351–360 of 417 posts
> The whistleblower, whom The Bureau is calling D.M., immigrated to Canada as an international student from India, making him a minority among mostly Chinese-Canadian co-workers at the Aurora branch. > “I am going to reveal potential mortgage fraud at HSBC Bank Canada and possibly some employees benefited from the fraud, financially pocketing thousands of dollars, which I call the proceeds of crime.” > FINTRAC’s stud…
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> Vacant homes are a problem for anyone who needs housing. But they pay taxes without demanding any services and the seller assessed they had better use of the capital, they could buy or build a more suitable home. If I lived in a location with 50% vacant homes all paying property taxes then wouldn’t my schools and streets and all local government services be extremely well funded?
> If I lived in a location with 50% vacant homes all paying property taxes then wouldn’t my schools and streets and all local government services be extremely well funded If the polity is smart, yes. It looks like British Columbia gets about 15% of its revenue from property taxes and transfers [1]. So you'd need adjustments to make up for the personal, corporate, sales, fuel, carbon, tobacco and insurance premium (?)…
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yes, remember it's capitalism doing this, not Chinese, Indian, Canadian or American. hail free market.
This is not an inherent feature of capitalism. This is a failure of the government to create a fair market. This is caused by people that are subverting the rules to out compete the people playing by the rules.
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Ahaha, the bubble popping. That'll be the day. All they're doing is increasing house prices for no reason. Houses are now just casino chips for rich people.
On the other hand if it doesn't pop, then it literally doesn't matter if the income documents were fake, as the bank has good collateral and giving the loan turned out not to be a mistake.
> The whistleblower, whom The Bureau is calling D.M., immigrated to Canada as an international student from India, making him a minority among mostly Chinese-Canadian co-workers at the Aurora branch. > “I am going to reveal potential mortgage fraud at HSBC Bank Canada and possibly some employees benefited from the fraud, financially pocketing thousands of dollars, which I call the proceeds of crime.” > FINTRAC’s stud…
Are US banks just a lot more strict about source of income than Canadian banks?
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> They accepted copies of my American credit history and bank statements, but had no real way to verify their truth I'm skeptical here, given how closely the US and Canada work together, both US and Canadian banks share an incredible amount of info with each other and not solely because of cross-border commerce. There is also a non-trivial number of US citizens living and working in Canada so there are services avail…
If you have information that contradicts what multiple banks have told me I would love to know it, since it would be very nice to have that information available to my Canadian bankers. In the 3 banks I've worked with in Canada, all were completely unable to access my American credit history. The governments do share tax data, but AFAIK the banks have no way to link "John Smith SSN:123-45-6789" to "John Smith SIN:098…
To maybe offer a different perspective: I think the Canadian mortgages linked to Chinese accounts will likely all be paid. What may be happening is that there is a lot of underground chinese financial activity that is not recorded in Canada and part of this 'network' is utilized to get money out of china.
> I think the Canadian mortgages linked to Chinese accounts will likely all be paid. This is a "heads, I win", "tails, you lose" type of scam. The mortgage holders are all judgement proof. They have no income or assets to go after. So if the housing market crashes, the banks have no recourse. It's the same as taking out a mortgage and instead of buying a house, you go to the casino and bet double or nothing. Sure, th…
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Ahaha, the bubble popping. That'll be the day. All they're doing is increasing house prices for no reason. Houses are now just casino chips for rich people.
On the other hand if it doesn't pop, then it literally doesn't matter if the income documents were fake, as the bank has good collateral and giving the loan turned out not to be a mistake.
The real people harmed were the Canadians trying to start a family who got outbid on the house.
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> if both the lender and borrower are willing participants Eventually this behavior goes overboard and everything crashes. In the meantime, law-abiding people are screwed by the bubble. Then they are made to pay for the clean up. Fraud is costly, and rationalizing it contributes to the problem.
> this behavior goes overboard and everything crashes Maybe... but you need to keep in mind most of these people are not really building a bubble. Unlike the subprime mortgage crisis, where things were built on inflated valuations, many borrowers in this "scheme" do have more than enough funds to cover the entire mortgage. It's just that their capital is relatively illiquid. This is also why the high interest rates h…
No, I'd don't need to keep anything of the sort in mind. I've lived through multiple real-estate and speculation bubbles and crashes now. The arguments you make are the same sort heard before each one, and I can easily anticipate the rationales and excuses that will be offered after the next one.
You don't know how widespread this is. You don't know how many other banks are leaning on this latest house of cards, or how much of this is going on in the US and Europe as well. As far as the banks are concerned it's just one big world of suckers and they play these games everywhere, simultaneously.
And there is no "should." Capital controls will tighten. Wars will happen. Eventually, inevitably, the overhang destabilizes and this heinous crap will blow up.
Again.