The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast - Bitcoin News With a Canadian Spin - The CBP #156 (Other Notable Stories) - Madex/Bailey, EU vs Anonymity, Easing Financial Conditions

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES Join us for some QUALITY Bitcoin and economics talk, with a Canadian focus, every Monday at 7 PM EST. This week: -Federal Reserve easing conditions?-Lego heads-$1.2 trillion-The Canadian revolt-Rain tax-No more raining money = lawsuit And much more From a couple of Canucks who like to talk about how Bitcoin will impact Canada. As always, none of the info is financial advice. Website: ⁠www.CanadianBitcoiners.com⁠Discord: ⁠https://discord.gg/ESRCZWpb A part of the CBP Media Network: ⁠www.twitter.com/CBPMediaNetwork This show is sponsored by: easyDNS - ⁠⁠https://easydns.com/⁠⁠EasyDNS is the best spot for Anycast DNS, domain name registrations, web and email services. They are fast, reliable and privacy focused. You can even pay for your services with Bitcoin! Apply coupon code 'CBPMEDIA' for 50% off initial purchase Bull Bitcoin - ⁠⁠https://mission.bullbitcoin.com/cbp⁠⁠The CBP recommends Bull Bitcoin for all your BTC needs. With their new kyc-free options, there's never been a quicker, simpler, more private and (most importantly) cheaper way to acquire private Bitcoin. Use the link above for $20 bones and take advantage of all Bull Bitcoin has to offer.

The Canadian Bitcoiners podcast is just two guys and maybe a guest or two discussing Bitcoin, Bitcoin equities, and the related macroeconomic space. It's not meant to be financial advice, so please, if you're doing any investing, after listening to our program, do your own research, do your own due diligence, and understand that any money you invest can be lost. The show is meant for entertainment purposes only, and we hope you enjoy the program. One hour, three minutes, five seconds. Where do you want to go next? What's next on your list here and other notable stories? Notable stories. We'll talk about credit card debt. So credit card debt, we talk about this fucking topic all the time credit card debt it's increasing at a faster pace than it was experienced in 2008

financial crisis this makes sense given that everything is costing more including debt but it isn't giving me confidence that we're trending in the right direction and in terms of scale credit card debt is up 40 in the united states in three years three years 40 that's that's almost as good as nvidia nvidia's was better than that yeah that's well it's fucking way better it's hammering i'm just anyway, go ahead. Another problem is the average interest rate currently on credit card debt stands around 22%. This is much higher than previous years. And it's all thanks to the Federal Reserve that they've hiked rates so much in the past little while. And there are people out there, they have and are still funding a lifestyle they can't afford.

And they're using credit card to do it. Now, I'm going to give you a case in point here, Joey. Okay. Newlyweds. funding a lifestyle they can't report can't afford and they're using credit card to do it now i'm going to give you a case in point here joy okay newlyweds amy 28 tory 27 okay they bought a house can't blame them you got to live somewhere you can't live in bitcoin so they bought it that's fine but they also made planes to have what they called a quote-unquote dream wedding oh boy financial planners they are not they made the moves all also they made a decision to go to greece on their honeymoon and maybe they should take some a few lessons from the greek government because remember how their austerity yeah so they've racked up some 44 000 in credit card debt along the way.

No, Len, on the wedding? Between the wedding and the honeymoon. Oh, man. Their dream wedding and this honeymoon trip. So between that and the higher than planned mortgage payments, they're effectively broke. So many people are like this. They just fund a lifestyle with credit card pack it on and what

are they going to do default or just carry this for perpetuity and this is the reality and then once rates go a little bit lower because they will eventually get lower we'll talk about that in just a little bit then there's going to be more appetite to add even more to the credit card debt because you could have more on it this is upcycled that will never fucking end but here we are keeping up with the joneses has become this toxic just like metastasized cancer in society has it not like everybody i know i shouldn't say everybody i know because the answer is truthfully very few people I know do this but a lot of people on social media who I'm like tangentially friends with or like you know made friends with over the years and don't see too often anymore these people are spending money

on all kinds of shit and I know they don't have the money I know they don't and I won't say who but I had a guest on the show you know in the, I'll say, and was talking to this guest before we went on air. And we were just kind of going back and forth and bullshitting about why people in our lives don't have Bitcoin. And at the same time, we both said the reason that people in our lives aren't buying Bitcoin isn't because they don't get it or because they don't want it. It's because they say they have money to invest and they just actually don't. They don't have the money. And a lot of people I think are doing this. You can fake having the money when it comes to going for dinner or buying a new car or whatever, but you can't do it when it comes to buying Bitcoin. Why? Because

if you don't have the money, then no exchange is taking your credit card anymore, right? It's like a 30% bump. It's the cash advance fee, I think, in a lot of places now. So you can't fake it. The same way you can't fake buying a portfolio of ETFs or NVIDIA or whatever on your credit card, because exchanges and brokers won't take credit. They need cash. They need something that doesn't carry that risk and isn't a loan product. I think you're going to start seeing a lot more, like you think, of credit card spending in the next few years because prices are going crazy, wages are not keeping up, and everybody wants to keep up with the Joneses as well as keeping this sort of lifestyle they think that

