Aberhound

The challenge for determining the catalyst is that cause and effects require determining the root cause to the effect. In 2008 for instance the cause was the bank's successfully taking control of the US political system and the effect was the US housing collapse leading to a collapse of the derivatives then the bank collapse then the stock market generally. This time I suspect a different cause because after 2008 a computer control system started after 9/11 was widely implemented. Now I think all markets are controlled by the central bank technicians guided by computer expert systems but imperfectly. This has allowed and caused crazy policies to be adopted while the digital currency is implemented to replace cash. Digital currency will make the job of the computer and technicians much easier. Bitcoin might be the digital currency as I think this is the only way to get its use across the S curve threshold of early majority adoption. If correct, there won't be a collapse like 2008. Instead I suspect the catalyst will be a different part of the control system. Their top priority is maintaining control so I suspect the current set up is intended to put in place a tighter control system centered on the digital currency. I suspect this because it seems obvious that negative interest rates will collapse the banks. I watch when the digital currency system is ready. When that occurs the bank system in Europe will be collapsed. That is where the psychopaths are in control as judged by their lack of care for the human costs to their policies. Once the digital currency system is in place most banks become unnecessary so it makes sense to do the collapse and the birth together from the point of view of the psychopath. The weakness of the psychopaths is their brain imbalance. This causes them to choose a path that leads to chaos. Once visible their power evaporates. The best example of psychopathic power evaporating in fiction is the last book of Lord of the Rings where Gandalf leaves the returning hobbit to deal with the problems at the Shire. The problem at the Shire was that Saruman had set up a slave state. The heroes easily strip Saruman, the former great Wizard, from control by getting the little people to see the wrong, who then disarm or cause to flee the few bullies keeping Saruman in luxury. Saruman is revealed powerless himself when Frodo no longer believes or is tricked by Saruman's gossamer voice. Frodo plans to let Saruman go freely despite his crimes because he understands the nine laws (symbolized by the nine rings of man). Irish Brehon law ie the true common law, is based on the nine laws. The prevailing Roman laws, ie the slave system, stands in opposition. Saruman's chief slave Wormtongue kills Saruman when Saruman reveals to Frodo that Wormtongue murdered the mayor of Shire (which is how Saruman took power). Wizards like Saruman are rendered powerless as they know they must follow the nine laws or suffer the consequence ie bad Karma. They never murder, but instead trick others to do the evil deeds and suffer the bad karma instead. Accordingly wizards are powerless once their victims understand the nine laws and the trickery so choose to protect themselves from bad karma allowing their souls to progress to higher consciousness like Frodo, who at the end is allowed to depart to the land of the Elohim where their forefathers came from (which interestingly is America ie West of the sunken island given to the Numenor, or, according to Conquest of Man, The Marvelous Story of The Men Who Discovered And Explored The Lands and Seas of the World is Greater Ireland ie where the Irish and civilization presumably came from (otherwise it would be called "New Ireland"). As Tolkien was a Vatican librarian hopefully all will soon be revealed when we have a Snowden hero leak the hidden books of wisdom when that unknown hero gets tired of the chaos and seeks to fix the true cause ie the failure of the many to know and to understand the nine laws.

The foreign property purchase tax in Vancouver diverts some purchases to commercial and most residential purchases are simply diverted to the Canadian permanent resident or citizen family member. It is unlikely to have much impact. The foreigner can own a property indirectly by holding the mortgage which could even be a sharia mortgage to share in the capital gain or can hold equity in a corporation if structured carefully. Vancouver has hired an airspace expert from New York. If someone comes along wanting to buy your airspace to "preserve their view" say no. You can see massive increases in density along all major arteries in in whole neighbourhoods. Everyone notices a dramatic increase in vehicle traffic. A lot of the price increases come or will come from density increases. My home by the new walk/bike trail from the CP rail the City purchased is an example. You can see it will be towers in the near future. I have been considering organizing the neighbours to allow us to assemble the block instead of others. If anyone has a precedent or contracts for doing this please let me know. I have noticed that investors from China and elsewhere are patient investors and seem to be more willing to buy in anticipation of density increases. The bigger impact is likely to come from the vacancy tax as many owners from China seem to prefer to leave their homes unoccupied. Whistler town centre has long had rules forcing property owners to rent out their units which has helped avoid the ghost town problem. Vancouver is developing a ghost town problem now which has decreased the rental stock. Previous city councils had increased the rental stock by allowing lane-way housing and making it easier to put in legal rental suites. I support the vacancy tax as it addresses a real and growing problem. There are many investment opportunities. There are many three story walk ups built in the 1950s and 1960s which slowly decay because owners do not wish to pay capital gains tax so they do not sell and conversion to strata units is restricted. Few seem to be aware of the tax free roll-overs into limited partnerships and the willingness of the city to allow higher density and new strata units if you include sufficient rental stock in the new building. The votes required to rebuild existing strata and coops has been reduced so it is easier to vote to rebuild. Rental apartments are sold based on cash flow instead of the estimated future cash flows from new construction. Basically you are converting unused air space into valuable square feet.

