Peregrine

I kind of knew that the "but xyz is worse!" response was soon to follow. Let's not let facts get in the way of arguments, though: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/obama-police-baton-rouge-225679 And hey, it looks like he can criticize the much derided BLM movement as well: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/president-obama-calls-out-black-lives-matter-activists-yelling-n561046 Anyway, this thread is showing harbingers of past political threads so I'll refrain from going further..

INB4 Cardboard....oh wait. Not at all surprising that the Trump administration has been silent on this: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/02/trump_s_silence_about_two_indians_shot_in_kansas_speaks_volumes.html

It's the lot that ultimately matters, not the dwelling itself. For example, there are plenty of shoddy looking homes in my area that have recently been sold for likely $million+ prices, but they are being taken down to build condos. Those shoddy-looking homes happen to sit right next to a main subway stop. Taking out a couple of shabby homes for a few million dollars each to build a 200 unit condo selling at average prices of $400-500K/unit is a slam dunk for developers - if they can get the requisite permitting. Sometimes that's the case, but prices for houses and condos across the whole region are crazy and it's not condo developers and chinese princelings buying everything. Many of the houses you see are in residential neighborhoods full of other tiny houses on tiny lots, nothing much above 1-2 stories on the horizon. I doubt the whole neighborhood is getting razed and massive towers are being built there in every case. I would also say that the supply of single family detached homes in the city area is practically non-existent. So to satisfy the demand of an ever-growing city, condos and townhouses need to be built. Some parts of Toronto are trending more like Manhattan where those who own detached homes are the ultra-rich. New home-buyers in the Toronto region need to get used to the idea of living in a condo.

Lol.

It's the lot that ultimately matters, not the dwelling itself. For example, there are plenty of shoddy looking homes in my area that have recently been sold for likely $million+ prices, but they are being taken down to build condos. Those shoddy-looking homes happen to sit right next to a main subway stop. Taking out a couple of shabby homes for a few million dollars each to build a 200 unit condo selling at average prices of $400-500K/unit is a slam dunk for developers - if they can get the requisite permitting.

A thread is like a room. A thread like this just so happens to attract a whole bunch of people into a room to incessantly yell at each other. This isn't productive discussion, in my opinion, and it also leaves other rooms vacant. This room is more like a gigantic clusterfuck of an argument that naturally leads to posters becoming more defensive and holding even stronger to their beliefs than when they first began. There is no middle ground left. I know many here who have a libertarian bent and believe in freedom everything. But some things just aren't productive.

The vindictiveness that a thread like this foments is alarming. Some posters here appear to post not for the sake of debate but just to get back at another poster or "the other side". Does any of this make you feel good? Does any of this change anyone's position one iota? Reminds me more of the type of shitstorms in reddit and Facebook. I suggest that Parsad lock this thread.

Agreed. Thank you for this balanced view.

Assume you are correct on all points...even though hundreds of thousands of protesters disagree with you, including a number of Republican party members, supporters and well-known Conservatives. You are telling me that this President's conduct so far, his compulsive tweeting, choice of words when characterising those that disagree with him, and the ridiculously inane and incompetent way he has executed this travel ban, doesn't worry you in the slightest? Top brass at the borders, Department of Homeland Security, foreign embassies, travel bureaus, you name it...had no idea what this ban meant and how to enforce it. Citizens, green card holders, children, etc were held at borders or denied entry. This was a major f**k up. Sears executes their retail business with more competency! Cheers! George Bush, Obama and Hillary's State Department bomb and kill thousands of Muslims with unprecedented drone strikes, destroy entire countries, slaughter people in Iraq, create starvation in Yemen, and create this entire refugee crisis to begin with, and yet I don't recall any mass protests about that . . . But now your main worry is about how a travel ban was implemented. Do you not see that perhaps your moral compass is a little askew? Ah...the classic moving goal posts defense. Criticism of two completely different decisions by different people need not be mutually exclusive.

You mean the cartoonist who correctly predicted a landslide win by Trump, one year before it happened? Landslide!? Lol... "Guy who predicted Trump" is like "Guy who predicted financial crisis". Just because they got one right doesn't make them fortune tellers and sure doesn't make their other views valid. But they do love harping on that one time they got it right. It's interesting how the narrative changes when you repeat something enough. Trump called his election win a landslide. The data shows anything but. He won key battleground states by 0-2% margins. And on top of it all, he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, or 2% of the total voting public.