they're earning enough to have and they've become accustomed to, but really neither is true. I don't know if you saw in Australia, Len, but speaking of kind of poor economic policy, our Commonwealth brothers and sisters over there proposing a minimum wage that matches and stays in lockstep with inflation. We kind of have that in Ontario. Yeah, not like that. Not like that. That's how you get wage price spirals. And these things just mount and mount and mount. And more and more people spending on credit products to try and keep their ducks in a row or what they perceive as their ducks in a row. So I don't look forward to the eventual collapse of all these things.

But at this point, I think it's safe to say that it's coming, right? I think there's going to be a significant collapse in the Canadian economy. I think there's going to be a significant collapse in the Canadian economy. I think there's going to be a significant collapse in the American economy. The only place to hide is going to be Nvidia, Bitcoin, and Canadian single-family homes. That's it. Everything else is going to go to zero. I'm pretty sure. So buckle up for the ride.

But really, if you have friends like this, what do you say to them? I don't even know what you would say to somebody like this. Like, maybe you don't have you know oh you're a shrimp every day there's nothing to say there's an ask you ask if they could help pay your lifestyle as well as they're clearly wanting to put as much debt on the books as possible hey do you want to go on a group trip together oh i don't have the money do you want to fund me i'll give it to you nice nice that's the way to do it take advantage right go to the caribbean or something and just fucking oh man i don't know buddy we're we're in trouble here listen bitcoin is a life raft in a lot of ways one is just this financial savings tool obviously that you know you and i

people listening watching feel good about but it's also a life raft in terms of sanity i just i am i can i'm completely unbothered by this kind of thing. And I just sit back and watch and relax and try and live well. Right. Uh, it's all you can do and stay within your means and life will be easier for you for sure. You may not have all the shiniest, fanciest stuff. You may be driving 20 year old cars, 20, 25 year old cars like Latt and I, but you know, you'll sleep easy. That's really more important than anything else, man. There's nothing else to life besides sleeping easy.'s the the key thing for everybody i have the federal reserve story next i have a ton of notable stories you want to talk about that you you pick buddy

you're in charge you're steering the ship i'm just mopping the deck here all right okay the fuck them we'll talk the federal reserve california they keep delivering the goods though because a new law. We're going to start another segment here, California notable stories. This is an example of why. Because they have a law there. It's a new law that prevents police from posting pictures, including the face of captured suspects. I love it.

So police are being creative over there when they're posting pictures on social media and they're putting the heads lego heads over the heads of the suspect and not this is a way is to protect the the ids and adhere to law but not only that i've even seen one picture where they paste a barbie head over a woman that was captured and another one i saw somebody was wearing a shrek shirt so they put shrek's head on top of the suspect's head this is top-notch clown stuff man but yeah or i mean sorry legal stuff but it's fucking great i love it but i'm not sure if you want to add anything to that i'm gonna i gotta share we have to share a link an example of this uh oh i don't actually see it here oh i do see one here this This is a good one. There's too many ads on this fucking page.

Anyway, just look up California Lego heads and have a laugh because it's very notable what they're doing over there. Isn't it funny? I always laugh. And I get that there's people who twist up crime statistics to make it racial or whatever. You're always going to have people like that. But one thing I've noticed in the last year or so is there's an active campaign to not actually be able to identify any criminals if you see them in the street. Whether it's California or Toronto or wherever, it's always the same. Here's the grainy surveillance footage that this guy took with his ring camera. There's a piece of scotch tape over the camera for all intents and purposes. It's so grainy and blurry. And then it's like, here's the suspect. You can't see him.

They don't give any identifying markers about him. I'm not just talking about skin color. I'm talking about like, what color eyes does this guy have? Does he have any tattoos? Instead, they tell you, yeah, we're looking for a guy who's wearing a red baseball cap, a black hoodie, and a pair of jeans. That was last week. I'm assuming he's got to change his clothes. What are we talking about now? I can't even see the guy's face. So I got to hear what he was wearing at the time of the crime. And I can't see his face because you put a Lego head on him.

Who am I looking for? It's truly a needle in a haystack. And I look at this stuff and I just laugh. What else is he supposed to do? There's nothing else you can do. I'm looking for a Lego man wearing clothes from last week. Good luck. Good luck, everyone.

Have fun finding that guy. Give cops nothing to deal with. It's unreal. It is unreal. Stop or I'll yell. Oh, please. It's $1.2 trillion, Joey. Yeah.

Great show note, by the way, when I got the description from the website for the video, it says $1.2 trillion. What else could you say? This is fucked up on two different levels, by the way. Okay. The first one is this was needed to avoid the government shutdown because apparently the government was running out of money and they needed this infusion of cash to keep the lights on.

