The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast - Bitcoin News With a Canadian Spin - The CBP #158 (Other Notable Stories) - Guelph Begs for Land, Student Debt Forgiveness, Widget Buyers

Episode Date: April 10, 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: -Uber Eats drivers in NYC-UK is going bonkers-MSM gaslighting-Toronto offices empty-GBI is the answer? and so 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. Great. Yeah, 103.58. I like the pause because I can see it in the waveform when I edit this after. I got to tell you, I am looking forward to editing this show because I bought the largest bag of mini wheats that is offered by retail,

uh, grocers yesterday for $10. It was on sale for, and I'm going to dig into it while I edit this program. Looking forward to that. There's still so much more to talk about. We may have a whole stuff of stuff you have to edit. I'd rather say at the beginning of the show,

I want, if you are in the Hamilton area and consider yourself to be a competent athlete and are free on Wednesday nights in the summer, I may want to talk to you about playing touch football at St. Mary's High School, five on five. I don't know how expensive the league is yet. It's like 2,200 bucks, I think, for the league.

We need a few guys. So if you're competent, I hate to put an age limit on this, but try and be under 40 if you can. I will throw, and I need guys who can catch and guys who can play defense, rusher, stuff like that. So there's your announcement. I should have done that at the beginning of the show, but I am recruiting. Recruitment hour. I should have done that at the beginning of the show, but I am recruiting. Recruitment hour.

I didn't expect it. I'm recruiting via CBP. I'm using this platform for all manner of things now. So there you go. New York City. Let's talk about them because they have decided to raise the minimum wage on those working for Uber Eats. This is so nuts. Yeah, yeah.

This is so nuts. Minimum hourly rate right now, it's going to be set. It's not quite there yet. It's going to be $19.56 USD per hour. And once it's set to that point, it's also going to be adjusted annually for inflation. So as per the announcement made by New York City Eric Adams, the city's minimum pay rate for the app-based restaurant delivery services is increasing to at least 19.56 per hour before tips before tips i don't think there's any much tips after

this raises that much but this is also of note it's a phased in approach because the 2024 rate is going to be 18.90 and when it's fully phased in on April 1, 2025, then the workers will be earning the $19 and change per hour, and that's going to be adjusted for inflation. So $20 per hour, let's call it that. To be honest, this gets you absolutely nowhere in New York, right? Anybody earning $20 an hour, you're not going to be able to sustain yourself, let alone even a quarter of yourself because it is a very expensive city to live in. But let's be perfectly honest, people working this, this is not a job to, it's not a full-time job. It's not something, and I don't mean to offend anybody out there. This is not

something one aspires to be as their vocation for the remainder of their career. This is something that maybe is a stopgap or in addition to their existing job like just to do it on evenings and weekends this is not going to be you're not going to school in high school and college slash university say yeah i want to be an uber eats driver that's what i'm going to school for that's not really the case so um you want to still have that program sorry let's go and still have that program they should maybe they can attract a whole bunch of people from new york city to come in and then send them back there. But they won't.

Seattle is an example of what happens when you institute a higher minimum wage. Now we talked about what happened in Seattle. Yeah. For people like Uber eats and the likes that now the people delivering for them, they're delivering a fraction of the amount. The business has dropped off a cliff because people are less likely to spend money when the delivery service costs significant amount.

People look, money is not infinite when it comes to people like you and I. So we'd have to even if we have we have poor budgetary habits, still, we don't have an infinite supply of money. So they're going to be either doing less orders of this, or they're going to be apt to pick up the food themselves if they have to eat out. So as a result of people that are going to be suffering once it's all said and done are the people delivering the food, New York City does have a lot of high rollers out there's people making a great deal of money. So perhaps they're banking on the fact that raising the minimum price for delivery is going to be caught. They'll be able to absorb the extra cost. But I don't know. I suspect people in that lifestyle aren't ordering Uber Eats.

