Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 160 posts

Re: Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans

#121

Post by vkou »

fujiters wrote: post #93
vkou wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been going into debt in order to buy housing, not on other forms of consumer spending or 'living beyond their means'. Who sells them housing? Other Canadians. Why do they go into so much debt? Because the nature of housing is that rising prices will squeeze out every last cent of saved money from the pockets of people trying to buy their first house. It boggles my mind that the average house in Vancouver or T…

At some point, it's a better financial move to rent instead of own. That is true in many American cities (much of NYC, for example). Housing bubbles happen. Try not to buy into one.

This advice sounds just as great today as it did in Vancouver, 15 years ago.

In the meantime, inflation-adjusted housing prices more than doubled. Pretty much everyone and everyone would have been better off not following your advice.

And today, in 2019 there is still no clear transition path out of the current horrorshow that is the property market. Prices are not coming down, nobody sees any mechanism by which they might come down, and too many people have too much invested in land for the government to ever encourage prices to come down.

When you rent, you are seriously gambling that property prices will not keep rising. When you own, you are seriously gambling that property prices will not fall.

The thing is, there are enormous political and economic pressures to create policies that prevent property prices from falling. As a renter, you are placing a bet against these incredibly powerful forces. It doesn't even matter if you're right - the markets may remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

Edit: Obviously there are complications to this. Buying and selling a house is stressful, time-intensive, and expensive. If you're only going to be in an area for 5 years, it's not as smart an idea as buying one with the intent to stay for 45 years. Obviously, it's possible that a generational shift in demographics will result in a property crash... But it's just as likely that increased immigration will offset that shift. Obviously, your city's financial situation, and likely future changes to property taxes will have an effect... The list goes on.

Re: Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans

#122

Post by tzs »

mullen wrote: post #63
lostgame wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is USA health care not being free untrue? Furthermore, I actually had to search, you're putting words in my mouth and misquoting me, there - I never, ever, said, anything along the lines 'in no way, shape or form is it free'. I'm aware of insurance, I lived there, I'm not dumb, and I don't appreciate people misquoting me, or putting words in my mouth, thanks. I lived there, I would know...that's not something I t…

> ICE is one of the biggest crimes against humanity that is still ongoing. It's hard to take you seriously when you say stuff like this. Kids in cages is bad but pick up a history book and you will find much much much worse. I can point to number events going on right now or recent memory that are worse. > I hear horror stories every other day. No, you don't. Stop being Miss Hyperbole and people will take you serious…

> Also, Health Care is NEVER free since you pay for it one way or another

That's kind of nit-picky. Government services that aren't paid for by user fees at the time of service but rather out of some kind of general tax whose rate you pay doesn't depend on whether you use the service or not are often referred to as "free" in normal conversation.

For example, most people would consider GPS a free service provided by the government, but obviously there are costs to provide it. Those costs are paid out of general US tax revenue.

When people talk of "free" healthcare, they almost always mean free in that sense.

Re: Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans

#123

Post by neplus »

rayiner wrote: post #115
neplus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have thought about this quite a bit and tried to word my initial post as a personal statement (not an objective fact of the inferiority of making $50k in Kansas as opposed to Quebec). I entirely agree with your point that American families in Kansas, et al. seem reasonably content and the kind of fears that would lead me to look to Canada over the U.S. if I made $50-100k are perhaps entirely irrational. My response…

This paradox of choice largely doesn't exist in the US either. The majority of people in both countries didn't graduate college. For almost everyone, the elite universities aren't even on the radar (much less the elite employers like FANG into which those universities feed). This upper middle class striverism is over-reported in the media, but is irrelevant to the vast majority of Americans. My wife went to high scho…

I wouldn't disagree with any of this except to suggest my comment was narrowly tailored to parents who feel compelled to provide their children "the very best" education and opportunity set in the country (predicated on ranking and exclusivity). If you believe American parents who aim toward this have an undue paranoia about class and an unhealthy amount of insecurity, then I'm afraid we entirely agree.

However, the point was that in Canada, because the peaks are lower, getting "the very best" education is much more readily achievable by those in the middle than in the United States.

> If you want to know why many Americans don’t view their country as a loaf-apocalyptic wasteland, it’s because they don’t live in New York or San Francisco.

I certainly hope my post hasn't given this impression. I have a green card and am proudly in the pipeline to become an American citizen.

This is a wonderful, special country which has provided me immense opportunity that does not exist within Canada (the primary thrust of my original post).

Re: Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans

#124

Post by PhasmaFelis »

mullen wrote: post #71
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your health care is in no way, shape, or form "free" Are you nitpicking over the definition of the word "free" because it's taxpayer-funded? You should know that "free healthcare" is shorthand for "you are unlikely to be bankrupted by, or forced to do without, necessary treatment because your insurance is not up to snuff."

No one is nitpicking, you are just seriously incorrect. Free means to not pay for something. Saying that Health Care is free is to say that the user of Health Care does not have to pay for its cost. Health Care is never free, no matter the system in which it is provided.

Colloquialisms exist. If you insist on assuming that everyone intends only the strict dictionary definitions of words, you're going to (continue to) get in silly misunderstandings.

When people say "free health care," they don't mean literally free, they mean you won't receive a bill after treatment. Maybe you don't like that usage. I don't like it when people use "literally" to mean "a whole lot." The language doesn't care what either of us likes.

