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TemporaryBoyfriend @ TemporaryBoyfriend @lemmy.ca
Posts
2
Comments
106
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • LEMMYS:

    Lame Eccentrics Mostly Making Yapping Sounds

    Local Ernest Morons Monologueing Yearningly Sometimes

    Lighthearted Edgy Magnificent & Marvellous Youths Swearing

    Lovable Ethically Mediocre Miscreants Yellowing Slowly

    I could go on, but it's getting late.

  • Heh. Mom moved to Alberta with her idiot boyfriend last year after I had enough of her COVID isn't real / those people were sick anyway / antivax shit. Good riddance.

    Especially tragic is that she has very rare (potentially suddenly fatal) health issues that were being well managed by specialists in the Toronto area -- there's no way in hell she's getting a similar level of care where she is.

  • I suspect this would crash the housing market immediately.

    1% annual tax on the total value of a property, increasing at 2x the rate of inflation, first for corporate owners & foreign individuals of residential properties, then individual owners of any residential property that's not their primary residence. The money raised goes directly to build affordable housing and first time home buyer rebates.

    This doesn't shock the system, and frees up homes over a period of time, rather than eviscerating demand after a particular date, and slowly releases homes into the market over the course of years, as individual properties fall into non-profitability.

    Someone PLEASE steal this idea.

  • The car charging argument is so stupid... Cars typically charge at night, when demand is usually lowest. If you need to charge when demand is high, you'll simply pay a higher price for power -- which will still be a fraction of what gas costs.

    When car-to-home smart grid solutions roll out, there will be even less of an issue -- the grid will feed into your car overnight to charge it up to 80-90%, then 'borrow' back 10-15% when it's most needed (5am-6am in the winters when it's coldest, 5pm-6pm in the summer when it's warmest). Add in solar roofs and in-home battery storage, and it smooths out the demand.

  • Housing is a provincial responsibility.

    The federal government can tax the fuck out of corporations and private individuals to take the profit motive out of speculating on real estate.

    An immediate 1% tax on the total value of any non-primary-residence property that goes up at 2x the rate of inflation every year would see a steady stream of corporations and private landlords liquidating their inventory of homes as each individual property crossed into non-profitability -- without causing a dramatic shock to the market. Housing cost increases have been going up for 20 years, fixing it in 5 to 10 should be seen as a huge win.

  • For most people, nothing. The amount owing is always less than the value of the home in Canada. The economic bubble in the US was caused by people mortgaging 100+% of the value of a house. You'd get people with marginal income financing 100%, plus borrowing an extra $50k or $100k to "make improvements". No wonder that went down in a ball of flames that almost toppled the US economy.

  • All levels of government should be offering this -- cities/municipalities should be offering loans that are repaid through property taxes. Provinces should be upgrading building codes to require them, and offering rebates paid for through fuel taxes. The federal government should be using the carbon tax to ensure their buildings are using the latest heat pump tech, and funding research to make them more efficient and reliable, and incentivising manufacturers to meet our domestic supply needs by building factories here.

  • If you're taking the Trans Canada up over Algonquin park, there's the site of Canada's first nuclear reaction, there's a turnoff that overlooks the site with an informational plaque. I've stopped there a few times on the way to visit family and friends in North Bay.

  • Imagine how much wind and solar and new Hydro you could install across the province for the 3-4 billion in refurb costs?

    There's so much that could be done with that money...

    • Tuition reimbursement for students in trades that benefit the green power industry.
    • Research and development for power storage - 'second life batteries', etc.
    • Rebates and incentives to have homes install solar / wind / battery.
    • Modernization / optimization projects like switching to heat pumps, variable speed pumps, etc.
    • Efficiency projects like offsetting the costs of improving insulation in existing homes - with new windows/doors/etc.
  • The numbers are still in favour of getting vaccinated. Complications from the vaccine are as close to zero as any medical procedure could be. The complications from raw-dogging COVID are far greater, regardless of your cohort. Turning a life-threatening infection into an inconvenience is what the vaccines do. If your concern is minimizing total risk, getting a COVID booster each year with your flu vaccine is the way to go.