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$2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

antimoneylaunderinglaw.com

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Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#41

Post by sanswork »

Gargoyle wrote: post #39
sanswork wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your rent is 30-50% of your income you are living in too expensive of an area for your means or need more housemates.

It's also the market rate in the affected cities. You begin to see the nature of the problem.

I've lived in 2 of the affected cities. When I was making less I had housemates to bring the rental costs down(Sydney) or lived outside the city and commuted(Toronto). Both would work for either city and allow you to not have to spend 30-50% of your income on rent.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#42

Post by aianus »

raquo wrote: post #30
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the source of their Vancouver assertion?

Don't know their source, but I can confirm that relevant Canadian laws are wide open for abuse due to both being toothless and because of near zero enforcement, at both federal and provincial (BC) levels. You can google how CRA actively avoided auditing foreign buyers "for fear of racism allegations" (yeah right) or how people bring hundreds of thousands of dollars in paper bills on themselves and their children, pay…

> It's amazingly fucked up, I'm surprised Canadians are taking it so willingly.

Nothing surprising about it, ~69% of Canadian households (and a much higher percentage of voters!) are homeowners and directly benefit from this influx of capital.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#43

Post by kobayashi »

a13xb wrote: post #34
a_bonobo wrote: post #13

This is a relatively big problem in Australia - there has been talk of a housing bubble in Australia for the last few years which in part has been propped up by Chinese grey money buying whole apartment buildings for investment, which drives up prices (they can just dictate prices) and keeps young locals out [1]. I cannot afford a house and I have a well-paying job. The government looks the other way since building i…

People like to rag on Chinese investors, but I think the main reasons are insane tax breaks and limited supply.

Which tax breaks?

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#44

Post by barrkel »

sanswork wrote: post #31
fratlas wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when rent for young people is around one third to one half of their income (I would know, it's about 1/3 of mine). Would take me about 6-8 years to save for a deposit on an older apartment.

If your rent is 30-50% of your income you are living in too expensive of an area for your means or need more housemates.

30 to 50% of a high take-home actually leaves you with quite a lot of disposable income. 30 to 50% of a low take-home is probably unsustainable. Not all costs are directly proportional to housing costs in a housing bubble.

Particularly for younger people, it makes a lot of sense to suffer the higher proportion on rent. Quality of life is much higher living centrally, and income will probably grow, while rents are usually a bit sticky.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#45

Post by Gargoyle »

sanswork wrote: post #41
Gargoyle wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also the market rate in the affected cities. You begin to see the nature of the problem.

I've lived in 2 of the affected cities. When I was making less I had housemates to bring the rental costs down(Sydney) or lived outside the city and commuted(Toronto). Both would work for either city and allow you to not have to spend 30-50% of your income on rent.

The existence of ways to work around a problem doesn't mean there isn't an actual problem.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#46

Post by barrkel »

sanswork wrote: post #41
Gargoyle wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also the market rate in the affected cities. You begin to see the nature of the problem.

I've lived in 2 of the affected cities. When I was making less I had housemates to bring the rental costs down(Sydney) or lived outside the city and commuted(Toronto). Both would work for either city and allow you to not have to spend 30-50% of your income on rent.

Don't underestimate the costs of living outside a city and commuting. Not just the opportunity cost of lack of socializing, but commuting measurably decreases people's happiness, quite apart from how much time it takes.

It's also not morally wrong to pay more for accommodation that suits your lifestyle better.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#47

Post by kchoudhu »

rdlecler1 wrote: post #36
kspaans wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except young Australians, who have to rent and cannot rely on real estate property for their retirement. This is orthogonal to the money laundering, but what's stopping the young people from investing for their retirement? Houses are not the only way to build savings.

No, but it takes a lot less work to invest in real estate that you also live in than to try to find and monitor a 6% annual return on your own.

I've been throwing money into broad spectrum index mutual funds for the last 10 years, and in that time have averaged about 9% annually while investing maybe 20 hours thinking about asset allocation ("my age in bonds"), fees ("as low as possible") and deleting brokerage statements from my email inbox ("I know my worth to the cent already, thanks").

Meanwhile, I have invested at least 50 hours touring houses, applying for loans and trading texts with braindead realtors in December of 2016 alone while trying to buy my family's first home.

From where I stand, real estate is a terrible waste of time, energy and effort. If you want exposure to the asset class (why?!) buy into an MBS mutual fund; if you feel the itch to be a landlord (again, why?!) toss money into a REIT[1]. Do anything, basically, to avoid a large, career limiting[2] asset of uncertain value on your personal balance sheet.

[1] Assumes you live in high COLA area where renting is more sensible than buying. Do your math, I am not an investment advisor, and your situation may be different from mine.

[2] To avoid charges of hypocrisy: I no longer have a career, so I am happy to settle down, buy and customize the hell out of a house.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#48

Post by sanswork »

Gargoyle wrote: post #45
sanswork wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in 2 of the affected cities. When I was making less I had housemates to bring the rental costs down(Sydney) or lived outside the city and commuted(Toronto). Both would work for either city and allow you to not have to spend 30-50% of your income on rent.

The existence of ways to work around a problem doesn't mean there isn't an actual problem.

I don't consider high demand locations having high cost a problem personally. But if you want to live in a high demand area and you don't make enough money there are ways to do it without spending excessively on rent.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#49

Post by LiweiZ »

sudeepj wrote: post #24

In India, "grey income" is called "black money". It is a hot topic in India right now. Recent activities on this: Note ban (Nov 2016) => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_black_money#Ban_on_1000... Using analytics (today's news) => http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/i-t-...

We Chinese call it "black money", too. But it sounds too harsh and directly pointing to crime when talking, esp. publicly. So the color is changed to gray meaning color between clear and black so that no one "overreacts" (when "black money" is normal, everywhere possible and most people deal with it do not end up in jail or are not being investigated"). Just a way people accept the reality.

Re: $2T in Proceeds of Corruption Removed from China and Taken to US, AUS, CAN, NL

#50

Post by aaron695 »

a_bonobo wrote: post #13

This is a relatively big problem in Australia - there has been talk of a housing bubble in Australia for the last few years which in part has been propped up by Chinese grey money buying whole apartment buildings for investment, which drives up prices (they can just dictate prices) and keeps young locals out [1]. I cannot afford a house and I have a well-paying job. The government looks the other way since building i…

This is total BS.

Although I'm tempted to blame narcistic millennials eating their smashed avocado I tend to think every young generation is this selfish.

Australian youth is amoung the richest in the world, it's junk they can't buy houses.

They just can't buy down town in big cities in the super rich sections at age 20.

How people can think selling overpriced things to other countries is bad for the economy is incredibly strange.

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