My blood's boiling & you're about to feel the same way.
It's ๐จ๐ฆ's international students. Not them, but the diabolical, complex, & unimaginal scheme to fuel ๐จ๐ฆ's growth.
Here's how ๐จ๐ฆ manufactured an exploitation machine & sold it as social good.
<thread> ๐งต๐
2/ ๐จ๐ฆ has always embraced international students, & the money they bring. They pay A LOT.
Domestic tuition at UBC or U of T is ~$7k, but ~$60k for those on a study permit.
Naturally, this skews the crowd towards a well-heeled demographic. That changed in 2019.
3/ ๐จ๐ฆ's largest source of international students was China, with the 2nd highest concentration of millionaires.
Many of the students were from these households, reinforcing that perspective in ๐จ๐ฆ.
In 2018, Canadian-China tensions rose & ๐จ๐ฆ lost its appeal in China.
4/ ๐จ๐ฆ, addicted to the cash, cooked up a $148m plan to replace those students with new onesโprimarily in developing countries.
Permits to students from India spiked fast... strangely fast. Who are these students? Get a spoon to bite, because this is where it gets f*cked.
5/ India is a FAST growing country, forecast to have the world's largest middle class soon. It has wealthy families, but they aren't moving here.
An Indian university study found most students looking to study in ๐จ๐ฆ are from low-income farming regions & know little about it.
6/ What they "know" is what the recruiter told them: It's filled with opportunity, automatic PR, guaranteed gov jobs, etc.
Sometimes, the recruiters "get them in" to prestigious schools they could never actually get into. All liesโthey'll say anything for the commission.
7/ Recruiters tell these families their kid is brilliant & just in the wrong country. Find a way to pay their education, & all of the parents' hard work pays off.
Bet the farm, like good parents do. So they round up their savings (& sometimes relatives). They take out loans.
8/ Heck, some literally bet the farm.
Oh, some recruiters know people that specialize in high interest loans secured by your farm? Super convenient.
Oh, they have a secure stream of capital, a lot of it from investors in ๐จ๐ฆ? So lucky, what are the oddsโฝ
9/ So the kids get to ๐จ๐ฆ & don't arrive at UBC or U of T, but a private career college in a strip mall. Sometimes not even the school they applied to.
Some schools popped up almost overnight, others don't have classes some semesters, & some have no domestic students.
10/ Some are run by swell folks who are strangely close with alleged organized crime groups. Opportunity is everywhere!
Anyway, once you're registeredโyou can start vouching for visas, there's no limit. ๐จ๐ฆ wanted this, after all.
11/ So they:
- spent $50k to go to a diploma mill;
- don't speak english, because of testing fraud;
- have no money;
- often rent mattresses, taking 8/hr shifts w/other students;
- if this doesn't work, their parents lose everything
A TO funeral home sends 5 dead back per month.
12/ Don't worry. ๐จ๐ฆ will help, right? In 2022, it lifted the restriction of 20 hours of on-campus work, to "help" ๐จ๐ฆ solve its low-wage labor crisis.
Those viral videos of hundreds of people waiting in line for a low-wage job interview? Those are mostly international students.
13/ To reiterate, ๐จ๐ฆ scoured the world for poor families. Promised opportunity if they risked everything. It turns out there was no opportunity, so now they're stuck paying off debt while most of their income is consumed by shelter costs.
It sounds familiar, but why evades me
14/ but here's the kicker. Other countries where this scam was brewing signed an inter-country agreement to refuse unethical student visa brokering.
Did ๐จ๐ฆ? Nope, it actively rejected it. Once again, because this is a part of its strategy. </thread>
ps Iโm still enjoying retirement, but Iโll return and plan to respond to your everyoneโs thoughtful DMs.
As for those that emailed me, uhโฆ maybe not? ๐ฌ
If itโs important, get a cat. I always respond to cat photos.
โฆ or try texting. I can probably get to text inbox zero by 2am-ish. ๐
Should also mention that when ๐จ๐ฆ says they want international students as a diplomatic tool, itโs because the families will have a favorable view of a country their kids study.
Important to protect ๐จ๐ฆโs public pension assets in India, where theyโre scooping up real estate. ๐ซ
A few replies forgot the first threadโyou will also be angry.
Most Canadians don't want this stuff. It's like the laundering issueโthe gov is ignoring it because it improves performance indicators. We want a strong economy, but not this way.
โข โข โข
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Why is every politician discussing their aggressive plan for affordable housing?
โฆ even the ones you know donโt care about it?
Well, they hijacked the term and weaponized it against the people who need it. Hereโs how.
<thread> ๐งต๐
2/ in ๐จ๐ฆ, the term affordable housing now means a rental thatโs 1/3 the median household income.
First off, a third of income isnโt really affordable. A third of income is the max allowable payment a mortgage borrower can accept before theyโre considered too risky of a payer.
3/ so, affordable really means the max a person can reliably pay without being a default risk in this case.
in Canada, it also means maximum regulatory leverage. That doesnโt feel the same, does it?
Wait until you realize how that plays into distribution.
About 80% of Singaporeโs population is housed in public housing, but not the kind in the West.
Low income families & young couples to high income bankers and business people live in them.
Theyโre incredibly affordable. How? Only citizens can live in them.
<thread> ๐งต๐
2/ Singaporeโs public housing scheme is run by its Housing & Development Board (HDB), and public housing is appropriately called HDB flats.
Rather than auctioning off all gov land to private companies, the gov develops the land and sells 99-year leases for the units.
3/ Since these are leasehold properties, with the government retaining ultimate control over the land.
The homes are traded in open market, and you can get a mortgage to buy them. Appreciation is slowed as the units approach the end of their life though.
Higher property taxes. Higher home prices. Disregard of basic real estate education.
Let's talk about how you were sold into advocating for those issues against your own interest, by politicians pushing for broad zoning deregulation.
<thread> ๐งต๐
2/ First, let's discuss that we need more housing & governments supportive of building more homes.
However, we also need to discuss how lobbyists & politicians in the deep pockets of developers, intentionally conflated the need for more housing with deregulation.
3/ you also need to understand this little issue: real estate is valued at its highest & best use, not its current use.
btw this is from the textbook Principles of Appraisal, so every real estate agent in Ontario understands this, but not all will admit it.
If your house is your largest asset, you arenโt a capitalist.
The banker that lent you the mortgage is a capitalist. Youโre the means of production they ownโlabor that generates their wealth.
The term capitalist originally described a person w/ significant capital used as the means of production.
If you still think youโre a capitalist, why stop there? You can also be a sea pirate without ever setting foot on a boat or a race car driver thatโs never driven a car.
I saw a Realtor say people should buy a house because Warren Buffett says, be greedy when others are fearful.
Buffett, who bought his house for $31k in 1958, is most certainly not referencing a primary residence. ๐