Those are just facts. Please limit the discussion to bone headed opinions only. The level of paranoia in a country like the US is truly astounding. I'm surprised that it exists to such a degree even on a board like this.

It's probably best to ignore posts like that.

He writes remarkably and cogently. I hope people like him have a greater voice in policy debate.

I think that many agree that there needs to be stronger immigration enforcement. There aren't as many who believe a wall is an effective tool. The times are also different. Clinton presided over years where there was mass net migration from Mexico. Today, there is net negative migration from Mexico. http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2015/11/PH_2015-11-19_mexican-immigration-04.png

So let me get this straight: if that is indeed true and you do understand its significance and the magnitude of consequences that would follow from that, you would still suggest that the US carry out an action that would dramatically escalate into a war between two nuclear powers?

I call things like I see it, Cardboard. What you were advocating for would lead to very tenuous ground. For China, deliberate action to break up One China and other actions to divide the country is tantamount to war.

It's quite easy to proclaim that you have something while having nothing to support it. I don't want to get into a back and forth in a thread with a completely different topic, but I'll just add this: nothing is as black or white, good or evil, right or wrong as it seems. Complexity and nuance exists and we should all strive to seek the other point of view just as vigorously as we sought our own.

Of course they want to retain their power and they also believe that they also believe that they are the only party who can govern China. Whether that is right or wrong, who knows? But keep in mind this: before the Communist Party came into existence, China was largely a feudal society that went no where for over a century. The country has NEVER EVER had a democracy in its history...you think that such radical change can happen cold turkey? This will take time to develop. The rest of your post just reveals a deep ignorance on geopolitics.

Let me start by saying that I am Chinese Canadian and have long believed many of the preconceptions that the West has about China, including some of the things you said here. But my views have changed as I've gotten older and have come to understand China and its government better. 1) With respect to freedom of speech: Yes, it is far restricted compared to what happens in the West. But it's far less than what many think. The Chinese people frequently criticize the Communist Party, so much so that my parents here are annoyed by their relatives' complaining in China. Don't mistake the Chinese people for being ignorant about their government's faults - they know plenty (internet is a huge source of information). But for now, they are willing to put up with a lot of things because they're getting wealthier. That's the key for both the Chinese people and the Communist Party - economic growth. 2) Property rights and the government's ability to appropriate: This is a patently false. Granting property rights to citizens was one of the key policies that jump-started China's growth after Deng Xiaoping came into power. Property is also the most valuable asset by far in Chinese households. Chinese government officials know how important this is and they also value social stability above all else. A municipal government has to pay for property to make way for more development. Now, that is not to say shenanigans doesn't happen. In some places, such transactions are rigged with information asymmetry and the transaction process is highly corrupted. This drew a lot of attention some time ago and such practices are being cracked down on. In sum: there are plenty of things wrong about China, but there is no doubt that it is improving. The senior officials of the party aren't like the ideologues of the past - many of them have experienced some of the worst that happened during the Mao years. In my view, the Chinese leadership today are more pragmatic than ideological and they think long-term. They know that economic growth requires more reform and more opening but they also value social stability above all else which is why they want the changes to happen gradually.

I'm too lazy to look up all sources but I'll try to direct in the following: 1) Mortgage underwriting tightening: Mortgage insurance rules changes: you can find this on CMHC or Genworth. Tightening uninsured mortgage underwriting: refer to B-20 (and soon B-21) guidelines from OSFI. Plus historic low NPLs, loss ratios and origination LTVs in Canadian residential uninsured mortgages in all federally regulated banks. 2) Housing supply shortage: Just found this: http://www.bnn.ca/newly-constructed-homes-near-new-lows-in-gta-1.636982 3) Debt service ratio: I stand corrected by Liberty on the total DSR, which is currently a bit higher than its 25-year average. Interestingly enough, the DSR on mortgages are right at its historic averages so the increase in total DSR is due to the rise in DSR of non-mortgage loans - likely due to more auto loans and substitution of credit cards for cash based payments. RBC report on Stats Canada DSR ratios: http://www.rbc.com/economics/economic-reports/pdf/other-reports/currentanalysis.pdf

