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Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

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Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#581

Post by tux2bsd »

vore wrote: post #176
tux2bsd wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One good rule of thumb is that whenever people are blaming foreigners for their problems, they're wrong. The current trend is that people from nations that were colonisers are the cause of, and are responsible for, the woes of descendants of colonised peoples. It's good to see that you can see through the bullshit too. There are only select groups that can invest in property, they must reach the baseline investment…

> The current trend is that people from nations that were colonisers are the cause of, and are responsible for, the woes of descendants of colonised peoples. It's good to see that you can see through the bullshit too. What? I don't think that's what the OP is saying at all? If the descendants of colonizers and the colonized peoples have been living in the same country for centuries, what does this have to do with for…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34224702

Feel free to point out where he didn't make two distinct statements.

> If the descendants of colonizers and the colonized peoples have been living in the same country for centuries...

Good to see we're on the same page.

> ...what does this have to do with foreign investment in local assets?

Perhaps you missed the rest of my comment.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#582

Post by dublinben »

fleddr wrote: post #578
asdff wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning is a huge factor, just look at Amsterdam. Restrictive limit along with legally preserved farmland just a few miles from the center of the city, its no wonder no one is building. There's nowhere that you are allowed to.

My point is to stop obsessing over Amsterdam, San Francisco, New York...whichever dense city that can never ever meet demand. Stop defining the housing problem based on the exceptions.

Why can't Amsterdam (5000 people / km2) be as dense as San Francisco (7000/km2)?

Why can't San Francisco be as dense as New York City (11000/km2)?

Why can't New York City be as dense as Barcelona or Seoul (16000/km2)?

These are the most productive cities, with the most opportunities, and more people want to move there. Why should they be forced to live in less desirable places?

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#583

Post by dang »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #437
dang wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please eliminate swipes and/or name-calling from your HN posts. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . Your comment would be ok without that first bit.

Apologies

Appreciated! I've followed philliphaydon's suggestion and edited that bit out of both your comments. This way I can mark the moderation scolding off topic and collapse it.

Normally I'd never do that without getting your permission first, so if you object, please let me know and I'll put it back forthwith!

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#584

Post by dang »

philliphaydon wrote: post #510
dang wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please eliminate swipes and/or name-calling from your HN posts. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . Your comment would be ok without that first bit.

Can you edit out the nonsense bit from both our comments? I didn’t think there was anything wrong with his comment and think it prompted good conversation.

Ok, I've done that. Thanks for the suggestion.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#585

Post by dublinben »

betaby wrote: post #240
cameronh90 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the food I eat comes from hundreds of thousands of miles away. I'd imagine a bigger issue with inhabiting that area is lack of logistics.

> Most of the food I eat comes from hundreds of thousands of miles away. And that's precisely the problem! Carbon footprint per capital is very high in Canada and for remote and colder locations it would be even higher!

Very little of the carbon emissions of food come from its transportation.[0] People living in cities have a lower carbon footprint than those living in more suburban areas.[1] We should be allowing more people to live in economically vibrant, low emission cities.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food?ins...

[1] https://theconversation.com/suburban-living-the-worst-for-ca...

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#586

Post by asdff »

cheeseomlit wrote: post #574
asdff wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes exist to fund the government and I support having a government and public programs.

They don't though, that's what I'm saying. Take a look at https://www.usdebtclock.org- the US government is funded by debt, not taxes. If the government accumulates so much debt that it becomes a mathematical impossibility for tax revenue to ever pay it down then what is the actual purpose of paying those taxes? The purpose is to remove privately held currency from circulation, which is necessary if you want to print…

If people stopped paying taxes things would not go smoothly for long

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#587

Post by fleddr »

dublinben wrote: post #582
fleddr wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is to stop obsessing over Amsterdam, San Francisco, New York...whichever dense city that can never ever meet demand. Stop defining the housing problem based on the exceptions.

Why can't Amsterdam (5000 people / km2) be as dense as San Francisco (7000/km2)? Why can't San Francisco be as dense as New York City (11000/km2)? Why can't New York City be as dense as Barcelona or Seoul (16000/km2)? These are the most productive cities, with the most opportunities, and more people want to move there. Why should they be forced to live in less desirable places?

You're still doing it...obsessing over a tiny amount of places.

"The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation — the national housing agency — said in a June report that close to 19 million housing units will be needed by 2030."

Widen your view! These 19 million homes aren't going to be built in 1 or 2 cities.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#588

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

plantain wrote: post #140

I really don't understand why governments around the globe just throw their hands in the air and pretend housing is an unsolvable problem for which they have no obligation to fix. It wasn't always like this - in 1922 in Australia we realised there was a shortage of 25,000 homes, so they just made it happen [1]. Why are we so impotent today? Do we just not care enough? Are the vested interests too powerful? [1] https:…

In Vancouver is pretty common to buy homes and sit on them empty as organization mean. Can you blame them? The price is meant to double on 10 years, but any apartment or house quadrupled in price over the last 15, giving incredibile yields...

I don't have access to the data, our realtor showed us many times data across the last 50 years.

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#589

Post by rcarr »

alvah wrote: post #549
rcarr wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is your suggestion then, to punish the poor some more? Is there not enough homeless on the streets of San Francisco for you? Are the slums of Bombay too small in scope? As I said in the comment it would be very difficult or perhaps impossible to achieve and the dangers are high (you don’t want a USSR situation happening). You might even need coordinated effort across multiple governments and there is evidence…

Also, "A couple of short, sharp years at 90% and all of it invested into major, physical public infrastructure projects to create jobs and filter the money down." I'll go out on a limb & guess you weren't in the UK in the 1970s...

I wasn't but I'm assuming you were so would like to hear more about your viewpoints and experiences

Re: Canada bans most foreigners from buying homes

#590

Post by ams92 »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #219
plantain wrote: post #140

I really don't understand why governments around the globe just throw their hands in the air and pretend housing is an unsolvable problem for which they have no obligation to fix. It wasn't always like this - in 1922 in Australia we realised there was a shortage of 25,000 homes, so they just made it happen [1]. Why are we so impotent today? Do we just not care enough? Are the vested interests too powerful? [1] https:…

There seems to be a general lack of political will for big projects in the west. Looking at Asia now is like what the west used to be like. I am unsure about the cause but I suspect that a lot of it is that people seem a lot more worried about consultation with locals and such. In the past the government might just decide “we are building a highway here” or “we are building all this infrastructure for houses there” a…

It's NIMBYism. Most people in a state like California will agree that more affordable housing needs to be built, but no one wants it in their back yard.
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