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Taking Stock of Poverty in Southern BC
Canada Without Poverty tours province to unite advocacy groups, finds housing problems rampant.
Megan Yarema, program manager from Canada Without Poverty.
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Child Poverty Is Down. No, it's Up
What the numbers don't say.
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Poverty Built into BC's System
Two-year study looks at welfare policies' effects on people.
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Lift Kids Out of Poverty, Protect Their Brains
UBC researcher adds to growing data on physical cost of being young and poor.
Megan Yarema is the Vancouver-based program manager for Canada Without Poverty, a not-for-profit charitable organization that promotes social security and fair wages for all Canadians.
Earlier this summer Yarema joined Rob Rainer, CEO of Canada Without Poverty, on a trip across southern British Columbia in an attempt to get a bead on the challenges faced by poverty organizations in that piece of the province. Along the way they met with groups in Kelowna, Nanaimo, Vancouver, Victoria and Nelson.
In an interview with The Tyee, Yarema said she was struck by how rocketing housing prices in many places -- even for mobile homes -- have extinguished the idea that "I'll move to the country and I'll save money." She noted that B.C. has had both the highest child poverty rate for seven years running and a minimum wage frozen at $8 since 2001, yet it can be difficult to see the human face of those damaging numbers because the majority affected are people with jobs and homes whose earnings sag below the living wage.
She said the knowledge she gained from her travels reinforced her conviction that Parliament must pass Bill C-545, which aims to end poverty in Canada, as well as Bill C-304, which frames a long overdue housing strategy for Canada.
Here is what else Yarema had to say about poverty in B.C.:
On why rural living is less and less affordable:
"The whole notion of 'I'll move to the country and I'll save money' really doesn't apply anymore. There is nowhere for transient people to go. We passed through places with a population of 500 where housing prices were $300,000 to $400,000 for a trailer home.
"In Nelson, communities are running out of affordable housing, and much of what is there has rat and bedbug problems. The housing council doesn't know if this should be a bylaw issue or a provincial B.C. housing responsibility. Vacation homes are contributing to the rising price of land.
The perception of poverty to the wider public generally speaking is homelessness but what we are really seeing are the working poor. Currently the child poverty rate is 9.1 per cent and over 50 per cent of those children are in working families."
On who she and Rainer dropped in on:
"We met a broad spectrum of people and organizations, from union and non-union campaigners to local food programs. We met with the Nelson Coalition Against Homelessness, The Advocacy Centre, Together Against Poverty Society (TAPS), a social planner from Nanaimo, TRAC in Vancouver, The Bridge Services in Kelowna, as well as the Women's Resource Centre, The Friendship Centre, and several food banks. We also visited The Community Council of greater Victoria, PEERS, and the B.C. Federation of Labour."
On how her trip has changed her perspective of poverty in B.C.:
"It really showed me that the high price of housing is not exclusive to Vancouver and that health and poverty are linked. People in remote communities pay much more to get to and from the hospitals despite the fact that they pay the same health-care premiums.
"I recognize now that there is a lack of contact between the different levels of government and different groups. People need to know about what's going on in Parliament. Bill C-545, for example, a bill to eliminate ... poverty introduced recently by Tony Martin with guidance of other organizations like CWP, legislates that poverty will become a priority in Canada and that municipal levels of government will play an important role. Libby Davies, the Vancouver East MP introduced Bill C-304 in 2009, which lays out a National Housing Strategy.
"We are in the process of defining what adequate housing will be within a human rights framework. We need to keep talking and working on common goals where possible at all levels of government.
On why the numbers don't begin to add up for B.C.'s poor:
"The lack of affordable housing, low welfare rates and child poverty are major concerns. B.C. doesn't have a poverty reduction strategy. Groups are fighting to be heard but nobody is listening.
"We see many people who are paying 60 to 80 per cent of their income on rent. And if families are making just over $21,000 dollars, they aren't eligible for social assistance programs. The Canada Child Tax Benefit provides help as does the Universal Child Care Benefit for each child under six, which is about $100 per month, but child daycare costs are around $800 per month or more and rent might be another $800, so it's not much help, especially for a single parent. We are trying to get the Universal Child Care Benefit raised.
"Many of the organizations haven't collaborated [with] the macro level. So we are going to continue to provide the information they may have missed. We offer resource exchange, promotion and support. Another big issue is the barriers that welfare forms themselves create, and the problems people have with applying for programs."
