About 80% of Singapore’s 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.

They’re incredibly affordable. How? Only citizens can live in them.

<thread> 🧵👇 2/ Singapore’s 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.

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> 🧵👇 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.

Let’s talk about how AirBNB helped drive rents & home prices higher.

Most people think 1 or 2 points can’t influence a market. They’ve likely never worked at a hedge fund.

<thread> 🧵👇 2/ It’s not about the total market, but liquidity.

Stock prices aren’t based on every unit trading. They’re based on the last trade.

Every trade executed at or above the last trade reinforces a value.

Dear capitalists,

If your house is your largest asset, you aren’t a capitalist.

The banker that lent you the mortgage is a capitalist. You’re the means of production they own—labor that generates their wealth. The term capitalist originally described a person w/ significant capital used as the means of production.

If you still think you’re a capitalist, why stop there? You can also be a sea pirate without ever setting foot on a boat or a race car driver that’s never driven a car.

I don’t get angry often, but I’m at a level I haven’t been at in a long time and you’re about to join me.

It’s about exhaustive bureaucracy, and dozens of officers with drones raiding a wildlife rehab facility I volunteer with.

Yes, a wildlife rehab facility.

<thread> 🧵👇 2/ if you’re from Greater Toronto, you probably know Mally’s— Ontario’s only licensed raccoon rehab facility.

Calling 311 results in euthanizing, so even the gov suggests them.

It runs on a shoestring budget & is funded entirely by donors.

My blood's boiling & you're about to feel the same way.

It's 🇨🇦's international students. Not them, but the diabolical, complex, & unimaginal scheme to fuel 🇨🇦's growth.

Here's how 🇨🇦 manufactured an exploitation machine & sold it as social good.

<thread> 🧵👇 2/ 🇨🇦 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.

Fun fact: Adam Smith, the godfather of capitalism, advocated for aggressive land taxation. Otherwise, feudalists will drain productivity from society & hinder progress.

So feudalists called themselves capitalists & convinced the schmucks they should tax their labor instead. 🧵👇 twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 2/ A few important lessons in that brief tweet.

The first is how an issue is reframed by those who capture the system.

"Affordable" housing is my favorite example. It's arbitrarily defined as a third of your income in the West. Not the case prior to the 2000s.

In the 50s & 60s, grieving moms accused hospitals of stealing their recently deceased infants.

It occurred at such a wide scale in Australia, England, & the EU—they thought moms were hallucinating to cope with the ptsd.

It wasn’t. They were right.

<thread> 🧵👇 2/ Some moms said the infant’s corpse was missing limbs.

Imagine finding your recently diseased child & its legs were removed?

If you told anyone, they would think you were having a mental health crisis. That’s what the 🇺🇸 Atomic Energy Commission counted on. Seriously.

🇨🇦’s totally not recognizable:

- pharmacy shelves are empty

- mobile phone stores are locked & require ID

- tent cities everywhere

- payday loan stores have lines like sneaker launches

- only 10% of the population could afford housing at if they had to pay market I’m happy about being able to get an all plant-based sandwich at @7ElevenCanada though, so there’s that.

🇨🇦 & 🇺🇸 made big changes to how they’ll report inflation.

Inflation will be chronically underreport going forward, and it will amplify inequality in these countries.

<thread> 🧵👇 2/ first off, inflation is measured with a basket. Think of it like a shopping cart but it has thousands of goods & services, including your rent.

Each item is assigned a weight depending on the share of income a household typically spends.

Even if central banks didn't raise interest rates, a recession is coming.

People understand what real GDP means, but they often don't make the connection. Let's do that quickly.

<thread> 🧵👇 2. Real GDP means it's inflation-adjusted. Let's say GDP rises 10 points and inflation is 5 points, you have 5 points of real growth.

Super straightforward, right? Look at you, you're already more knowledgeable than most policymakers. Let's put a pin in GDP & talk about wages.

🇨🇦’s “major housing” announcement was $500 to pay your rent?