But this will only keep the lights on until October. So $1.2 trillion will only carry this baby for until october so 1.2 trillion dollars will only carry this baby for another six to seven months to put things in perspective the second thing which is fucked up i thought we were done with this thing i thought the debt ceiling was done temporarily temporarily eliminated what the fuck is going on why why do they need this extra money like don't they just you know go ahead do it and don't make any hoopla about it they have the ability just to just go ahead and add fucking money to the deficit which tax onto the debt like what the fuck 1.2 trillion man like it's it's an enormous amount of money and we're just talking

about it like it's nothing never will this shit be paid back never i'm looking for a tweet i just saw the other day from some self-important member of Congress in the States talking about how they stayed up until 2 a.m. to pass this bill to keep the government from shutting down as if that's like some kind of thing to be proud of. The bill itself is like, you know, it is biblical in size. The thing is literally thousands of pages. There's no way anybody could read it like all the legislation that passes over there. And in other places, probably here, it's the same story. I'm not sure. But if I had to guess, it's probably close.

No one's reading this stuff. It's all written by aides and lobbyists. None of the congressional representatives or senators or senator staffers are reading this stuff. No one knows what's in it. It's literally just nothing but pork and money for every special cause under the sun. The funny thing, Len, is in October this time, that's pretty close to another major event. That's what it's tied to.

Yeah, so what's the story going to look like in October when the election's coming up? I don't know. Is Joe Biden going to get up on stage and talk about how his token's at an all-time high and this is how they're keeping the government open? He's cashing in his Biden on Solana gains. He's up one

million percent in the last six months we're gonna fund the government on my shit you're welcome there are some strange ones and there's one i don't even see it that's making fun of listen for sure if people want to go look at the solana token names like there's accounts on twitter that have them liz they're insane they are truly insane yeah not good not good let's talk about those shit coins let's move to notable north remember we were talking about cars earlier in the show remember there was a time when kia was synonymous with affordability yeah right like someone posted on twitter or x uh picture of their payments on a kia car this is the kia ev9 oh no this person financed it remember this is a kia eighteen hundred dollars a month no finance charges of forty42,000 interest rates over 10% total cost $152,000 $152,000 finance $1,800 a month. And I'm not trying to shit on Kia, right? Like they make good cars, but at $152,000

I'd rather go buy a different car or better yet 152 late 90 beige corollas one for every day of the week for the next five to six months but that's just me what the fuck do i know that goes to show you how far like how devalued the dollar is but also that overpriced it's just craziness for these evs we're going to be forced to buy it in the next 10 years if things play up. Allegedly. Yeah, I mean, until things change, I'm going to say that's the way it's going to be. Man, nobody's going to be fucking driving moving forward, but whatever. How do you think that that person justifies the payment?

What was the tweet like? Was it like a sour tweet? Was it just a, here's something I saw at a friend's house on the fridge when they weren't paying attention. I took a picture of it. Like what, what did the tweet look like in terms of, you know,

temperament? Like, I can't wait for you to see the inside of my new Kia. It's got, it's got an all cloth interior. No, I see table salt was the guy that I love that. I love that account.

I love that account. Provided it to him, and he was saying, look, $42,000 in interest and $1,800 a month in financing for a Kia EV. It shows you the cost of everything. Incredible. The odometer only had 22 kilometers when they first picked

it up, so they weren't joyriding with it. This guy is basically brand new, but over 10% annual interest rates on this like 45 000 dollars that's insane finance charges like that's like you know 50 years ago like i was a house yeah buying a car is weird right like my wife and i i'll get into smithside baseball here we financed uh i think the the minimum allowable because you get a discount if you finance whatever the percentage thing. I think you had to finance 60% of the total price. But let me tell you

something. If you think the guys giving the disclaimers at the end of Cialis commercials are talking fast, wait until you see the speed at which the back office finance guy talks to you about your loan. There's a lot of stuff getting said and a lot of papers they're trying to get you to sign pretty quickly on stuff like, when can you pay the loan? Is the loan open or closed? Is there a penalty for lump sum? Blah, blah, blah. If you don't pay attention to all that stuff, you end up with this. You end up with huge amounts of fees, tons of interest payments, a car that you thought I can't afford a $50,000 car. I'll just buy a $30,000 car that turns out to be worth 150 after

five or seven years. How long is the AM on the loan? Do you know? No, it does not say. Yeah. I mean, it's actually crazy that people buy cars without looking at this stuff like it's the maximum now by the way for financing it is it eight years or i know that i know of somebody who has a seven-year loan on a car but but not long as i've ever heard financed it for over seven years like that's financed over seven yeah finance yeah i thought it could have been a little bit longer but that's a long time imagine having sevens to sevens too long. Like if you, if what, what is the, what is the signpost, right? Like if you're, if you're doing a seven year am on a car, you can't afford the car.

