What is the real cost of dry weather? Depends on where you live

It seems like we here in Montreal have something in common with Texas this year. Dry weather causes homes in both Montreal and Texas to sink.

The only difference is the cost to repair it. It costs $3,000 to $10,000 in Texas (here). Here in Montreal, it costs $50,000 to $100,000 (here).

Idlers' asylum

On CBC, there is an interesting story about a young Asian man disguised himself in order to get into Canada (here). It’s surprising to find so many anti-immigration (and/or anti-refugee) Canadians by reading the comments of this article. But that is not the point I wish to make here.

I read somewhere that it is better to be a slacker in a market economy than in a socialist one, since one is rewarded with productivity in a market economy. However, in non-market economies low-productive members may be seen as parasites - it is hence better to be a slacker who could work hard but don't want to in a capitalist system than (say) in a socialist system.

In China in the seventies, anyone who could work but don’t want to work would for sure be sent to a labor camp. In reality, nobody was allowed to choose what type of work one wanted to do. If I had time traveled and had disguised myself and flew into Canada to seek asylum because I wanted to be an idler (or part time one until I made enough money to be a full time idler), I would have been ridiculed worse than this young man and been sent back to where I came from.

In North America, I believe that there are only two cities that are most suitable for idlers, Montreal and San Francisco. You need certain numbers of same kind in a society in order to survive. Montreal is full of people who prefer to make less money and have some time to idle. In San Francisco, idlers probably call themselves thinkers, but I could be wrong.

Think twice about public health care

Check this story out (B.C. man loses right to care for wife). People think that public health care is a better system should think twice. Whenever, a government is allowed too much power to run things, you lose personal freedom.

The public health care system in Canada is also not as "free" as most people assume. In addition to paying higher taxes to cover the health care, there are addition costs at the doctor’s office. For example, the dermatologist we go to charges $40.00 every time he squirts liquid nitrogen on a spot of your skin (not for cosmetic reasons).

Since I am in the mood ranting about public health care system, I might as well add one more comment. There is an article on CNBC about wastefulness of health care (Health Care Wastefulness Is Detailed in Studies). It seems to me that the public health care in Canada encourages wastefulness from my personal experience. I had not needed health care in the last 7 years. When I called up my family doctor in July, I was told that anyone who had not been seen by him for 5 years is considered a new patient and he does not take any new patients. I was rejected on the phone by 5 more other general practitioners. In the 7 years that I had not incurred any health care cost, I paid taxes just the same. The conclusion I was able to make was that if a person does not need frequent cares, he/she does not get one. Isn’t that encouraging wastefulness?

On the other hand, with private health insurance as with any other insurance, how much you pay is at least somewhat related to your past history of claims.

Enough rant,
Have a great day!

A woman stole from me

A woman just stole two necklaces from me in the store. I was following her with my eyes and then I took my eyes away for a minute to give her some privacy. When I started to look at her again, I noticed one of the necklaces she touched went missing. So I asked her to tell me where she placed it (I was giving her a chance to put it back). She could have said "Oh, I am sorry, I misplaced it here". She could have taken the jewelry out of her pocket and put it on the shelf (I was sure that she dropped into her pocket). Instead, she pretended that she did not understand what I was talking about. So I said to her "You just took a necklace from me, please put it back". She ran out of the door and left. After she was gone, I noticed a 2nd necklace was missing also.

I do not think that she will ever come back to the store, even though one can never be sure. I used to manage a Salvation Army store, and caught a few thieves and banned them from the store. But they kept coming back and kept stealing.

By the way, there is an interesting talk by Dan Ariely regarding stealing, if you care to listen to.

Is there anybody out there?

Sitting by the ocean in Newfoundland

After three months in China, prices of all the essentials here in Montreal have gone up at least 25%. My old bottle of soy source from Chinatown has a price tag of $3.99 and now I pay $4.99, which is a 25% increase. The bitter melon tea went from $3.99 to $5.99, which is a 50% increase. A package of salmon at Costco went from $15.99 to $19.99, another 25% increase. The first two items I could not do without; I will continue to buy them. The salmon, however, not only the price has gone up, a 4% saline was injected into them. In addition, they were labeled Atlantic salmon from Chile. How is it possible? Chile is on the Pacific ocean, unless Google map is wrong (Ha Ha).

Is this quantitative easing (government printing money) at work already? Then how come all the data are showing we do not have inflation?

Is it only me who are noticing this?

I thought I have figured out a way to make money

Last year we renewed our mortgage. We took the option of “open variable”, which means you can lock it in anytime the mortgage is going up. It started with 3.75% and it is now at 2%. We have a friend whose open variable mortgage is only at 1.6%. He has a savings account that pays him 2.5% a year. Just imagine you can make money by borrowing the money from the bank and then put it back into the savings account in the same bank. Unfortunately, to make about $50,000 a year you will need a mortgage of 5.5 million dollars. Banks are just not willing to lend this kind of money to guys like you and me, any more. Oh, well.