On whether there are programs in place seeing positive results in alleviating poverty:
"The Child Poverty Report Card by First Call, and Living Wage for Families are both important initiatives.
"The living wage calculation looks at families of four with two kids under 10. It takes into account factors related to cost of living. They find out what a three-bedroom apartment costs on average and how much a family of this size needs for food, shoes, transportation and a very small amount for [college courses]. The living wage for families is $18.17/hour in Vancouver. It's gone up a dollar since the previous study, which means the cost of living has gone up.
"The living wage calculator allows employers to figure out if they are in fact living wage employers, by allowing them to factor in benefits and sick days. The Federation of Labour has also started a Raise the Minimum Wage Campaign."
On how she got into poverty advocacy:
"It came from my sense of justice and curiosity. It starts from incomprehension that poverty was still such a problem. Was it lack of resources, or information? I was drawn to the international issues first because it seemed so different from Canada, which I discovered wasn't really true. I was working internationally, in Swaziland, and I soon realized we have the same issues with First Nations in Canada, some of whom have no running water. I was looking at social justice, I was looking at human rights, and I found it was all connected. If you look at the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the right to housing is listed, to be able to feed and clothe oneself.
"These are fundamental human rights and I think people aren't able to exercise their rights to the full extent. Poverty costs Canada [millions] of dollars every year. The Ontario association of food banks publishes The Cost of Poverty, which breaks this down."
On one particularly inspiring woman she met in her travels:
"I met one woman named Chrystal Ocean from Duncan. She is turning 60... , and she has written a book about women living in poverty called Policies of Exclusion, Poverty and Health that brings together stories of women living in poverty and she has a blog about living in poverty.
"... She's on a housing list for a new home and right now has trouble pulling groceries in a wagon up the hill. She can't get disability because she's afraid of disability forms -- they are totally intimidating to her due to her mental illness. She couldn't get social assistance because she had over $500 dollars in her bank account."
On what recommendations she would make to the province about reducing poverty:
"The B.C. government should implement a poverty reduction or elimination strategy that encourages municipal bylaws to allow alternative structures for housing, such as housing built in backyards. Another group fighting for this is the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition, who have been pushing the government to get on board." ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
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- Tsunami senors to be dropped into deep sea off of Vancouver Island
- Student groups file court challenge against Quebec protest law
- ...while on the streets, pirates and ninjas put aside mutual animosity to join student protests
24
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Jerry Munro
1 year ago
Charity and Revolution I...
"The whole notion of 'I'll move to the country and I'll save money' really doesn't apply anymore. There is nowhere for transient people to go. We passed through places with a population of 500 where housing prices were $300,000 to $400,000 for a trailer home. "
While I am, knowing very well the real taste of poverty, deeply suspicious of "charitable groups", especially organized by "outsider" do-gooders, this young lady at least has this issue of "moving to the country" nailed pretty good.
I'm here to tell ya folks, as one who has done the journey both ways more than once in his life, along with an old lady and a passel of kids, it's way cheaper and easier, frankly, living in the city, especially if you are poor. For more reasons than I really want to get into here. (So I'll limit myself. :-) Indeed "the big city", Vancouver specifically, has saved my ass in deep doo-doo twice.
(There's more power to be gotten in great numbers, and those are found at higher concentrations in The City.)
But outside of all the housing availability and other day to day "living" reasons, capitalist so-called "free markets" seek out large concentrations of cheap labour AND consumers like flies seek out big piles of shit in a barnyard. (Both being essentially the same folks. The worker is also the consumer.)
And that's the Mega City folks, not small town. To the degree that jobs actually exist, especially in bad times, in a "resource extraction and export" based economy such as this colony of Canada, you are again talking Mega City or near to it.
I'm back in the country, at least small town, as a choice which I have always preferred, being a bugger for punishment, but this time with a good Union pension underpinning my economics, both me and the old lady earned in the city. (Though the fucking criminal system is nibbling away at its benefits, no doubt.)
But back to outsider, do gooder charities. I know that so long as "the poor" and "unemployed" especially, and the "working poor" are unorganized and unable to defend themselves, "charities" where basically the working class looks after and finances its own, with maybe a do gooder rich "philanthropist" or two thrown in to take the glory, is "the system's" preferred option. But far better folks it would be, if the poor were assisted, by labour or such, to begin to organize itself independently of the do gooders and "the system".
Continued next post...
