (mandarin only, sorry): http://m.youtube.com/?appcache_off=1321351121&reason=1&errmsg=E-SER%3AQUOTA_EXCEEDED_ERR%3A%20DOM%20Exception%2022#/watch?v=comHcv7qSBg
re: Roubini on china, savings and over-capitalization
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/01/18/the-confucian-consumer.html
@yank, I think the bigger problem with China is still its inefficient government due to corruption. When you talk about government coffers going empty, it’s mainly due to the lack of enforcement in the taxation system due to bribery.
Another reason why every rich chinese businessman wants out of china is because they all have cheated on their taxes and are all hidden by corrupt officials. If China had an agency like the IRS that could not be bribed, you will see how fast their coffers get filled.
agreed regarding corruption. The culture of corruption deeply problematic for the future economy. Off topic – A worrying thing I recently heard about – a few incidents of foreign undergrads attempting to gift or bribe their Canadian professors.
But I think the biggest problem is the artificial deflation of the currency. Causing inflation, so they’re clamping down on credit, and may be clamping too hard causing a crash.
I’m not a bear on China, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see problems in the next few years. I think India, Brazil & Indonesia have better prospects.
How this affects Vancouver is anybody’s guess.
China has a bright future, it just has to deal with a bit of concentrated wealth issues, and that will be a painful process.
There are significant gains that China can (and will need to) make without massive resource consumption. A medium-term oversupply of global resources should not be discounted.
@yank. LOL at the foreign undergrads part. It is not a rumour, I have heard it too from family friends. Marks are now so important to them that they will do that. I thought ten years ago that it was only a matter of time until the chinese will try to bribe their way in the west. It’s the culture of doing business in China. When I do anything in China, I make sure to bring my bribe money.
“The Vancouver Power 50 2011”
Bob Rennie ahead of Jim Chu… and Aquilini ahead of Christy Clark… lol!
The link!
http://www.vanmag.com/News_and_Features/The_Vancouver_Power_50_2011
mortgage loans including CMHC are fine – but then comes the HELOC. This is the real affordability issue with home ownership. Financial institutions can do all the due diligence they want before the purchase happens, but when the home owner blows it out of the water with the HELOC post-purchase it’s all for naught.
The true evil is not the purchase debt, it’s the post-purchase