That’s just 2 months of the *increase* some tenants were hit.

… so really the announcement is that the landlords in government are getting $500 for each tenant. Score! 😬😂

#cdnpoli #VanRe 2. Also only applies to a person that makes less than minimum wage (less than $20k/year), or families that make less than $30k.

With the average rent of $2k for a 2 bedroom, those families would have $8k left after paying rent…

Wow. The gov is more delusional than I thought.

Quick, while the normies are sleeping.

Let’s talk about the string of uber rich people that have suddenly committed suicide or died under odd circumstances.

<thread> 🧵👇 2. Alexander Tyulyakov, 61, former head of Russia’s Gazprom corporate security.

Witnesses say he had signs of being beaten the night before Ukraine was invaded. The day of the invasion he “hung himself.”

By itself, not that weird. But, it’s a little weirder than that…

Most Toronto street fight ever

✅ random construction materials

✅ Kensington market

✅ Shoppers Drug Mart employee

✅ Random road pylons for no apparent reason

Just missing a raccoon and a 400 sqft condo with combination kitchen-bathroom.

Pro tip: if you challenge someone who picks up a super long stick and starts holding it like an odachi, you just picked the wrong person to duel.

It’s funny how many people in the West go to Tokyo for vacation, and then think their city needs to be like it.

Tokyo is an example of a real estate bubble that resulted in the systemic failure of a country.

Literally two generations were screwed & can’t imagine having kids. 2. Japan is a very lovely place & an incredible culture.

Their government is an example of manipulated data to the point no one understands why things don’t work, they just don’t.

They, much like Canada, has a reputation for being squeaky clean because how they “collect” data.

https://twitter.com/StephenPunwasi/status/1318001739757477888

If you think inflation is due to record profits, here's what you don't understand.

<thread> 🧵👇 2. Goods need to be priced at the replacement value.

Let's say I buy wheat for bread at a future contract, and then wheat surges 200% in price.

My input cost is low, but where do I get 200% more money to buy my replacement inventory?

Quick lesson on average prices that every investor should understand.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a house, car, stock, or roll of steel. Traders & quants will view it very differently from the average person.

<thread> 🧵👇 2. One of my favorite car accounts posted that a 2021 model of an exotic car dropped 30% in value.

You think it’s shocking. It might be, it might not.

There’s a lot of questions when you’re trying to assess what that means though, especially if you’re putting money down.

If you're buying real estate, there are only two kinds of Realtors you want.

The thing they have in common is they both understand long-term and non-monetary value. Here's what to look for.

<thread> 🧵👇 #ToRE #VanRe 2. The first is "buy when it's right for you" agents, that know you don't need to be convinced.

People will always want to own their own home, and need a secure anchor in a neighborhood, or a commercial property to conduct business.

I really hope someone that’s been a Realtor in Newfoundland for less than a year spends his whole day incorrectly explaining real estate, bonds, and inflation to me.

Oh score! All of my wishes come true on this app. It’s the client’s fault for listening to Realtors. Our job is to forecast, and we have insurance when we’re wrong. 🤪

Does Newfoundland have no standards? Good example of why the real estate industry shouldn’t be able to self regulate.

@_nlar @nevinhollett

Wang Fengyou built a $1.2 billion business, and few people probably recognize his name.

Here’s how the person known as a “model entrepreneur” was able to do it in just 8 years.

<thread> 🧵👇 2. In 1999, Fengyou launched Yilishen Tianxi & made “herbal” medicine from ants.

As you’d assume with such quick growth, they needed ants and investors really fast. To do that, he didn’t go to investment firms, but to working class people that received a windfall from land sales

Fun fact: 🇨🇦’s organized crime problem is so big, authorities consider it too dangerous to investigate.

Criminals were literally running a loan shark operation out of a casino, and had “parking privileges.” 😬😂

globalnews.ca/news/7593419/b… 2. Casinos aren’t even safe for totally normal patrons that just like to visit often.

Imagine being hassled by the RCMP, finally beating their baseless allegations, and then this happens?