They're going out to fancy restaurants. So, yeah, it's another example of them increasing the payments, the hourly rate. And this one, like I say, $20 per hour in New York doesn't get you very far. But you know what? They're probably not going to make very many deliveries once this comes into effect. The other thing, people in the chat, I don't know how many people are getting Uber Eats, but there's people talking about it in the chat. I was just talking about this with my wife the other day because we were were like at the grocery store, just commenting on how expensive everything's become. And we're guilty of getting Uber Eats sometimes, you know,

I don't mind after, you know, a long day, especially in the summertime doing like yard work or, you know, you get a football game and then you get some stuff to do around the house. We are like keen sometimes on getting sushi from Uber Eats. And I, I, I've noticed and I'm sure everyone's noticed, she noticed, I noticed everyone is kind of talking about this kind of stuff. In addition to sort of the convenience costs and delivery fees and taxes and administrative costs that Uber charges you on Uber Eats orders, they also raise the price of every menu item for each restaurant. So now you're getting

upcharged on the restaurant. You're going to get upcharged on the delivery, upcharged on all the other services to cover this minimum wage thing. At what point is it actually just cheaper to get a cab driver to go pick up your food? Isn't that the next logical step? There's enough cab apps now that you don't have to actually call Blue Line or whatever. These guys are giving up their competitive advantage. I shouldn't say giving up. They're being stripped of their competitive advantage by communist administrations in places like New York and other foolishly blue jurisdictions. Yeah, I see you trying not to laugh there. i just think i just think that this is so dumb like and so uber isn't the next logical step for uber in a place where no one can afford to live

or eat anyway just to say fuck it we're not going to operate here if they can make money if they could justify it they're going to be able to for yeah if they can justify it but like i think we both agree that this moves them closer to not being able to justify it than the inverse well to be honest these places will just lose these services right like that's the thing canada by the way canadians know this whether they whether they understand that it's happened or happening or not one of the reasons you can't get a lot of stuff sent to canada from like u.s manufacturers or global manufacturers like this fucking football uh it was almost impossible to get sent here because I had to get sent from fucking Europe because you can't get one from the States.

Long story. But the reason you don't get a lot of stuff sent to places like Canada is because we just have all these stupid taxes on imports. It just doesn't make sense for these guys to operate here. We're a small population. And so we're not quite in the same boat as New York and Uber, but like, it's, it's like on the same continuum. And, you know, like you said, if they

can justify it, yeah, they'll keep doing it. Sure. But man, they gotta be getting close. I guarantee that they're having these conversations. You know, what is the threshold as far as these minimum wage for Uber drivers laws and how much we can upcharge and how much people in New York can afford to pay for a slice of pizza when they're too hung over or too drunk to go get it themselves. That's basically, that's basically the target audience. Is it not? It feels like that's what the target audience is. So if they do decide to pull out, it's going to be symbolic more than anything, right? It's because that's usually what it's like when I pull out to some, it's just a symbolic a symbolic thing yeah so the reality is how much infrastructure do they have in anywhere it's basically i mean

none too much about it no exactly i would say it's it's it's all like service being somebody signs up the ttyl right so for them to operate in new york it's just if there's one car that wants to operate they'll be happy to to do it because it gives them exposure there. And I can see them wanting to continue there. But that's why I say if they're going to pull out, it'd be a symbolic move to try to. And here's the other question, right? Like you have let's say you have like, I don't know, let's say you live in a place where there was a million immigrants added to your population in the last year or so, and none of them were able to find jobs. And they all had to drive Uber and Uber Eats and Lyft and

Ride or whatever else that they drive, all these ride share slash delivery apps. And minimum wage for those apps jumps to $20. And then the demand drops significantly. Where do all those immigrants that you just let in over the last 12 months end up having to go for work? Where do they go? I imagine they'll go into the state. Social services. And so then you wind up with a bigger problem, right?

The cost here, it's so funny to me. It's not funny. There's another word for this. I don't know what it is. I'll just say it is funny, actually. But that's not the only thing it is. It's also sad, stupid, embarrassing for the state of New York, city of New York, I should say. It's funny that you and me can get here just like,

you know, bullshitting back and forth for a couple of hours about Bitcoin and economics. We can get to the immediate second order effects in 15 seconds. Are you telling me that this guy, Adams and his pals there, his dyed-in-the-wool commie friends couldn't figure this out after what was probably more than a million dollars in consulting and interactions with Uber and community stakeholders and a dozen meetings and all the associated administrative costs? They never thought like, oh yeah, we did just take a billion immigrants from all over the country, including busloads from Texas over the last year on a daily basis by the sounds of things. A lot of them are doing this as a service.

We need the demand for this service to stay high. We shouldn't force people to pay more for it. Yeah, well, we're not going to do that. It's just so stupid. This is why the conspiracy crowd views this as intentional controlled demolition of an established system of norms and expectations, because it's almost impossible to be this moronic on a policy front. But they do it. They do it. It's not that hard to see why guys like Peter Schiff are so adamant that minimum wage doesn't work.