I mean, isn't that the story? Like if it takes you, you know, more than a year or two years or whatever to pay off a car, like you, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but if I've never, I've never bought a car that's like been alone this is the car we just financed the first car my wife and i have bought and financed at any level so i don't know like what the expectation is but it can't be fucking seven years can it there's no way well again i'm not i can't believe i'm gonna say this but if interest rates are super low and you're able to get either through the deal if you lock yeah if you lock for seven sure different story and it's like you know yes what a quarter or a half percent yeah then i can say okay as long as you're diligent

right you're not going up because you know what the sixth year that car is going to be a little bit more costly to maintain and you still have to deal with the maintenance of that plus the the cost that you have to pay back for the financing of it at that time. But that I can see those are situational though, the way it is right now, the way everything is set up. I don't know. No, it doesn't make a lot.

That's why so much. There's a lot of demand for it because that's what people can afford. It's funny. Like the thing is like, if you don't, if you don't take care of it, I'm trying to think about what the deal was. We got,

I think we paid. What was that car worth? It was 30,000 and change all in. This is like some quick JT back in the napkin math here. Not that JT, this JT. I think the deal was if you finance, you immediately get $2,000 off, but you had to finance 60% of the ticket price. So I got to think like, if I am not diligent with the loan and it does take me, let's say I make the payment. I think the payment's like a couple hundred bucks every two weeks. I forget what it is. But if you don't pay the lump sum out and you pay interest on the rest of the loan, they for sure get that 2000 back and more, right? It's just because people think in the now all the time

and can't figure out like, oh, that 2000 bucks isn't that much if I can't pay the loan off without the interest payment. If the loan, like for us, I think the loan opens at six months, right? So at six months, I can pay the whole thing and be done with the car. So you get the 2000 plus you don't pay the interest. But if you couldn't do that, then you're in a bit of trouble, right? And that's where people come down a lot of the time. You and me talk about this all the time and Bitcoiners notice this more in their lives and in the lives of people that they're close to. There's no future in the decision-making of a lot of people, right? And see that in a lot of places. We don't often talk about car financing, but this is a good example of exactly that line of thinking

in my view. Yeah, I have nothing to say. Obviously, I drive an old car, so I have very little experience. Dave Bacon in the chat saying it's 96 months is the standard AM. That's a lot. Or longer, Sam. That's a lot. That's eight years.

People are getting mortgages for 30 years in the States. Yeah, I guess. Right, so you're living in that house. True. You'd probably be there. In Canada, though, you could be. You you get an eight-year m you might be living in your car so you could get a 10-year mortgage here in canada no i mean like car loan eight-year car loan you could be living in your car that's that's true yeah yeah that's true yeah hopefully

it's it's gonna keep you warm but canadian inflation numbers came in love it at 2.8 for the month of february this is according to stats can and instead of talking about the specifics about this rate change joy let's talk about the formula to get it i love it i i i'm dying to hear if you if you knock this one out of the park i think you're going to no i'm going to be very very brief on this guy because there was a story a couple stories first one is from northern account sorry the northern account.ca they mentioned that canadian banks are pushing for the bank of canada to remove shelter costs yeah from the cpi it's not just them saying it too because the global mail also came out with

a piece called it's time for the bank of canada to kick shelter inflation to the curb. And in it, they're saying that the shelter inflation is skewing the big picture. This is from the Globe and Mail. They're saying, well, it's known that rent and mortgages are skyrocketing, and it's due to a number of different factors, right? And this is what they're saying is fucking up with the CPI. And if you take this out of the equation the actual peg year over year inflation is at a mere 1.3 well below the bank of canada's two percent target so you're taking away something it's maybe it's better if we start measuring inflation that is

tied to grass clippings in the summertime and the snow we get in the wintertime because it's abundant then why not use that as a way to keep inflation in check how the fuck could you remove housing and say this is not going to be counted as part of the cpi it's one of the most important things that food transportation can you get around any of that those are like the three staples they're trying right they're trying super right? They're trying. Supercore in the States excludes food, shelter, and fuel. So they rolled that stat out last year-ish. And the reason you don't hear about that in the States anymore is because even Supercore

is rising, is ticking up. So I mean, it's crazy. On this story, I wrote about this in the research roundup, first ever CBP research roundup, which you should read if you haven't already. It's on our website. Over the years, people have asked us, can you share the research you do? I'm not going to go through all my notes and all the reading because I don't write everything down, number one. But you provided links. Yeah, I did. There's links in everything. And we stopped adding links to the show notes. I'm not

going to start putting them in again. It's just too much now. But you added it with that piece you wrote up. The piece I wrote up the piece i wrote up has links yeah so in addition to yours national bank had a report on march 19th uh that says all provinces have cpi x shelter under two percent what they do and uh they also then said that quote inflation is contaminating inflation measures or sorry um uh shelter is contaminating inflation measures i made a mistake in my own writing here. TD did it last month.