To extend your argument, which is a good example of Gresham's law, as Bitcoin rises the lira, peso, pound, euro and finally the dollar will sink in value as the bad is spent and the good is hoarded. To me this is success. Finally a currency that lives up to its definition. It is not a resistor, preventing us from buying what we need, it is an enabler, living up to its name "currency" creating a flow of opportunity. It allows us to be thrifty and become wealthy instead of degenerating into peasants like the poor Mexicans who gave up their silver pesos for paper only to have numerous zeros knocked off. If you have debt but don't hold Bitcoin you will likely receive worthless bank shares for your deposits at the banks which are made irrelevant by the blockchain. Only a few will adapt. Bank with them. Those rendered unable to pay their debts are unlikely to receive gentle treatment. I hope the science fiction novels I read about organ harvesting were inaccurate. Pay off your debt while you can and if you can't hedge with Bitcoin. It may save you a kidney. So if you have debt hoard Bitcoin and spend dollars so you can later pay off the debt as it devalues. But get out as soon as the blockchain shekel or dollar or whatever is introduced by any central bank. Central banks do not allow competition and will only allow Bitcoin to thrive temporarily. Bitcoin will be allowed to rise in value so that the "blockchain" brand is favourably locked in the minds of all so they accept another fiat currency after the debt crash but this time with a fiat currency with full tracking capability with the blockchain allowing all competition to be demolished.

The losses in US due to adverse weather not good this year, La Niña looks to be strong and started recently and the last two la Nina also caused higher losses but were moderate. NATURAL CATASTROPHE LOSSES IN THE UNITED STATES, 2006-2015 (Based on perils) http://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/graphs/nat_cats_loss_us_06-15.gif Source: © 2016 Munich Re, NatCatSERVICE; Property Claim Services (PCS)*, a Verisk Analytics business. As of March 2016. http://ggweather.com/enso/oni.png Notice the losses this solar cycle since 2008 solar minimum are much higher so may be more important than La Niña as we are entering the 300 year Maunder Minimum type cycles. Time to start boosting rates! Note convective is only certain losses so expect earthquakes and volcanism to also worsen. http://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/graphs/us_convective_loss_events_80-15.gif

Banking industry in 20 years you ask? Let me speculate as I believe radical change is already in progress so the trends can be seen. Here is what I see. The new blockchain shekel will have the sender ID the receiver id and the amount and every transaction in the blockchain. Every transaction will use the blockchain if only 1 millicent to identify it. Everyone will use it as if you don't you get no loans, no mortgage, no insurance, no government cheques etc.. Banks are unneeded and are dis-intermediated and probably operate from Jerusalem where the first central bank which supports the blockchain currency is located. Margins are much tighter as costs are eliminated and everything is automated, online and run by the new quantum computers. Collection is much easier if a fraction of each transaction is devoted to payment. Credit risk similarly becomes mathematical algorithm both instant and near perfect. Any bank which fails to get on board will disappear. Probably the existing big banks will be the amongst the first to sign on so check to see who owns most of the shares of any of your bank holdings. It could be New York, London or Frankfurt with the new blockchain dollar, pound or Euro but they are all so busy fighting the last war they are going to leave the field to the commander with his eyes on the future. Shekel because they are the only country left with sufficient homogeneity to develop, adopt and run such a system together with the ability to get the businesses approved elsewhere and full governmental backing of the blockchain. You don't set up such a system if you don't trust the guy or gal on your left or your right. Maybe the Chinese have the necessary skill and homogeneity but they won't have the power to get it adopted in as many places and they are slow to approve the blockchain. Hopefully North American and European commanders start fighting the next war, not the last and start removing all obstacles to the blockchain. The financial war determining who will have the next reserve currency is already in progress and few realize it.

