I'm peeved

I confess I am really angry that I have to leave the city I was born and raised in (where my parents and grandparents grew up) because I can no longer afford to live here. Why is it that we are working more and more but can afford less and less.

7 Comments

Post a Comment

Beth

Jul 19, 2011 at 8:58am

I hear you and feel for you. Our lovely Vancouver is getting out of control. Best of luck to you, and I hope you can come back in the near future, where you belong and where your heart and roots are.
Beth

0 0Rating: 0

Standing Water

Jul 19, 2011 at 9:15am

Several reasons:

(I) No control on foreign acquisition of land title
(II) No control on immigration into British Columbia/Vancouver (thanx Confederation)
(III) Prohibition of drugs, which prevents the integration of a _huge_ economic sector into the above-board economy.
(IV) Corporatism (University-degree-holder favoritism)

Let's presume (IV) applies to you, you don't have a degree, or you only have an undergrad degree, not some graduate degree enabling you to secure a fantastic income. Because drugs are prohibited, there are no alternative employments---drug prohibition not only squelches the drug industry, but it squelches the creation of new forms of art, culture and employment---think we'd have the sort of music shows we have today if there had never been drugs? Probably not.

No control on immigration means you are competing, unlike your parents, with basically everyone in the world who can afford an airplane ticket/boat ticket and their dogs. Prior to new wave unbridled immigration (many contemporary immigrants would have been inadmissible historically due to their inassimilability) your parents and grandparents did have to compete, but it was more of a friendly sort of competition---you know, like a touch football game.

Welcome to full contact football, no padding, bulky ecofascist europeans/asians/africans whacking you into the mud because, hey, you had your chance, you failed! If you had _really tried_ you would be OK.

And that leads us to (I), no control on foreign acquisition of land title, which might as well be writ larger as "general abnegation of fiduciary responsibility by our parents and grandparents." We have been sold down the river. BC has plenty of land, plenty of natural resources, but thanks to bad monetary/land title policy, almost none of it is enjoyed by the natives.

To answer your question, "Why is it that we are working more and more but can afford less and less," this is by design. This way, you will be better controlled, have no free energy to look into the above-mentioned issues, etc. etc. You will tread water just to stay alive, and you will use so much energy doing it, that you will not have time to look around to see that there is shore, not even that far away--- it has simply been sold off to foreign nationals and corporations.

0 0Rating: 0

Justin

Jul 19, 2011 at 9:22am

Inflation. The anti-wage.
As wages have remained relatively flat over the past 20-30 years, and the cost of living has skyrocketed, our relative wealth has been diminished into debt. And cheap electronics...

Some guy named Bob

Jul 19, 2011 at 12:46pm

It is true and hardly any sort of secret that the structure of our economy has been changing over the last several decades. Focusing on where these changes may have come from is sort of missing the point, in my opinion. We need to look closely at the changes themselves and ask if they’re really necessary – do they do anything for society as a whole? Or do they serve just one specific and tiny segment of the population?

And then, if we find that these changes are not in the interest of the majority, we should do something about them. To most of us that looks like a pretty daunting task but it is important to remember that power, ownership and everything that goes along with them are simply ideas. They are no more concrete than any other idea. They have strength, quite literally, only because we believe in them.

Change your mind and it starts to change the world.

Of course, that’s just my opinion and it does absolutely nothing to help your immediate situation. Sorry. If it helps any, I’m pissed off about things too.

Good luck, dude.

0 0Rating: 0

JessicaColby

Jul 19, 2011 at 1:50pm

Simple... look across the pond towards the land of smog, mahjong and cooked cat...
Enough said. It was Expo 86 that did this.. then the Olympics 25 years after...

0 0Rating: 0

Amanda

Jul 20, 2011 at 11:52am

Speculators who do not live here are making it impossible for those who do. Peter Ladner - "If our prices are being driven up by people who are simply investing in our community and not living here, there are a whole lot of problems that result."

0 0Rating: 0

rf

Aug 1, 2011 at 6:32am

I'll never understand how our society gets so out of joint about jobs being shipped offshore to lower cost economic regions.....but we don't seem to give a damn about selling out the land under our feet to the highest bidder.
If someone chases up the price of housing with a briefcase of cash from Shanghai...........then moves here.....but never pays income taxes here.........and then becomes a resident and enjoys the health and education system........then brings over their parents and children to do the same......what's in it for us? The pleasure of picking up the tab for the non-tax paying wealthy?
Sometimes I think the biggest chumps in this city are the ones making $250,000/year and paying the standard $100,000/year in taxes.

5 5Rating: 0

Join the Discussion

What's your name?