Yeah. You're seeing this more and more. And, you know, of course, CPI is very low if you exclude everything people actually need and use. But I think the bigger story here is that there's clearly pressure from banks, media orgs, which are, as we know, at this point, potentially an arm of the government for some messaging. And I think from people broadly, they're tired of paying all this money on shelter and interest, and they want the bank to lower the rate. The question is, will the bank do it? I continue to think the answer is yes. Not because they should, but because it's going to be politically untenable not to. There's 60% of mortgages still to roll over in this year and the remainder of this year and next year. All of those mortgages will have been 2020 lock-ins where the rate was 1% or one and a

quarter or one and a half, depending on where you ended up locking in and which institution you use and for how long, blah, blah, blah. But are all those people going to go from paying one to five? I doubt it. Or six, whatever our rate is. I can't remember what our federal rate is, but is it really going to happen? I don't know. Other thing to keep in mind, as far as cuts, Switzerland did a surprise cut last week. And there's a lot of people in the economic space, some from the big four banks here in Canada, others on Twitter, guys at Bianco, Gunlock,

saying that maybe this is the beginning of the rate cut cycle. And if you look at how synchronized the actions have been in central banking around the world since COVID, there's no really reason to think that they're not going to start cutting together when they basically raised and held together as well. And the messaging was pretty consistent too. The only big question is, in my view, and there's a lot of other people who think this, is Powell more concerned about protecting the dollar than he is about anything else? I don't know.

I don't know. But we're going to find out in the next little while. If they hang in and they don't raise or they don't cut, I should say, it'll make his intentions very clear. But all these elections this year, as we've talked about in the past, 2024, a huge year for elections in modern democracies, all this pain on the retail side, in housing, in shelter, you know, it's easy to say that it's unprecedented because it's kind of thrown around all the time. People bandy about that, you know, pretty often, but I think this is, we've never seen anything like this before, have we? I'm not a historian, but in my kind of cruising around the internet, doing research for the show and whatnot, I don't see anything like this in the past. So where are they going to land? I don't know, but something has got to give here pretty soon. is mounting canada us everywhere what has given are the fries that you

get on a vancouver canucks game is there's a woman that went to the canucks game and ordered some fries over there and she paid 12 sorry uh over 10 can And in that, it was over $10 Canadian, 15 fries. It was like 13 bucks, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. It's like almost a dollar a fry. Yeah. That's insane. So yeah, shrinkflation

is happening everywhere, including at the Vancouver Canucks games. Don't go see them. There's no Pavel Bury. What's the use of watching them? So there it's a it's a tough world out there for the fry fry lovers out there because you're gonna be paying through the nose to eat and watch your hockey at the same time for sure you can't spell canuck without cuck so try and find somewhere else to spend your money that is true let's see this uh story from national. This is a great story. They talk about secret RCMP report warns that Canadians may revolt once they realize how broke they are. I can't say this without laughing.

Is this not unbelievable? This is, honest to God, unbelievable stuff. It's completely crazy this is out there. So, yeah, so people are going to revolt once they figure out how broke they fucking are and because they're saying it's a hopeless economic situation and it's going to cause people to raise their foot for sorry pitchforks and their torches because they're going to realize they have fucking nothing and they have no hope in hell because they're saying for example canadians under the age of 35 are what they say unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live yes they're going to be ren to buy a place to live. Yes.

They're going to be renters for life, essentially. And that's exactly the case, because I don't know how anybody just coming up through the regular way of just going to school and coming out getting a job without significant help from somebody. It's impossible to get a house unless you get a high-priced, high-paying job. And the report apparently mentions people will be disillusioned with their government which the author chalks up to mostly as misinformation conspiracy theories and paranoia on top of that joy i just gotta add because

somebody just added this on one of our chats i never heard about this but apparently stats can is using something called melt water they've been using this for a couple of years now yeah and they're using this melt water for social trend monitoring tool and they're saying that uh they're using the search and monitor and analyze social media and traditional media trends and conversations on issues and topics relevant to the agency's mandate that's interesting that you're using this interesting word yeah that's a good yeah so it's there you go so it's notable i would say it's it's notable it's very notable yeah so there you go you have stats can using meltwater to check our social media posts and everything along those lines and you also have the rcmp

having secret documents saying that people are are going to potentially revolt once they realize how broke we are so we can't really say anything anything on twitter um but man oh man it's just fucked up times algorithm ghetto right like her way morich says um len you know there's not there's not really much that we can say, right? I mean, we're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place here. I don't know what to add, except that I didn't write the report that said Canadians are going to revolt when they realize how broke they are. The RCMP wrote that. And I didn't write that it's due to misinformation.

Somebody else did. I would argue that all the other stories that the RCMP has been a part of in the last few years and police force has been a part of in the last few years and telling people that leaving their keys at the door is a good idea so you don't get murdered in your own home. I don't think that was misinformation. I saw that video live and direct.

