RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:PackerI hear ya, Dart....So are you in favour of raising the minimum wage??? to 25 bucks an hour??? Or maybe laws regulating the profits of large corporations??? Price controls? Big increases in capital gains taxes would lower demand/prices of houses...Do you own a house (rental or not) or non-registered investments???? Nothing is that simple, eh?
I think time... and markets reverting back to the mean will fix just about everything. They have in the past.
In 1981 realtors told buyers they were going to be the last generation to own houses... only if they bought RIGHT NOW at exorbitant prices....a year later that same market was down 40-50%.
The internet tells me the average wage in Canada in 1997 was 15.88...today it's 36.73.
I don't share your worries...the smart ones will figure it out, make the right moves. Just about every generation has its challenges. Right now this one's got low unemployment, low interest rates (a 5% mortgage is LOW where I come from) and inflation is back down. That's pretty good conditions considering other periods that I can remember. They'll be fine.
I grew up in a family of 6 living in a 1600 square foot house with one bathroom...and we were upper middle class!!! The only thing that made it bearable is the kids were shipped to boarding school come high school....LOL....My point is expectations have changed drastically over time. Regards, P
dart321 wrote: Packer I am not directing my comments about the large oil sands companies.Ya see I worked in the oil patch ( oil sands ) for over 40 years, I worked on the construction of MCC ( suncor ), Phase 1 and 2 at scotford ( shell ) in edmonton, UE1 ( Syncrude ), Fort hills ( ESSO ), Petro Can edmonton ( suncor ) and when there where no project being built I worked matenance at suncor base plant or at syncrude base plant so you see I know what they pay. I am a retired union man with a very nice union pention. I am talking about the retail companies like walmart the number of oil patch workers is tiny compared to the labour force in the rest of canada and the pay they get. Most are paid minimum wage and how can you raise a family on minimum wage even if both parents are working. How can you aford the massive rent increases and still put food on the table, you cann't and it's going to force more and more families out onto the streets while corps built these apt buildings and ask huge rents and give their execs huge bonuses, as dirty foreign money keeps pouring in to the country and buys up single family houses, as dark money buys through shady realestate companies or illigal pot money buys housing at any price which forces the price of houses into the stratosphere and the gov sits back and does nothing about it because a few developers are filling their pockets with donations. Things have to change and fast or it's all going to blow up in their faces. In my opinion we are at that breaking point and the average person has had enough of this greed.