Firstly, anecdotes regarding mortgage underwriting are relevant because mortgage underwriting is centralized and automated at the big banks. If it works for one it works for all. Secondly, it's easy to just repeat the words green belt and supply without actually backing them up. If the green belt is causing supply shortages and prices to go up then why have prices in Newmarket (outside the greenbelt) have kept pace with prices in Richmond Hill and Toronto (inside the belt). If what you say is true then prices increases should be bigger in Richmond Hill and lower in Newmarket. However that's not the case. In addition, how do you explain Hamilton? It doesn't have a green belt and price action in Hamilton has been highly correlated with Toronto. Plus Hamilton is far from a beacon of economic prosperity. I've attached price action for Toronto and Hamilton for the past 18 years. Thirdly mortgage rates have helped but not as much as you thing. I see that today some banks have 3% promotional rates for 5 yr fixed. That seems a bit low. They were higher when I renewed my mortgage a couple of months ago. But let's go with 3%. When we bought the house I live in now (a semi in a Toronto suburb) in 2004. We paid 280K, put 20% down, took out a 5 year fixed mortgage @ 4.5% with a 25 year term. Our monthly payment was $1,245. Right now our house goes for about 650k. If one was to take out the 3% promotional rate and put 20% down, the monthly payment would be $2,458. So it's a massive increase in cost even with the lower rates. You actually haven't refuted a single thing that I wrote. 1) Anecdotal evidence can be highly misleading. Do you know all the details of even your sister's mortgage? Besides, even in the homogenous financial system in Canada, taking a single mortgage to represent the entire mortgage market is rife with statistical error. Anyway, the facts remain clear: mortgage underwriting standards for both insured and uninsured have never been tighter. 2) I don't know what you're getting at here. I'm not just repeating green belt. Supply constraints are backed by hard data - take a look at months of supply data for single detached homes in the Greater Toronto area over the last few years - they are at historic lows. 3) It is clear that low mortgage rates have had an enormous effect on housing prices. People always talk about the debt-income ratio, but the total debt service ratio is in line with its historic range.

I'm not arguing whether it is or isn't in a bubble, just that the US situation from 2003-2007 and the Canadian situation now are very different.

Both Vancouver and Toronto are surrounded by green belts. A large part of the surrounding greater metropolitan areas are undeveloped due to difficulties in obtaining permits and lack of zoning rights. In Toronto, for example, you'll notice this when you go north of the city. Some lots are crammed full of townhouses, yet on the adjacent street corner there is no development. The housing shortage bears out in the data, especially for single detached homes. Months of inventory are at record lows in Toronto. As for the comparison with the 90s, I'm not sure that's relevant. This is a period of extremely low interest rates and both cities are also considerably larger than they were in the 90s. In the 90s, 5-year fixed rates were in the area of 8-15% versus barely 2% now. Also, Greater Vancouver has grown from 1.6 million to 2.5 million from 1990 to 2015, a 56% increase, while Greater Toronto has grown from 3.8 million to 6.1 million in that same time frame, or a 61% increase. Together, these two cities accounted for 40% of the entire growth of Canada's population from 1990-2016. Housing supply has increased, but not to the same degree as population growth. Re: underwriting. Anecdotal evidence can be highly misleading. You're not privy to all the facts when you hear this stuff through the grapevine. The fact is that it's harder now to get mortgage insurance now than ever before. It is also harder to get an uninsured mortgage with any federally-regulated lender due to B-20 rules. Tightening regulation of course is pushing stuff into the more shadowy lending side, which is growing but still a very small part of the entire mortgage market.

There are a few key differences between what happened in the US and what's happening in Canada (but really just Toronto and Vancouver) right now. The US housing bubble was driven by a general mass delusion regarding housing prices that drove mortgage underwriting standards to the ground. This in turn fed massive housing development that ultimately created a massive overhang in the housing supply that took years to work through. What's driving housing prices in Canada (but really just in Toronto and Vancouver - the rapid price increases haven't been observed elsewhere) is primarily a function of record low interest rates and low housing supply. If anything, mortgage underwriting standards have never been tighter. Ask anyone in the real estate business in Canada these days - it has become far harder to secure a mortgage now than just 5 years before. Now, I'm not saying that housing prices can't fall - but the general narrative comparing the two situations has plenty of fallacies.

This is an excellent explanation of the dilemma facing housing finance policy-makers today. Either the GSEs are truly government backed or they are privately-owned. Any arrangement that mixes the two will lead to the same issues pre-crisis.