I think that was actually said. I walked by the 10 cities where violent crime is high and drug use is high and violence is high. I walk by that all the time. I read stories where the tax money, like I tweeted this the other day, but I'll repeat it here for people who haven't seen it. I read the stories where the tax money I'm told is going to help prevent violence and criminal activity doesn't do that, but rather I'm going to be subjected to a mandatory breathalyzer test when I get pulled over for having my signal out because I needed milk or cat food or baby formula late at night and couldn't change my light. Everyone sees this. The only question is how long are people going to stand for it? And it sounds like our national police force thinks the answer may be not too much longer.

So what's the alternative here? We got to either fix the living situation for people or crack down and make sure no one revolts. It's going to be harder to do the latter. And it's even more difficult to do the former. So where do we land? Go look around and see what the societal results are in terms of cohesion. When family formation is impossible, when people can't live alone and find their own kind of living space, when they can't get jobs and can't buy food and can't enjoy the simple

things in life, what happens? Well, first, what happens is there's a change in the definition of living, which we've seen, right? The cost of living is this vacuous term where living is a variable thing. That's changed a lot. We've kind of joked about how living used to be a picket fence, a dog, two kids, time to contribute to your community. Now it's going home, microwaving your dinner, jerking off, turning on Netflix, and going back to your wage-cut job the next morning, which you hate with people you don't have anything in common with and don't want to work there.

I'll stop there, but you can fill in the rest. You're a creative person, listener, viewer. It's a difficult thing to come back from. It's not just Len and I that think this. It the rcmp so make of this what you will that's all ah toronto brain tax i love that this is is this not the most incredible fucking thing you've ever heard well apparently this isn't unprecedented because i know mississauga has this right now. So if you live in Mississauga, from what I understand, could be wrong, but you already have this rain tax. It's really, they call it a storm water charge.

So people living in Toronto, this is what you're going to be dealing with moving forward if this passes this is a proposed fee structure that will be based on the amount of impermeable surface area on a property such as a roof driveway and parking lot and all this contributes to the runoff during a rainfall event and because the systems are being overwhelmed when there are storms they are going to be charging people based off that and they're going to hopefully use that money to earmark to repair or improve the pipes and so forth because let's be honest infrastructure in canada as a whole generally it's it's aging it's everywhere us us same thing you're up same thing it's all these places yeah it's so this is going to need to be improved modernized updated you name it but it's costly to

do so in fact then i'm going into the weeds here wasn't the that biden act that he passed to reduce inflation there was some funny name with it they were going to be spending a great deal of money on infrastructure within the united states like trillions of dollars that was i think that's what that bill was but that's a topic for another time. But either way, if you're interested about this, Toronto is going to be holding virtual meetings regarding this stormwater charge. And they're planning this for April the 8th, April 11th,

April 16th. And you can register online if you wish to. We got to go. We got to go. We got to stream it and we got to do live reactions. We have, we have to do this. I think we should do a show.

Can we do this? So 8th, april 8th monday we can't 11th is a thursday and then 16th is a tuesday i think maybe if you want to do it personally the 16th works best for me it's a thursday tuesday there's the 11th is the thursday and the 16th is Tuesday. I don't want to do Thursday. Let's do Tuesday. We'll see what they're like. There you go. We're going to have a live stream of this. I think. Wait, I might have scheduled an interview for that day. Hold on. I've got to

check the time. This is probably going to be during the daytime too. No. No way. It'll be at night. Hang on. I'm trying to take a quick peek at this. I don't know. I have no fucking business on air here. You can take a survey, by the way, if you want.

Business on air. I would love to stream that meeting in the live reaction show. 6 to 8 p.m. on all three days. The 16th? So yeah, 8, 11, and 16. Plate liquor's coming on the 16thth so i can't do that day the ninth is the other day no eighth that's we're we're doing the show on that yeah yeah and the

11th thursday oh that's a tough day i mean i could try so we'll try it for thursday april 11th we'll do this live in the air it's joined like i might not even like sit down in this chair i might like just bring my computer and a camera upstairs and eat dinner and make fun of these clowns. That sounds like a good idea. They give the webinar number and webinar password. It's freely available out there. So just show up.

There's going to be so many people there just fucking laughing. Oh my God. Isn't it funny? On the side of the story, you paid taxes to... Okay, so I know this, I won't say how, but it's basically impossible to build anything in Toronto. The number of bylaws and whiny neighbors and NIMBYs. I know somebody who just put an addition on their house, basically a full rebuild of their house. It took like five years between

the construction, the permitting, the complaining, all this stuff. When they built the addition or finish the property, they wanted to put in a parking spot, like a driveway. Weren't allowed. There's like a regulation or a bylaw that prevents them from doing a driveway. It's too close to neighbor's lawn or something like that. I don't know. So this person had to put in what they're calling a patio in the backyard and the driveway that's there, the drive-through goes into the backyard so they can park their car in the backyard. When you build a patio, it has to be a certain size. It has to be bigger than driveway, right? Otherwise it doesn't count toward whatever bylaw fixture issue is causing that problem in the first place. So now you're telling me that after all the hoops