I do not like how contributors who read a lot of books get labelled for mentioning trends which are not mentioned in the drivel known as the popular press. This is a prediction thread so speculate away but be ready with sources to back your arguments! My speculation is largely based on the writings of Felix Somary. We all might learn something by reading memoirs of such well connected people. https://www.amazon.com/Raven-Zurich-Memoirs-Somary-1881-1956/dp/1850650187#customerReviews Amongst his last books he predicted the end of communism and soon after the end of democracy and capitalism because the elites would seek profit without risk. Haven't we seen this when Europeans bank levered 75 times or more during the greatest bond bull market in history manage to lose money and almost wipe out equity holders and now have imposed a flawed bail-in mechanism threatening to transfer depositor monies to senior bond holders? Some people enjoyed profit without risk just like Somary predicted. The conclusions follow due to the iron law of politics that bad systems tend to get worse. Fortunately the law of rhythm also suggests that day follows night so our children or grandchildren may enjoy better times when people realize the harm to themselves and others which arises from supporting dominators then choose to stop. The sooner people turn off the TV and read more broadly then contemplate, the sooner this will occur.

Complicated. Start here for an overview of the problems and the changes, then review the tax treaty amendments, then check the policy changes since the amendments. The quagmire causes us to suggest that Canadians avoid the US flow through structures like the S Corp and the LLC or hire expensive tax professionals if you wish to persist. Most foreigners who used to use the US LLCs for international structures, which does not apply to you, are now better off using BC LLPs primarily because of the introduction of oppressive and ruthless IRS reporting rules. http://www.collinsbarrow.com/en/cbn/publications/amendments-to-the-canada-us-tax-treaty

EU will go into turmoil as they seek to impose an un democratic federal state. So the negotiations are unlikely to be rational. So the pound will fall to par as Martin Armstrong suggests. EU will suffer runs on their banks and will be forced to lend trillions at zero percent to the banks until they are forced to impose bail ins. US stocks will do well in the turmoil as capital flees Europe. The bail ins are inevitable as the ECB will have a choice of collapsing the monetary system or a collapsing the banks per the Hayek instability hypothesis. When the banks start to fail the secrecy around derivatives will cause runs on all EU and UK banks. Europe federalizations will be agreed in crisis, probably in secret, which will be time to buy stocks. Bail ins will cause the Euro and EU stocks to drop sharply the same as the Great Depression. That will be the time to buy EU stocks just like 1933 was the time to buy US stocks during the collapse of thousands of banks but before you knew how much money you would get back. Incidentally the flaw in bail ins is that you get equity which will quickly be worth little as banks are terrible businesses when debts are not repaid and the bad news is mostly hidden. At least in the Great Depression you got scrip from the banks which you could use to pay off your debts at par if you had debts at the same bank or sell at 25 cents on the dollar allowing others to pay off their debts cheaply. This allowed people to wipe out their debts allowing recovery which probably won't occur in the EU causing the population to suffer needlessly. This will prolong the downturn. Leave while you can. Remember the goal of these clowns is global government and such chaos is their main tool. The rosy scenario would be to federalize quickly but since this means that the squeaking socialists in each nation state will lose their plush jobs I doubt they will give up their perks easilly hence my pessimism.

Most of what Burns says applies to Clinton. Only one of them committed crimes while in public office.

I knew of the cost but didn't realize the entire time involved. Not that it matters much to us. If we ever do make the move, my wife works in software and works from home. I also looked at the demographics and read that Nanaimo isn't as diverse as the lower mainland. (no international buyers to drive the prices up) A couple of years ago we thought about a place on Pender Island but the gulf seems like a world of its own based on what we found. Thanks nodnub. The other factor is that Vancouver Island is mostly run by socialists so in many places the property taxes are much higher relative to the value and services offered. This is the legacy of a large timber sector and government sector which both are heavily unionized. Admittedly it is difficult to provide services cost efficiently at low population densities. You have to check the local market. For instance in Maple Bay, just south of Nanaimo my friends are paying only slightly less than I pay in Vancouver on about 1/4 the value and far less services. The result is lower property values and less appreciation over time and the Municipal governments claim that they are always short of money yet spending growth far exceeds inflation. Prices on the east coast of Vancouver Island are also distorted because of the railway belt which was in private hands but is now owned by the government pension fund since they acquired Timberwest in 2011 (unusually a brilliant move by government pension fund managers). The belt is 20 miles wide (800,000 acres) and should be densified then developed far more but try to get the zoning from the local governments!