He's right. Honestly, he is right there's some middle ground you know between living standards and work but minimum wage is not the lever that's not the lever there are other levers we should be pulling well i got some stories here from mainstream media articles that are trying to gaslight people i want to just love it bring them up so wall street journal title what's wrong with the economy it's you not the data i love that so they say 74 of respondents there was a poll done said inflation has moved in the wrong direction in the past year the 12 months through february inflation according to century-old consumer price index was 3.2 and that was compared to six percent a year earlier they say

taking out food and energy for that matter look like inflation is still down so they're taking away the stuff that matters most to us shelter food energy they have any of these guys tried to live without food and energy have they tried it or shelter but no but if you strip that out of the equation then yeah things are going down so anyways it's just and they're saying that it's you're the problem not the data like i don't know that's that's the first gas lighting article i saw here second this is from the independent says how climate change is hitting vulnerable indonesian trans sex workers stop len that can't be a real story it sure is apparently the longer rainy seasons and the higher winds are causing issues with the trans sex workers in indonesia as compared you're trying okay you guys don't know len like i do but i'll tell you

he is fucking trying hard not to laugh while he is reading this he is giving it all he's got it's funny stuff so yeah like so out there like you know next time you're thinking about starting your car and going on a joyride think of all the trans sex workers out there do that they can't get their own joyride all thanks to climate change so we have to think about them as we do our part to mitigate their problems uh another one john stark reed this guy he is the president of the john reed stark oh sorry john i got it wrong anyways but he's also a senior lecturer uh fellow at duke university of law so he is in a prominent position at a prominent school and he's taught teaching law. Right.

He writes a very long winded article at this. Tether kills. Bitcoin kills. Crypto kills. Crypto related carnage continues to grow exponentially. And for what? The problem is he's linking Bitcoin to Putin's war machine and also Iran's terrorism. Right.

So he's saying that crypto has no underlying intrinsic value, no semblance of any form of legal tender, and yet significant resources of energy, people, and capital are expended on his creation. And he says, uh, also writes people don't bother with the typical responses.

Like say now do Fiat, because if you do that, he says, he'll block you. he will fucking block you that's this is straight from this law guy from duke university crypto as an asset has failed there's no cash flow no yield crypto as an investment failed because there's no regulatory insight crypto has failed as a currency because the price is too volatile crypto has failed as a store of value because it lacks utility and intrinsic benefits. But don't reply. But don't reply.

Don't fucking reply. Or I'll block you. Fails in a safe haven because there exists no government oversight or protections to provide any semblance of safety. There you go. We got a lot of gaslighting going on here. I love it.

They're just, you know, just clump them all together just like I did those stories that are attacking Bitcoin. Okay. So the Wall Street Journal one, I hate the most like I did those stories that are attacking. Okay. Okay. So the wall street journal one, I hate the most because I wrote about this in the research roundup. It was like the article that I led with that.

I thought it was the Indonesian one that you hated the most. No, no, no. That's that's. I love that one the best. That one's pretty fucked up too. But no, this one is like, it's right. It's so in your face, right? You're constantly being told the mainstream media is impartial and does actual research.

These people don't, people don't know anything. And they're just a mechanism for state narrative spin, basically, at this point. Come on. I took some shit a year ago from somebody listening to the show because I called Wall Street Journal a rag. And they're like, no, it's a reputable newspaper. How do you feel now? How many times do you get to see this stuff from them?

They're garbage. They're garbage. The only place to get decent information now is Twitter. There's no other place to get decent information or decent updates or fact checking. It's all done by people who are doing this because they just want to dunk on the clowns that have been lying to get truth out of anyone anymore. Wall Street Journal is not going to do it. The trans sex worker thing, I'm not going to talk about the politics of that, but Glenn, from a product market fit standpoint, who's asking for that article? Who's paying for that publication and being like, I have to get to that page and read that article this is what i want to read about as far as news that was the guardian you said put that out the

independent that wasn't it's an intention grabber let's be honest because if anybody sees it they're not going to gloss over it at all this is very interesting stuff i want to see why the trans sex workers in indonesia are being impacted by climate change more than their counterparts are. I don't know. So I just laugh. And the CBC even here, if you want to just add a notable North hint here, a little flavor shot in your sparkling water. The same thing. It's all the same thing.