this person had to jump through, they're going to have to pay more because it's impermeable, even though the city told them they couldn't build a driveway. The porch has to be permeable, or it isn't permeable, so you got to pay for that. The one that really gets me is the roof. If you have rain barrels- What is the city of Toronto suggesting as far as the roof? They want me to put one of those grass roofs? Is that what they're asking? You could just divert it to the grass or into a rain barrel or something else. But even if you have that, they're still going to charge you either way. I don't get it. That's what I mean. I don't understand. You're damned if you do,

you're damned if you don't. Yeah. What is the ask, right? I don't understand what the ask is. And am I going to get a break on my property taxes and other taxes because presumably whatever I've been paying to maintain the storm drains is not working? Am I going to get a break there? No. So how much of a disaster has this mayor been for Toronto? Like awful. We talked about Yonge and Dundas Square. The cost of that consult

consultation was about eight million total waste uh they're doing consulting on this now by the way and they tried to pass this in 2017 it barely failed in 2017 or 16 i forget which year so they've tried this before you mentioned mississauga has this already it's not without precedent they're gonna get it looks like ottawa has something they're gonna get they're gonna get this like it's crazy this is going on. Why don't people just leave Toronto? Sell your house in Toronto for triple what it's worth. Move to Burlington or Oakville or Hamilton or Dundas or Ancaster, whatever.

You live an hour away, I guess, or 45 minutes away if you're close to the 403. But man, your life would just be so much better, honestly, than living in one of these other places that are run by people who just have no appreciation for what it takes to live in a city like Toronto. Everything is expensive. Stop taking so much money from people. They don't have it. They don't have the money. You figure out a different way. You're supposed to be maintaining infrastructure. That was your job. That was the reason we paid these levies. And now you're telling me it's not enough. I got to pay roof come on what are we talking about here this is crazy well you know who doesn't have the money as well are the people that were on the ubi system in ontario and for those who are unaware ontario did have a pilot project for a ubi this was i think in

2016 2017 done in the cities or towns of lindsey hamilton and thunder bay well they canceled that after a new government was formed in ontario so those ubi projects were basically stopped and the people that were collecting are now finding other ways to make ends meet well one way they're going to try to make ends meet is they have launched a class action lawsuit against the government of ontario for the tune of 200 million dollars and so yeah there you go that's why there's a new rain tax coming oh man i'll pay for this 200 million dollar lawsuit so yeah there you go they couldn't get money that was raining down on them but uh yeah maybe they'll find it one way or another it seems i i don't know if this

lawsuit's even going to go through but it's a lot of money man two million dollars the lawyers are the ones that are going to win this one for sure at the end but what what an absolute disaster but apparently the um the lessons learned through this u, that pilot project they did, that was what the government of Canada was using when they drafted their report for a GBI system. Oh. I forget which. So they referred to the Ontario pilot project, and they used that as a law or some of the justification for their findings.

So this all wasn't for naught. They used this as a way to help at least figure out if at gbi or gbi gbi in canada is worthwhile and apparently it doesn't seem like it's the case so we can take away something from this whole ubi thing but these guys they were going to take away 200 million it looks like so yeah that's a lot of money where did they come up with that number exactly anyone know like was that lost value like 200 i mean if if you just kept giving me the money in 2016 and i'd put it into bitcoin it'd be one person would say now you even have to buy like used shorts and i can't believe they're saying like used underwear

i think they're saying like she she is like really hard up and whatever money she's getting she just can't make i don't i I don't, I don't have like, I don't have necessarily, you know, something negative to say about that, but I will just note that we have mentioned on the show before that frequently people who need these kinds of supports don't make the best decision with the money when they get them. And we talked about this,

you know, a couple in Florida who had this UBI pilot. What did she do? She got her hair done and went to Disneyland or whatever. I don't want to dox too much here, but I know a guy. I went to high school with a guy who was part of that program. He was in the Hamilton Spectator for a story, and he was not working on anything when he got the UBI grant.

And when he got the grant, he decided to take on this passion project where he was like a painter of some kind, like an art, he was making art and the art wasn't very good. He was having a hard time selling it, but he was happier and his mental health was better and all these things. But, you know, I don't see how that's really that beneficial vis-a-vis UBI. And actually Floyd Maranescu makes this case too, that what you see is people working for less because they're doing something they're passionate about when they have UBI as a floor and people are generally happier, they're more productive in this way and stuff that wouldn't get done because it's not really that well paying suddenly

is getting done because there's this backstop, financial backstop for you. I don't necessarily see a lot of value there. I think about you and me, okay? And I won't say what we do for work, but there's things I'd rather be doing than going to work every day, for sure. The podcast is a great example of that. But our passion project, we do it on our own time. You know, like I do the reading for the show