Jerry Munro
1 year ago
Charity and Revolution II...
Continuing from previous post...
It'll take a whole new "revolutionary ideology" rooting itself amongst these folks though, and maybe some folks helping them with it. 'Cause in the world that is taking shape here in late Capitalism, in a socio-economic situation that is the worst I have ever seen already, they are going to have to be prepared to first, look after and network with each other AND, raise more than a little Hell.
The Social Democratic State, and the party that basically drove it, most of the time from "outside" actual governance, but also including Anarchist, Communist and other "Left groupings" as not unimportant elements, are all basically dead or currently anaemic and weak. Even the old idealism of the old CCF has morphed into something more "respectable" and "Liberal", than ready to lead the charge of impoverished and increasingly pressed working masses. All they really want is your vote. "Vote for us, then go home and shut up. Leave it to us vanguardists in the parliament/legislature".
So whilst this lady and her charity are interesting and maybe even marginally useful, and you should "use" them, better you rely on and empower yourselves. Organize and build the revolution, brick by brick.
My view.
jim1966
1 year ago
coyoteman
You said a mouthful and I agree with your points. I too think that given the chance and the right party many lower income Candians could be a major political force in this country, especially at the ballot box. I also still like the general idea that if you are healthy and able to work a person should make every effort to do so and support his/herself. The problems are mega sized but the right wing agenda, ie: the state does less and you Mr or Ms J Citizen can take care of yourself. Good idea but not very realistic. Governments will eventually have to fix our social programs why?, a lot of baby boomers are now using their savings to pay off debt etc. And the costs of living have increased since that generation entered the work force. A lot of boomers are going to need social assistance and the like. Future generations may not need or require help but until we as a society vote for change we will most likely see the same old, same old lines regarding poverty issues. I don't think it's a left vs right issue at all, in fact quite the opposite it's about every person living in our region. Every program we have needs review or an overahaul. Yes it might cost us all more but wouldn't it be worth it?. Even if you do not agree with my last point, governments will take money from us regardless (just look at the BC Liberals for an example)
dorothy
1 year ago
In the midst of all this -
what can we do with the insane notion that we must, at all costs, import massive nunbers of people every year? There seems to be a unanimous stand on that by all political parties. Are they so pathetically self-serving that they will wreck the country to garner some votes for them selves? Or what is it I am not understanding??
CanadianLatitude
1 year ago
A very interesting read.
A very interesting read. There were things I knew like the highest child poverty rate in Canada and lowest min wage that has been frozen 9 years (and probably for another 7 until we get a change in government hopefully) but the high cost of housing in rural BC, even for mobile homes sort of surprised me.
I doubt anything will change under Campbell and Harper unless it is for big corps.
But with so many spending so much on rent, housing, daycare etc while working in the new economy, ie low paid tourism/service McJobs something should snap eventually and maybe people will wake up and vote or.....
Dahlia
1 year ago
Housing and poverty
A few items might bring this into perspective:
In 1973 I could buy a 2 bedroom bungalow in Calgary with one year's salary as a Park planner with Parks Canada. ($20,000).
I'm now retired in the Shuswap country. In the mid 70's when we started coming here, you could buy a waterfront lot for $10,000. Just recently I visited a waterfront shack on the market for $870,000.
What this illustrates to me is a huge drop in the standard of living. Either wages have not kept up, or the price of real estate has galloped out of all proportion to the incomes of most people. I believe the average house in Vancouver now is half a million dollars.
We lived in a home in a "working class neighbourhood" of West Vancouver, that was first built in the mid 60's and sold for $16,000. Same house now assessed at over $900,000. (Over $5,000/year in taxes). Could there be any park planners who make $900,000 a year?
What will happen when the majority of working people can't afford to live in Vancouver? Or for that matter in the Lower Mainland, or anywhere in BC?
Friends, the Middle Class has disappeared, no matter what we woud like to believe. Social instability will inevitably follow, probably kept down by police and more people in jails.
This is an unacceptable prospect. Any ideas how to resolve it?
zalm
1 year ago
Dahlia
..and Dorothy too.
Good question. One answer: tax the shit out of capital gains on property.
(Plugs ears for firestorm to follow)
It won't fix everything, but it will begin to move us down the right road while we figure out what the best solution is.
dorothy
1 year ago
No exception?
"..tax the shit out of capital gains on property."