These guys, they just, it's made up. It's made up. What is the value of saying you're imagining how bad the economy is? And then in the article saying, yeah, all you can do is cut out shelter, energy, and food and everything's fine. What is the point of that article? Except rage bait. Are these guys really just trying to make money off Twitter clicks?

Is that what they've been reduced to? I don't know. It's possible. It seems to me like that's the style of writing they're endorsing and publishing so maybe that's the case but look at it they're saying if you strip that out of the equation then inflation isn't a big thing but then climate change is going to impact you because if you look at the indonesian trans sex worker story they don't have a roof over their head according to this and the rainy season is fucking impacting them so you have to have the roof over your head no but shouldn't they be doing better without the roof over their head they should be but if they're not because now something else is impacting them we go to the next problem well why don't they just

tax the rain do they have to talk to mayor chow that may be a good idea we fixed this already over here we fixed this just talk to olivia oh that'd be a that'd be a rainfall of cash no pun intended because they have monsoon season over there right think of the money that would come from the sky every time it's monsoon time god bless these people listen i don't read any of that shit but we'll talk about it every week because it's just too good to pass up i will will read it. Anyway, President Biden this week, actually today, in fact. Today. Today.

Yeah. Seeking to cancel some interest on student loans. So some interest in student loans. And this is going to aid some 23 million Americans. And he plans to ease student debt that would benefit these 23 million Americans. The administration said addressing a key issue for young voters who need support during this election year. Remember, this is an election year. Trying to gather as much support as possible. Everybody does this.

This is not just simply a Biden thing. This is just Parford, of course. Everyone does it. So the plans, which Biden will detail today in Madisonison wisconsin i'm not sure if he did it so they was including up to twenty thousand dollars of accrued and capitalized interest for borrowers regardless of income and so this is going to come out to if it's twenty thousand dollars for all 23 million borrowers that's according to lend math 460 billion dollars a decent chunk of change so to date today the administration has approved 146 billion dollars in student relief and that's for up to 4 million

americans so you're trying to expand this to a whole bunch more yeah so as of june 2023 that's the last data i have approximately 43 million student loans are on the books for a total of 1.63 trillion dollars so the question comes up it's an election year as i mentioned right so they're trying to make life easier for these younger voters and up to canceling of twenty thousand dollars yeah would certainly make things a lot easier. Now, is this move going to be a net positive for Biden if he's going to run or is it going to be a net negative? And the reason why I ask, are they going to get more young voters voting for them this time around or an equal amount of voters this time around compared to last time or are they going to to anger more people that are going to vote against the them based on this decision so

i'm trying to wonder is this something that is good politics or is it not good politics i don't know so let me let me read you a couple things here that i because i tweeted about this just for the show and i'm back on the tweet thread here. This is really like, if you want to paint a demographic picture of who votes Democrat, these are really the dumbest people in the country. Okay.

And I'll tell you why some of the programming here is insane. Okay. Cancel debt for borrowers eligible for forgiveness programs, but have not yet applied. I read that as someone who can't sit down at a computer for 10 fucking minutes to get out of five figure debt. That's apparently crippling enough that we have to forgive it. Okay. This person is stupid. That avatar is stupid. Okay. So this person dumb, we know this Next category. Cancel debt for borrowers who answered repayment over

20 years ago. You got into a student debt for a program that gave you such a low quality output in terms of your job opportunities that you couldn't pay for it over 20 years and you need it repaid. You're dumb. You're dumb. This is a person who is not smart, period, end of story. So to give you an idea of where the sort of Democrat wheelhouse is, lowest of the low, lowest common denominator. This is not up for debate. I'm not going to mince my words here. These people are not bright people, period, end of story. Sorry if you don't like that. But the gravy on top here, Len, of the proverbial Putin is, of course, in the community notes. He talks about how this is a benefit to the economy and how it's important for the states.