most of the time on like Saturday morning with a coffee, or I'll do it after work, or I'll do it on lunch, or I'll listen to podcasts. I do it on my own time. I do it on my own time because I'm passionate about it. These two things, there's a wall between these two things. And I think this idea that UBI can help you make a passion into a profession is a little misguided. Not all passions are deserving of professional status and not all professions will allow you to find passion in day to day tasks. Somehow that's not mind bending for me, but it seems to be mind bending for a lot of UBI people. And again, like 200 million seems like an awful lot. And I know I'm kind of far off the beaten path here, but I just have a hard time putting all this together and seeing

how UBI is a valuable thing long-term. Short-term might help, but long-term, it doesn't solve the problem. It fixes some symptoms in the interim, but you don't get out of the things that cause you to need UBI by giving UBI is what I would say. Well, if you're able to do something of value and people are going to pay you accordingly to the skillset you're bringing to the table, that is what the market is saying. So there is a net gain to society for that. So if you are doing art and the art is not very good and you're not able to sustain yourself with that but you need ubi to elevate you to the point where you can it's it's a losing game it may work this month

but over time because you are providing less to society and there's also going to be a lot of people in the same position that are providing less to society society then gets less from everybody yeah taxation dollars go down and just it just becomes a a negative feedback loop and then the money gets further devalued and more money has to be given to people to elevate them to the point where they want to be just gets worse and worse so that when i'm trying to get at it if you you don't if you're not doing something and you're not getting paid enough to basically sustain yourself you got to find something else to do hopefully you have that skill set if not you have to somehow learn it

or attain it somehow because that's really the only way to do it you can't rely on somebody else to continue to give because that's going to be at the expense of what well i'm not going to say we understand what it is but that's right reality i mean i prefer i could play nhl 94 all day stream that shit all day imagine to you know there are people get paid for streaming video games by the way doing society like i'm getting i'm doing fucking nothing in the long run well the end of the day too like some part of me maybe it's naive to think that we're not in this bracket i think what we do valuable. And I think that people like what we do because it helps inform them. They can make good decisions, even though this is not financial advice.

But the one thing I think is the reason that people can do stuff like stream video games and do makeup tutorials and make cooking videos, is the reason they can do that and get paid because money is so, is still too cheap or was too cheap for too long. Is that why? Because, because people are just getting money and they're, they just don't know what to do with it. They're wasting it on nonsense. Maybe. I don't know.

It's like none of this stuff. Advertisement that goes along with it. I mean, yeah, clicks and whatnot, but like if people, but the whole thing is still like if people have no money to spend, then you need to target people who have disposable income. And the people who are watching makeup tutorials are not those people, right? The people who are watching videos on how to farm the best items in Diablo 2, which I'm guilty of watching, by the way.

I have a small problem. Hey, if it gets eyeballs and advertisers... The question is whose eyeballs is it getting? If it's not getting net producer eyeballs, then what good is the advertising? That's how I know that we get net producer eyeballs because our fucking videos are stuffed full of ads.

There's ads every 10 seconds on our fucking videos. I know that we get net producer eyeballs, but is there really net producer eyeballs on some of this other stuff on like you know valorant videos or i don't know that's the market that's free market if somebody's willing to pay for that all the more power to them it doesn't matter that's just the way things are and maybe it's because money is cheap and money's broken and if we were that's how it feels but in given the constraints or the system which is currently set up if there's an advertiser willing to pay for it all the more power to them go nuts yeah either if you're paying youtube that put their ad out or paying the

content creator directly yeah yeah boomer makes a good point too right like maybe it's just that no one's watching tv now so all that money has to go somewhere for ads and it just goes to youtube maybe he's right yeah maybe there is uh dollars there anyway that's it that's the end of the show one hour 49 minutes good job today len great show don't forget stories to go what the fuck yeah okay say them say them in the mirror i'm not doing i'm not doing them with you uh again don't forget spend money on bull Bitcoin. All the kickbacks we usually get will add up. If you focus and make your buys in the next two weeks, we're going to give it all the made X. Okay.

And, he can come on the show again and talk about, uh, the ordinal staying in Bailey and whatever else he wants to talk about before the conference. And I'll probably talk to him at the conference too, which would be nice. So,

uh, thank you once again, take care, comb your hair, uh, and we'll see you next week or see you, uh, Wednesday.

Who you got Wednesday? Who you got Wednesday? We have Jaime. I'm not sure you doing it or I do it. I don't even know. You do it. You do it. I'm not doing it.

I have Jaime Garcia. I got it. I got a busy April of, uh, some, some in-person interviews. I got to clean this room here. So you do have me.

Very good. Okay. So yeah, Jaime Garcia, we're going to get a catch up on what's going on over in el salvador follow up after the election but yeah tune on in and don't be a cock don't forget everybody lots of other stuff on cbp media network including two whites and a blue me joey my brother-in-law,

Mike, and our friend Will talk about all the problems millennials are having with finance, romance, and just getting by. If you like CBP, if you like the NHL 94 podcast, I guarantee you'll like that one. Search for it, Two Whites in the Blue, anywhere you get your podcasts. We look forward to seeing you.