Would that include the family home that was bought when people were young(ish) and then paid off over the years at twice the purchase amount, as well as increasing property value meaning that the shit got taxed out of you every damn year, while you well knew you would never realize the assessment sum if you sold the shack?
Because I don't think it would be fair. You must be talking of those who run the train these people are being dragged under willy-nilly, by property-flipping? Please say yes.
The best 'solution' is that we understand the big picture. That would mean that we buy cheese and shoes from our neighbour at twice the price instead of importing it from China, where it is made on the backs of people living at the limit of starvation, Or else the exchange rate is insane. Either way, we should keep it in our own village and quit penny-pinching on daily necessities in order to go 'abroad' for every single holiday as most middle-class people do. What is wrong with our own province? nothing. I will never finish exploring it in my lifetime. But people will rather go somewhere and be little kings and queens on the backs again of other poor people. We live in a highly perverse way, and those who pay the price are our own 'workforce buffer'. Tax money disappear into a black hole, the dollars you lay at a farmer's market and the tailor round the corner will really help the economy. It is another aspect of Coyote's quiet stubborn brick-by-brick revolution. Screw Cancun.
Luck
1 year ago
power to the people and
ANOTHER GREAT ARTICLE BY THE TYEE. ISN'T FREEDOM OF SPEECH GREAT.
SOME COUNTRIES DO NOT HAVE IT, SO YOU ALL COME TO CANADA NOW.
IN CANADA, THE POOR OUT NUMBER THE RICH.
SO THE POOR CAN PUT THEIR PENNIES TOGETHER AND CREATE A POLITICAL MACHINE THAT WILL WIN AN ELECTION.
THE COUNT IN EARLY 2000 WAS 5,000 HOMELESS PEOPLE IT IS NOW 20,000 PEOPLE PLUS ACROSS CANADA.
WE QUALIFY FOR THIRD WORLD STATUS. YIPPEE
WE ARE EXPERIENCING WW 3 RIGHT NOW AND FEW PEOPLE REALIZE IT.
THE CNADAIAN ARMY IS MOBILIZING. FOR WHAT??
WE NEED THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS OR WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE.
THE POOR IN THE STREETS ARE NOT GETTING KILLED OFF YET LIKE IN OTHER COUNTRIES.
PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF THE VOTE.
IF THE GOV. DECIDED TO HOLD YOU BACK FROM THE POLLS THEN YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND.
WE THINKK WE HAVE IT TOO TOO GOOD AND THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
IT IS SLIPPING AWAY AS WE SPEAK.
morechatter
1 year ago
Is suicide the cure for the homeless
An employee from a foreign country totally broke down into tears crying he wished he was dead. The employer took him aside to find out he has been living on the streets and then coming to work and the poor guy just couldn't take it anymore. It was fortunate in this instance as fellow now has a place to stay as someone knew of a place for him to stay.
Jerry Munro
1 year ago
Deflating false hopes...
I, again I know, :-) have a somewhat different perspective on "the solution", short of revolution, though it has its problems too, and an eventual return to where we are. if we are determined to allow for the continued existence of the status quo.
I know it is presented as a Doom's Day scenario by "the business interest", who have been hoping that if we all accept the "race to the bottom" in wages and the conditions of our lives, that the economic clock of capitalism will miraculously somehow reset itself. Favourable conditions for renewed growth will somehow, again be created out of our impoverishment.
It isn't gong to happen though, in my read of the tea leaves, which is no more equivocated than the Bank of Canada's read of the economy in its report this morning. And it isn't going to happen because contrary to the way "business" separates the "free market" into two different people, the worker and the consumer, they are in actuality, in the final analysis... the same goddamn person. They are one.
And if "the workers'" incomes are in decline, guess what? So is "the consumers" capacity to buy us out of this downturn... at least not short of hugely adding to his/her already over-indebtedness.
The solution? From a working class/consumer perspective?
Hope for it, as I am. Pray for it.
DEFLATION!
If you are not going to allow for an increase in the wages of the working class, ergo an increase in the purchasing power of the consumer... there is only one other option to bringing wages and prices again back into some kind of sympatico-synch. Again my friends, deflation. Only this will now truly reset the economic clock of capitalism. And the pressure is on for precisely this to happen.
The ruling "business" class is fighting it like hell, of course. Having a limited "sale" is one thing, allowing prices to find their natural bottom however... quite another. Which is why housing prices, for example, still remain high in this impossible situation. But it is in the cards if all this goes on much longer. As I predict it will, or is of greatest likelihood at this point.
