226 karma · joined September 28, 2019
Even small towns are well >$600k for rundown detached houses here.
There's multiple considerations. For example. If you need access to quality healthcare for certain conditions, you'll need be limited in cities you can reside in/near.
His books are more relevant today, as the state is re-establishing its authority to define "friend" and "enemy". "Good" and "evil".
Tolerating the "other" side's views is no longer acceptable.
The state is re-establishing its authority (and monopoly?) to determine public "friend" and "enemy".
I make 220k and can't afford a house without taking massive amounts of debt.
The middle class is dead in the majority of Canada. Labor is being devalued exceedingly fast. There's little reward in working hard.
What work really gives you is the ability to purchase stocks, crypto and potentially receive newly minted currency from a bank in the form of a real estate loan.
You have to take a seat at the gambling table.
All this reminds me of the upcoming bourgeoisie that purchased up the land of France using the fiat currency the assignat. At auction.
Our fiat currency, similar to the assignat, is given value by the auctioning of real estate (or other assets) to the wealthy, so they can feel they have a means to escape inflation. To be paid in hard assets for imaginary numbers.
At the same time. During the revolution, the French monarchy was attempting to reclaim its sovereignty away from the nobility and other ruling interests. Though, it failed and new interests took power.
The Canadian government seems to be pushing towards firm collectivism based on its sole authority. Even the state funded media functions more as a public relations entity, than journalism.
I feel like Canada is at a crossroads. The current system, while seemly robust, is unsustainable and becoming unstable.
Even if you're making $300k. After taxes, your disposable income is still 5 - 6 years away from purchasing a home in cash in many cities.
We're using debt to fuel the economy, which is dangerous.
Particularly, because the employer is going to expect >$100k in value from the employee to make up for the raise and the employee barely receives half.
The middle class is being destroyed through taxes and inflation, while wealthy asset holders see their assets outpace inflation while taxed at much lower rates.
"Ontario now recommending against Moderna vaccine for men 18-24 years old" https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/ontario-now-recommend...
> This comes after public health officials determined there is a 1 in 5,000 risk of myocarditis — a form of heart inflammation — following a second dose of the Moderna vaccine.
Take a quick look at house prices in Ontario. The list prices are understated and they're still too high. Add 20 - 30% for the sale price depending on the city. I've seen houses sell for 150% over the list price. Moving 100 miles from the city centers still isn't affordable. Not even factoring in heating, gas and electricity costs.
I could move to Alberta... but it actually doesn't make much financial sense either. Buying a house doesn't make sense when your government needs to raise taxes in the future, because it's incapable of funding its social services and promises to an aging population.
Ignoring the USA, which I don't want to live in. In the middle east I'd have a 0% income, capital gains and a lower corporate tax rate.
Most of my relatives have Range Rovers and five story >4000 sqft houses. Healthcare is actually really good now. The highways are amazing. I fit into the culture there.
Yes. There's poverty. Yes. There are poor people. Yes. I'd be rich there.
But you know what's immoral. Letting asset holders accure all the wealth, have low to no taxes, while taxing the people that work to build your nation. Upwards of 63%. Taxing the middle class to its extinction.
I can't fix the middle east from here. Me moving to a wealthy country doesn't fix that. It'd be better for the country if I moved back.
The hard part is finding an income there.
https://palladiummag.com/2019/09/19/how-not-to-build-a-count...
There's a great book on this topic by Michael Hudson called "Killing the Host"
Live in Canada making $200k. After taxes and pension that's $123k, because I'm self employed.
After living expenses I have 90k left.
To buy a house without a loan (religiously I don't do loans with interest.)
That's 1.2M for a bungalow (that I don't even want for 400k.)
1.2M / 90k is 13 times my annual savings rate.
Not to mention lack of infrastructure, the mathematical impossibility of the economic system and a Healthcare system that cannot withstand the demographic pressure incoming. There's serious risk and uncertainty for debt ridden Canada. I don't care what anyone says. The future looks unreliable for this country.
Living standards have depreciated sustaintally. My income has tripled, but real estate purchasing power is a third of what it was 10 years ago.
I want to move back to the middle east, but people think I'm crazy. I think they're crazy.
TLDR; most in Canada became rich based on debt + assets, not labor, they prefer the status quo. The parasite is killing the host.
My issues aren't with the internet, but advancements made with social media.
The addictive nature of many platforms. The hivemind and lack of free thought I've noticed in many avenues of the internet.
Having upvotes vs downvotes or likes vs dislikes encourages conformity. It encourages group think.
This group think is ultimately what's driving me off the larger platforms on the internet and away from social media in general.
Doesn't matter. Britain does not have better economic mobility for the middle class. This article offers nothing of substance.
Wages have diverged further from assets (namely real estate) in the UK than in the US.
Tuitions have been going up. The quality of the healthcare system has declined.
In fact it could be argued Britain is less meritocratic, because the system holds back the working class and wage earners far more than the United States. You're taxed at excessive levels, while real estate is extraordinarily expensive.
The economic systems are the same. Just as the rest of the world you're rewarded for the assets you hold. Not the "work" you do.
For many years house prices in London increased faster than the median salary.
You made more holding real estate than working.
The United States need to fix its healthcare system immediately. It's too far drawn out and a major strain the entire economy. Then it needs to invest in infrastructure. Then reorganize its institutions, the judicial system, etc.
The amount of defects and other miscellaneous issues I've encountered, along with numerous productivity losses moving from Windows and Linux. Makes no sense. My computer needs to function as a productivity machine. I don't have time for it.
Next laptop(s) are going to be ThinkPads. Because I can buy two for the price of a macbook. We program for Linux servers anyway.
Particularly Canada. Government policy has destroyed Northern Ontario. Everyone is crowding into Southern Ontario.
The defining trait of modern Canada is doing less with more. This country has given up on building infrastructure. It's given up improving.
> The word hypernormalisation was coined by Alexei Yurchak, a professor of anthropology who was born in Leningrad and later went to teach in the United States. He introduced the word in his book Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (2006), which describes paradoxes of Soviet life during the 1970s and 1980s.[3][4] He says that everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, but no one could imagine an alternative to the status quo, and politicians and citizens alike were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society.[5] Over time, this delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy and the fakeness was accepted by everyone as real, an effect that Yurchak termed hypernormalisation.[6]