Re: Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans

#125

Post by luckylion »

ska wrote: post #104
luckylion wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is the target country for most migrants, they don't continue on through to Canada in large numbers. If they did, most would likely get deported, Canada's immigration is highly selective.

It's again not quite that simple. Canada's asylum acceptance rate is higher than the US. However, due to a bilateral policy change in I think 2009 asylum seekers could no longer pass overland through the US and apply in Canada. This reduced the asylum seeker rates from south/central America and Mexico a fair bit to Canada as they were forced to apply in US. Outside of just asylum seekers, although successful immigrat…

> Canada's asylum acceptance rate is higher than the US.

Canada decides who comes to Canada to apply though (via resettlement programs where the seekers have been referred by a third party like UNHCR), it's generally not that people just walk across the border as they do in Europe or the US. If you can choose, for example, to resettle a bunch of academics and their families from Afghanistan, you are in a very different situation vs having the average Afghan population show up at the border which includes a large amount that are functionally illiterate.

This isn't a critique of Canada's selective policy, it's just a very different situation, much like somebody who lives in a rich part of town will not have to deal with the same issues as somebody who lives in an area with high poverty even though they both go to work, buy groceries, take showers and talk to neighbors.

Re: Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans

#126

Post by fujiters »

vkou wrote: post #121
fujiters wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, it's a better financial move to rent instead of own. That is true in many American cities (much of NYC, for example). Housing bubbles happen. Try not to buy into one.

This advice sounds just as great today as it did in Vancouver, 15 years ago. In the meantime, inflation-adjusted housing prices more than doubled. Pretty much everyone and everyone would have been better off not following your advice. And today, in 2019 there is still no clear transition path out of the current horrorshow that is the property market. Prices are not coming down, nobody sees any mechanism by which they…

If things get seriously unaffordable as a renter, it's always possible to move somewhere more affordable.

Housing, on average, rises at the rate of inflation (it's closely linked to the cost of new construction), per Robert Shiller's research. Even if the housing market explodes in one area, there's almost certainly another area where it hasn't (normally one without restrictions on new construction-San Fransisco being a prime example of a place where housing prices have skyrocketed due to such restrictions).

Re: Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans

#127

Post by tomatotomato37 »

dmix wrote: post #120
lostgame wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vancouver is bad. For sure. The biggest problem is certainly drug use. I've never been there, but I've heard horror stories, and exchange horror stories from California. My other points, especially health care, still stand - and Chicago is comparable, weather-wise, to Toronto, and still contained far more visible homelessness, and things like needles on the sidewalk, that I just rarely, rarely see here. Weather aside…

Isn't SF the most liberal city in the US but has one of the worst homeless problems in the US? I see needles all the time living downtown in Toronto. Especially when I lived near Parliament and Queen there were tons everywhere. Even now near Cityplace people constantly complain about needles on the FB group. The difference with better . weather is that you see the homelessness a lot more in urban areas. But you're ri…

Four out of five of those states also rank as the most 4 most populated states in the union so there is some unwanted skewing going on there; a better metric would probably be per capita. The maps in the 2018 AHAR[0] are done that way for an easy comparison.

[0]https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2018-AHAR...

Re: Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans

#128

Post by peisistratos »

rayiner wrote: post #77
neplus wrote: post #72

I was born and raised in Canada. I, like many of my peers at the "top" Canadian universities, focused solely on recruiting to the "top" American companies that came to campus to recruit[1]. I would describe Canada as generally being tightly range bound. One of the most striking things about coming to the U.S. is the large class of what I would consider to be the working poor. People who are truly just doing enough to…

> I've often thought to myself that I couldn't imagine what it would be like to make $50k in the United States (even living in a low CoL area). From health insurance, to private school costs (given the quality of many public schools), to college costs. It would seem an intense burden. Certainly if I had offers that paid between $50-100k in both the U.S. and Canada I would move back to Canada. I would feel I have no o…

> The fact is that Canada spends almost exactly the same percentage of GDP on social welfare as the U.S.

If by spending social welfare you mean transfering taxpayer dollars to big health corporation dividends, then yes, the US and Canada spend about the same amount of GDP on "social welfare".

Re: Most Canadians Are Now Better Off Than Most Americans

#130

Post by ben_w »

acchow wrote: post #114
ben_w wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like, I believe Sweden's population is about 10 million- much easier to have the social 'glue' This specifically is what I am not understanding. Why is 10 million supposed to be easier? 10 million is about double the size of the metropolitan area I’m currently in, and roughly a hundred times the size of the last city I worked in. In both cases the population is much too large to be a single community.

> 10 million is about double the size of the metropolitan area But you can agree that you understand and feel connected to the issues of people in your metropolitan area more than those of people in another state? Or in a rural town? Assembling funds to build a bridge/tunnel/rail in your metro feels more tangible than livestock subsidies in another state?

> Assembling funds to build a bridge/tunnel/rail in your metro feels more tangible than livestock subsidies in another state?

It only feels more tangible if I personally will use it. In the case of things such as “should Berlin build a new tunnel?” (something I suspect I will never use), the trouble is the more effort I put into understanding such a possibility, the less it matters to me where it is. If I don’t use it, it doesn’t matter unless I make myself think about it, and if I make myself think about it it doesn’t matter if it’s Berlin or Beijing.

Of course, I might be unusual. I did move country after visiting several to decide which was a good choice, which implies a certain range of attitudes about the world. I regard governments the way most people regard smartphone brands.

Post reply on HN