The last two posts are absolutely correct in describing Hayek ponzi lending and irrational exuberance. But sitting outside by the river yesterday with a new climate here made us feel like California has moved to Vancouver. April used to be rainy and cool not in the 70s and sunny like summer. If you believe the papers it's carbon dioxide. It seems more like a regional effect of volcanism in the sea mounts warming the ocean by a few degrees and a worldwide effect of a shift in the solar spectrum to much more UVB (and UVC further south) in the now white sun. Both will likely persist. We have the highest per capita in bound migration of millionaires for a good reason.

Unfortunately the soldier who pulls the trigger is the one who suffers the greatest karmic agony hence the name ("soul-dies" or "soul destroyed" or "soul crucified" in latin "dierectus" means "is destroyed" or "is crucified" or "is gone to the crows"). Wise soldiers switch to farming. We could all learn from the example of Diocletian who was the only Roman Emperor to voluntarily retire to his gardens. Most emperors were killed. There is no such thing as collective punishment in natural law. That is part of the effective narrative used by the scum who seek to control others. Maybe the english language was designed by similar scum who sought to avoid the karmic agony themselves. They are wrong as the persons giving the orders also suffers as indicated by the tragic end for most Roman emperors.

All the major arteries in Vancouver were up zoned a few years ago to allow condos so the price of such homes is determined by land value and the ability to assemble the lots on the target block. The city gets lots of tax revenues from capital charges on lots so they have a strong incentive to up zone. The higher tax revenues helps fund the rapid transit which the federal government has boosted funding from 1/3rd to 1/2 which is allowing a lot more density creating a virtuous circle. Now if we stopped protectionism and allowed the Chinese or other electric busses which cost less than a quarter lifetime cost the density could move out further. I wonder if TPP will force this change? We could also build three or four times as much infrastructure for the same cost if there was fair international tenders and if we went back to low interest central bank funding like we used to from the 1930s until 1971.

There are lots of examples of better off and worse off. Better off includes the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland (all from UK) Singapore (from UK then Malaysia), Taiwan (from China), Norway (from Sweden), Holland (from Spain). In each of these cases greater liberty and a less centralized and smaller government resulted in greater prosperity. So if you will enjoy greater liberty you should leave. On the other hand if you will enjoy less liberty if you leave, than you should stay unless it is close to the end and then you should leave to sooner start recovering from the inevitable collapse. The iron law of politics is that bad systems tend to get worse as moral degradation steadily worsens. Increasing centralization usually delays but worsens collapse as the State responds to each crisis by further restricting liberty and further increasing theft from the population and others.

Isn't the core issue is whether to choose liberty and freedom of action? EU is centralizing so now choosing to stay means giving up policies which has made London the financial capital of the world. Freedom of action is critical in the knowledge age where the traditional light hand of UK regulation will be an increasingly beneficial as against Statist regulatory regimes where the stupid rarely ends and bureaucrats rarely admit their mistakes.

Great interview. Thanks for posting. Once I think about what WW is saying in regards to banks and spending I agree NIRP will cause reduced spending because of fear of running out of money during retirement and it will hurt bank profits. NIRP harms banks even if there is no cash because there are always safer and cheaper alternatives compared to paying negative interest rates. One of the best place to hide money is to overpay government tax accounts then roll them forward to the next year when you file your return. Companies will all pay each other sooner and some like Amazon might accept credit deposits like 10 years prepaid Prime membership. Almost everyone has some form of debt and it is safer to pay down debt rather than deposit in banks in this deflationary environment. People with lots of equity in their home might be able to borrow at extremely low interest rates as secured debt would be safer than risky unsecured deposits to banks. So NIRP will reduce the amount of bank loan interest. Investors will be more likely to hold Berkshire rather than deposit money in the bank. The policy is so bad for banks that I wonder what BIS intends other than to hasten change.

The system cannot be fixed because we have moved from the Industrial Age to the knowledge age. Everything has been designed for the Industrial Age and is now harmful. No one knows what to do so the best thing to do is to stop vested interests from obstructing change and to free up resources. I would simply end all government funding of both the medical and school systems and cancel all regulations related to both especially all government accreditations. I would ask google to make all scientific knowledge and all books available online for free and anyone who takes a single penny of government money would be required to give Google access to all their research and papers without charge. Copyright on scientific and technical knowledge would be reduced to one year and general copyright to 5 years. The reason for this is that knowledge is worth more the more people that have access to it. We now suffer from massive waste of resources by restricting access to knowledge. It will never happen but the closer we get to this the better so expressing the goal is useful.

