Income inequality has long been much less extreme in Canada than in America.

And getting worse

But of course every wingnut knows wages can't be a zero sum game. I mean, that would imply that the money must be going somewhere else...

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it" ~Sinclair

I trust you mean that income inequality has been getting worse in America, rather than Canada. That would certainly be true.

"Big drug trafficking place"? You mean all that pot? If that was what was propping up Vancouver home prices, I would expect similar run-ups in home prices in northern California and southern Oregon.

I don't think it's just pot. I remember hearing stories about the Indian community (mostly Punjabis) there and how half the trucking industry was just about transporting drugs - mostly cocaine - to the US. Also pot is pretty much legal in Vancouver no? (I mean rarely are people prosecuted for use).

Sort of "legal", maybe comparable to it being called "legal" in Alaska given its Supreme Court's decisions on privacy rights. Treaties prevent Canadian provincial governments (and countries like Costa Rica that have made noises about outright legalisation) from actually "legalising" most currently proscribed intoxicants. But I never worried much about criminal prosecution even when it was taken more seriously, and possible fines were never any real deterrent anyway. (I've lost more money on deals gone bad than I've ever paid to courts or lawyers on account of my behaviour.)

But as for huge cocaine trafficking into America, you should probably worry more about your southern BC (Baja California) than your northern BC. It doesn't make much economic sense to transport supplies thousands of kilometres more than necessary to get them to market.

I had it backwards. You're right the pot goes South and coke and guns go North.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8505061.stm

Maybe then it's Vancouver supplying the rest of Canada.

So you're basically saying that land is worth more than the house on it. And that's reasonable, but some of the examples from TJB's link are way out of wack.

Questioning why shit real estate is incredibly high is not jealousy - it's curiosity, caution, and skepticism.  

In all candour, I should acknowledge that there appears to be some irrationality in Vancouver's, and Canada's, real estate markets. I wasn't suggesting, or at least shouldn't have been suggesting, that tjb didn't have any points to make here, or that his questions and his alarms could be safely ignored.

I just don't think Canadian real estate will crash soon, any more than Australian real estate has crashed since America's financial crisis began in 2007. And I don't consider crashes in real estate inevitable, even if corrections must take place from time to time.  

most Canadian mortgages weren't much like America's "lie-to-us" mortgages.

ORLY?

"So not only does Canada offer no-money-down deals, but also liar loans, interest-only mortgages, payment-skipping and 125% financing."

The fact that these are all ARMs is particularly scary - if interest rates go up, foreclosures will skyrocket.  The full-recourse aspect of Canadian mortgage law might help the banks to some degree, but will absolutely put the screws to people who are stuck with a mortgage they cannot afford.

Interest rates don't even have to go up.  ARMs are generally written so that rates skyrocket at the end of term, even when the reference interest rate is zero, and pretty much all of them are referenced to LIEBOR, which if it returns to the unmanipulated rate will be much higher, because it includes bank default risk.  You didn't even remark on the bubble payment loans.  The upshot is, that even for those borrowers who can afford to pay their current loans, even if rates don't rise, a large fraction of them will be forced to default because their loans terms end and they are no longer considered creditworthy due to maximum term reduction, valuation reduction eating into net capital, and eventually, down payment increases.

Unlike Spain in particular, Canada at least has relatively liberal personal bankruptcy laws.

While I agree with you that Canada in a real estate bubble, I don't think it is in more of a bubble than a lot of other countries, notably the UK, Australia, and, especially, China.  Even in countries which have had their real estate bubbles pop, there is a lot of housing book pricing manipulation, especially in the US and Spain.

or the other half of Hancock Park ;-)

I HAD HAD SEX WITH HUNTER S THOMPSON. HE CAME IN MY MOUTH AND I SWALLOWED IT. I SHOULD HAVE HAD HIS BABY. WE WOULD BE BALLIN' LIKE KOBE'S SON!!