Deflation across the entire "free market" is coming. It's a bad thing from a ruling class perspective of course, whose past costs and future profits are tied to ongoing high prices... but don't be fooled. It's the best goddamn thing that could happen to the rest of us, our wages as workers and purchasing power as consumers. That is, iff you are going to allow capitalism to go on, at least to the next economic collapse round. (And there will be another round, out there in time.)
zalm
1 year ago
dorothy
Yes. Everyone. We're all property flippers of one kind or another. nothing wrong with the tenor of your thoughts, but that's all small potatos compared to the penury involved in mortgaging your future so that your wife must go back to work to help you afford the latest mortgage on your place...
It's a market thing.
marlonbrando
1 year ago
Poverty
Canadians do not know what poverty is. Canadians have a social safety net, that while not great, means that honest (drug free) Canadians can live.
Try going to the garbage dumps of Managua...that is poverty.
You can still homestead in BC...
dorothy
1 year ago
but what are they dumping?
"Try going to the garbage dumps of Managua...that is poverty."
Good thing we don't have to go dumpster-diving here! I have been told by a friend who did so years ago, that some food outlets, such as greengrocers, would put their distress merchandise in the dumpster right enough, but then make sure to diry it up good with rancid oil or floor sweepings or the like, rather than leaving it in a mildly edible form for those who could afford no better. So yes, we may not be poor in the material sense, but there are some people out there who are extremely poor in other ways.
dorothy
1 year ago
Zalm
"It's a market thing."
So, do I get this right: You believe that if the capital gains tax makes it unprofitable to buy and sell property, that will - what? Why should the tax not simply be incorporated into the inflated prices ,so as to inflate them even higher? The other side of that equation is that those inflated prices still get paid by some people. Why they can/will pay them, and how they manage to do it is a whole chapter in itself, but you see whole neighborhoods in the States, which have simply been abandoned, and they're not being made available to homeless people. I just don't see that taxing will help any, as long as 'the market' doesn't react in a logical manner. I guess the bottom line is that people will live here more or less at any cost, and those who just naturally, well ,live here, can only do the best with the crazy run on the place.
I don't understand the point about 'mortgaging your future'. How will capital gains tax help with that? Is not capital gain the feature that finally balances it out a bit, if you do end up selling a house you've had for many years and struggled to pay down? When my hubby and I bought a house decades ago, the reason was very simple: we were facing a rent hike that put our payments on a par with what you could service a mortgage for. Since then, renting has not become relatively cheaper.
mary jane
1 year ago
marlonbrando we have thousands of homeless in BC
BC has thousands of homeless people. The homeless eat out of dumpsters to survive. It rarely gets the coverage the big 2 week party does /did. The homeless, very poor, under employed or 25% of hungry kids just don;t get noticed. Since gordo + gang destroyed our social safety net poverty is the shame of BC. Poverty is in every community and although many people have left the province to avoid the childish attitude of fiberals we still have a huge problem. A very left wing party might get things back to the 60s or 70s.
With our Corporate welfare system and sulky rich people + politicians wasting tax dollars like it was their own money. Ida Chongs food allowance is / was as much a single employable person on welfare would get to live on for a whole year, Its like daring some one to actually survive and be healthy enough to work Boy do we need someone who understands going hungry running nc
zalm
1 year ago
dorothy
Why should the tax not simply be incorporated into the inflated prices ,so as to inflate them even higher?
Oh, some will try. But do you have any more money to put into your mortgage? Does anyone, besides bankers, I mean?
No, slapping a capital gains tax on housing will cause the value to go down by the said amount. Of course, this should be carefully applied, but it should be done soon, or the people who made the huge gains (boomers) will get away with the scam without paying the piper. Their parents (my folks) already got away with it, and are spending their vast fortunes in strange places. So bring it in now, and don't graduate it in over any more than ten years.
See, you paid so horrendously much for your house because we were told that we could grow our economy by buying more shit. Credit was eased, not only for individuals (including women - remember those days?), but for corporations and governments too, and we got the money supply spinning around from pocket to pocket in the way WACky Bennett recommended so many decades ago that we all really thought we were getting rich. In the 1970s the two-income family became the norm and we earned even more - check StatsCan. So we started to pay more for housing, which made the price go up, even as the quality went down. Now, our assessed value here in Vancouver is 90% land and 10% house, which is patently ridiculous, as the land has no real value - you can't depreciate it, take it away, or do anything else with it other than site your house on it.