My brother went through this analysis last year and he chose the Scion which is also on the list of 10 cars above. He has a long commute to work and he saves enough to pay for the car in 3 to 5 years (the car was about $14000 Cdn). It has a long warranty 5 years I think so he figured it was cheaper than buying a used car. His cost of a thousand mile trip is about half my cost in a Volvo sedan. It shows you how robots can make things inexpensive. I hope we get a free market again so the potential savings become more widespread.

I don't see how anyone can predict oil prices. Oil prices face downwards pressure as the paradigm changes and the owners of the oil compete to convert their wasting assets into cash. The trouble the powers that be face is that too many people realize the mainstream science is intentionally false and misleading. For example, a poet in this video demolishes the solar fusion theory in favour of the plasma sun theory. The main argument is that only a plasma sun emits a spectrum in all colors (ie white) and explains the mercury, a heavy element, being present in the solar wind. The biggest obstacle to the advancement of science over the last hundred years has been the wrong belief by individuals that they already know the answer. They don't as what they were taught in school was only an approximation sufficient for the technology of the time. Their own minds thereby create their own prison. Few can admit "I was wrong". In a world multi-lateral world competition renders more difficult the continued suppression of science. The Anglo-American-Israeli alliance and the powers behind them no doubt wishes to succeed with their long term plans yet to do so requires technological advance to ensure continued dominance. Consequently advances are being allowed in many sectors due to competition from China, Russia and others. There is no shortage of oil. The shortage has been cheap oil but that is changing. Cheap heat means cheap oil. Cheap electricity means cheap oil. Both cheap heat and cheap energy also mean greater substitution as does better batteries. Oil is also a wasting asset once you realize energy is available from the wheelwork of nature. Prices will spike again only if it becomes necessary to temporarily advance other plans. How fast will the change occur? Probably rapidly as science is allowed to advance most rapidly when governments are preparing for war. The war drums are beating. I suspect there are already numerous firms and governments secretly using advanced technology. We will see this as deflation. This will only increase as the cost of advanced warfare has plummeted making private armies increasingly possible. It will be tempting for private companies to respond to perceived traitorous conduct by governments and competitors with force. Science fiction long predicted private armies. All attempts to use tyranny to control populations have failed so the increasing use of tyranny will cause more private armies to form. Already it is not clear who runs governments particularly where there is a lack of rule of law. Lack of rule law forces companies to either submit to aggression or to respond to breaches of their natural law rights with force as is their natural law right to do. In the past the trend leading to the formation of private companies was retarded by a wonderful illusion of progress and liberty. Now effective narrative is used to control people based on fear. This won't work long because people get angry when they realize they have been fooled. Imagine millions of women who get angry when they realize they have been poisoning their own children. When women feel guilty they will act, most likely by insisting that their men fight back. Millions of scorned women does not create stability. If the powers that be wish to continue their rule they will have to come up with another wonderful illusion. I suspect that new wonderful illusion is the reason for new age half truths together with new technologies. The NWO is likely a straw man put forward solely so that it can be defeated to create this new wonderful illusion. Otherwise you will have another so called thousand year Reich which lasts only a brief time. When the Babylonian money changers who backed Rome realized they could not control the barbarians they switched the paradigm by introducing Christianity and the Vatican to rule from behind the scenes with another wonderful illusion created by the religion. I expect a new belief system will be introduced when chaos abounds. The new wonderful illusion is necessary to create a new stable paradigm. I don't think oil will be part of that new wonderful illusion.

http://www.acting-man.com/blog/media/2015/11/1-Sweden-property-prices.png Swedish property prices effect of zirp and Nirp. Coming to Vancouver? When marijuana is legalized soon and you can grow the stuff yourself your worries will seem to drift away.

Have you investigated the idea of seeing if there is a rollover into another type of retirement structure like an RCA? I have't checked. If there there is withholding on US dividends for now in the RCA but it would allow you to sell out of the RCA after you become non-resident and then the capital gains tax would be much less depending on the tax treaty. The strategy would also reduce the tax rate on RRSP withdrawals from top marginal rate to as low as 15% after you reach the forced withdrawal age.

Dalio's video explaining the rise of asset prices and incomes is caused by the expansion of credit is a clear explanation of the process. Martin Armstrong's explanation the money and assets are on a see-saw is also helpful as his explanation of concentration of capital. Printing more money is already working less well because of misallocation of capital and the popping of the debt bubble in China where the greatest increase in debt occurred together with the worst mis allocation of resources. Now that the debts in China are becoming bad debts wealth is evaporating so we are in the Fisher deflation spiral with a contracting supply of credit greater than the money being created by central banks. Excess liquidity is being used to pay debts in a desperate attempt to avoid default. On the see-saw the value of money is now rising as asset values fall. Effectively interest rates are rising even though the nominal interest rate may be dropping. Currency moves are also increasing effective interest rates, mostly for holders of US denominated debts. But bond defaults are increasing as well so returns are dropping if you factor in default risk. Currencies may also be devalued so if you hold debt in the devaluing currency your return suffers as well. Technological change seems to be coming to the rescue. Hopefully the governments will embark on more TE (technological easing) instead of QE and release more defence technology to the private sector and allow more new inventions to come to market. A change from coal electricity to LENR electricity, plus electric vehicles with much better batteries plus removal of tariffs on solar plus releasing the high efficiency solar based on the cone shapes from beetles (like you see in ferromagnetic fluids) plus increased automation and driverless vehicles will create massive profit making possibilities and an increased demand for debt and rising interest rates. The trend would be further accelerated if cartels are broken down such as the medical cartel, the taxi cartel, the pharmaceutical cartel, the education cartel etc.. As an example consider the effect of improved and cheaper solar cells plus better batteries. Real estate will have solar systems put in using debt and enjoy reduced utility costs with improved cash flow for the property owner paying the mortgage. This will expand credit starting the Dalio credit expansion with rising incomes and asset values. Now consider changing over the electric driverless cars. Lots more debt to buy these cars and the number of cars needed will plummet due to Uber solving the low car utilization inefficiency. Now consider all the people with cancer (so they spend less like older people) being able to go to Naturopaths and use the new breakthrough treatments instead of chemo and radiation. Expanded lifespan would make them more likely to be willing to take on debt to install the solar systems and buy the new electric vehicles. Taking glyphosate out of food alone would likely expand GDP growth significantly as people weren't so chronically sick, cancer ridden, fat, stupid and infertile. Think of the high growth rates during the baby boom. A few changes and we would be back to boom times and rising interest rates.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-08/china-just-killed-the-world-s-biggest-stock-index-futures-market Futures trading limited to 10 contracts which has caused liquidity to dry up and trading volumes are now at record lows. Doesn't this mean that all the trades based on pairs will unwind with no buyers ie those closing shorts to support the market? Doesn't it mean that the markets will now plunge eventually like the collapse of a currency peg (which always happens in the end) with only government supporting the market until they realize that they do not have sufficient resources and give up? A small investor might be able to trade the short by taking 10 contracts directly whereas you can't trade through ETFs also because of the trading limits. Seems like a good risk reward. Does anyone have experience how to directly trade these contracts and which brokerages allow you to do so?

I had thought of adding Wrigleys selling gum laced with neurotoxins but then I thought about people happily buying cancer sticks from cigarette manufacturers for decades. Smoking did not start to fall until it became socially unacceptable. Maybe socialized medicine will eventually do the same to selling neurotoxins. Eventually people will get fed up with paying for others medical costs caused by lack of care for one's own body and lack of care by manufacturers for the health of consumers.

I found out where some of the money goes this weekend when I go to a party up in Kelowna, a small city 4 hours inland from Vancouver. It was like going back in a time warp. Almost everyone at the party had sold and moved from Vancouver over the past 25 years and moved to new homes in Kelowna. The later they moved the bigger the house. Most owned recreational properties as well and all looked exceptionally fit from an active outdoor life culture. Then I visited friends in Oliver, a few hours south in the "Golden Mile", so named because the soil is incredibly mineral rich. Massive monies has gone into wineries while the fruit farms have mostly gone due to low returns. All land owners have had incredible rates of return from rising land values. I can't see why the trend won't continue as higher prices in Vancouver and more immigrants from low trust societies drive those used to a high trust society inland allowing an exchange of wealth and discomfort for wealth, comfort and an improved, more healthy lifestyle. We basically live in a country club economy and we should embrace it and start charging an entrance fee commensurate with the quality of the land and resources. When water starts to back currencies like oil has since the early 1970s BC will be incredibly wealthy so BC seems likely to become the new Alberta. Now I want to convince my spouse to move to Kelowna as well.