But that's not what the bank thinks and they're happy to lend you enough money to say so as long as you keep paying them back their profits.
In a lot of ways, Fiat Lux says it better than I do, once you get past the rant.
And that's an interesting comment on your rental situation. Historically, rents averaged 6% of real costs of purchase. When our property market went up, that ratio went out the window, and rents started to rise above the historic value too, because what was true for property owners was also assumed to be true for renters - you have more money, so the landlord wants more of it. Therefore, your rent went up and skewed the market for it. And builders stopped building rental housing.
It's market thing.
Historically, too, property for the last 120 years has been priced at about 4 times the annual average industrial wage. Here in Vancouver it's more than 14 times. Don't you think we're in a bubble? Along with the rest of the world?
There's no painless way out of this. Right now the poorest among us are paying for our sins with their lives - they're homeless, eat poorly, and have less fulfilling lives than even they imagined they would ever have.
And all we can do is bitch about how our property taxes are too high.
Ramone
1 year ago
I wonder...
...if the fine folks at Canada Without Poverty are making a good living with their non-profit charity?
Privileged, middle-class, university educated people touring the province talking about poverty. Maybe I'm feeling particularly cynical today but the whole thing seems a pretty useless endeavour to me. But, hey, maybe their charity can make a few extra bucks...
I did a quick scan of their website...the "get involved" section features, wait for it, a donation form. Nothing about volunteering or "getting involved" in other ways...just send em' cash.
Oh, and what's the deal with "child poverty"? Are the parents of these children not also living in poverty?
It seems to me a middle-class thing...it's okay to feel sorry for the poor children while at the same time their parents and childless adults are less "deserving" of sympathy because their poverty is due to laziness or a flaw in character.
Jerry Munro
1 year ago
Cynical Ramone?
"It seems to me a middle-class thing...it's okay to feel sorry for the poor children while at the same time their parents and childless adults are less "deserving" of sympathy because their poverty is due to laziness or a flaw in character." writes Ramone.
I don't think you are cynicanl at all. Or, if your are, I share it. Middle class/upper class do-gooders, I suppose, are preferable to conscious evil-doers, but sometimes its a pretty damned thin line. And it always shows up in the turn of a phrase, as you pointed out so well.
Take care, brother.
RickW
1 year ago
'I'll move to the country and I'll save money'
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=769215
British Columbia no longer provides land for homesteading. Crown land is available for sale or lease at fair market value for specific purposes. Where land is readily available through the real estate market, it will not be supplied from the Crown land base, which is already needed for many competing uses
http://srmwww.gov.bc.ca/clrs/faq/index.html
RickW
1 year ago
dorothy
With the greatest respect to Coyoteman (There's more power to be gotten in great numbers, and those are found at higher concentrations in The City) the easiest way to control the general population is to herd them into cities. Immigrants are "encouraged" to migrate to the cities, and not to small towns or the countryside in general. And while most governments do not much care about the anarchy potential within a city, they are "content" to "bottle up" a city (much in the manner of a concentration camp) and leave the denizens to fend for themselves.
This is (of course) a very broad generalization - but it's really all about control. For what reason, I really don't know - other than control for control's sake. No point I suppose, in being rich if you can't boss someone around.........
dorothy
1 year ago
Are you f#@?**^ serious?
"the land has no real value - you can't depreciate it, take it away, or do anything else with it other than site your house on it."
You can SURVIVE on it. If it all falls apart and your house and land plummets to almost no value, you still have your house and land. You can stick a spade in the ground and wring FOOD out of it. Are you not aware that this is the driving force behind people's obsession with turf everywhere on the globe??
dorothy
1 year ago
And there you have it
"No point I suppose, in being rich if you can't boss someone around........."
So the people with the big stick insist on a army of serfs, whatever they have to do in order to get it, is that it? We won't deliver the numbers, so they import them, insisting that people must stay a cheap commodity. Good to get that cleared up. I wonder if the people who flock in front of our embassies everywhere are aware of this thinking? For a few years after, you hear them not being satisfied with less-than-minimum-wage hotel scrubbing jobs. Were they not aware of the contract somehow? Where is the disconnect?
RickW
1 year ago
The "disconnect".....
....is that we still have it good, relative to the rest of the world. But several governments and institutions here are working on that.