The top note, the Biden plan has no projected benefit to the economy. The plan has no projected cost. The plan does not address the cost of education. Rather, it charges the taxpayer for coursework the borrowers elected to take. I couldn't have said it better myself. And on top of all that, Len, what kind of policy is this? It's inflationary. It's free money given to people who will spend it on widgets. They've proven they're only going to spend it on widgets because they couldn't get out from the debt burden after 20 fucking years or couldn't

sit at the computer long enough to apply for the program. These are widget buyers, okay? That's what we're calling these people now, widget buyers. If you give widget buyers money, you don't help them economically because they cannot be helped economically, period. No matter how much money you give them, they will make a bad decision with it. We've seen this now enough times to establish it as fact. That's the story. This is a poor policy. To your question about will he get votes for this? I don't know. Maybe. I have a hard time understanding how somebody who can't sit

down for five minutes at a computer is going to make it to a ballot box, but I guess it doesn't matter because they'll just mail in their ballot and it'll be fake anyways. So maybe that's a way to get votes. But Republicans and people on the fringe, especially in a time when everyone is talking about debt, like debt financing, interest rates, deficit spending, people who are on the fringe will say like, I can't vote for this. I'm already having trouble getting Uber Eats because it's so expensive. I'm already having trouble putting gas in my car because we don't produce domestically here at the rate we should. I'm already having trouble because we're sending a trillion dollars over to Zelensky every six months. They don't want this. And I think those people, yeah, they may switch, Len. The election, I don't know. I think there's a real chance this

is like a absolutely batshit bonkers three, four months leading up to the election and another batshit bonkers, like buildings on fire, people getting killed in the 72 hours afterward. I'm looking forward to, what are we on? We're on episode 157 or something like that. 158. I don't know where we're on. 158. I bet you in 10 weeks or 12 weeks, just as summer is starting to wind down, let's say August, we'll start to see articles about how the election ballots won't be counted in one day, how it's going to take a couple of days to count, a week to count, mail-ins, this, that, the other. And that's when you're going to start to see things heat up. I know it's not directly related to this story, but I think people look at this stuff. It's clearly divisive to forgive student

loans. It is clearly something that separates or that has a fault line between states, between professions, between education levels, between perceived and real value contributed to the economy, among other fault lines that have proven to be very pervasive in the United States, maybe more than other places. And I can't, the president's job at some level is to unite a nation regardless of how you feel about debt forgiveness is this a uniting action it's not so what like these guys don't care about uniting they don't care about everyone playing for the same team they don't care about about cohesion or social cooperation any of this stuff they don't give a fuck. And it shows with policies like this. Oh, it's helping people. These people can't be helped. They can't be helped. Stop

throwing good money after bad. You'd never do this with your fucking sister who was addicted to slot machines. Oh, we just have to bail out her slot machine debt. She won't go back. She's living for the one-armed bandit, the same way that these people are living to spend money on shit they don't need with jobs that don't provide because they got educations that are worthless it's not going to help that's just what we are you do blame this the uh casino the slot machine people the people that that provide of course not of course not they're they're running on incentives just like everyone else but they're administered and they're regulated by somebody, right? So they should have been – there should have been some over – If the casino never lets you win, then sure.

But the thing is, the colleges, you don't have to go there for interpretive Indonesian trans sex worker dance. You don't have to. You can go there for STEM or engineering or go to college for plumbing or electrical. You don't have to go polysty or whatever and i'll explain why okay sure tell me why tell me why i'm wrong because they're selling a false bill of goods to people and that should not be the case because they should be selling the truth are they guaranteeing jobs are they guaranteeing jobs no but there was a false bill of goods we're going to teach you you want to learn about underwater basket weaving we will give you a degree in underwater basket weaving it's going to have

our letterhead you can frame it we'll even put it on some cloth paper some cotton paper that'll there's more there's more to it so they may be offering the underwater basket weaving course but remember who's paying for that now that money for the most part is coming from everybody because it's being in programs like this. Yeah. Yeah. Loans are being given out. Then that money is given to the universities for to pay for the courses. That money is then forgiven.

But the money that was given to the university to for the courses, they get to keep. Right. They have billions of dollars they're sitting on, on endowments. Billions! And they've collected all this. The endowment thing is a different conversation, I think. This is all fucking collected. There's all a connection here.

And they're sitting on this fucking money. And now they are sitting and, well, we didn't do anything wrong. They provided shitty education. They provided shitty services. And now the taxpayers are gonna have to foot the bill and they get to keep the money i know any other world you'd be fucking hung upside down and shot in the chest like did we did did we talk about um mussolini that's funny my i call my dog mussolini sometimes when he gets up to no good uh do you think that there's a room, and I'm

sure we've talked about this, you and I, either when we were working together at the lunch table where we were solving all the world's problems or on the podcast, is there room for a model where universities say, we want 0.05% of your lifetime earnings once you get out of here, but we won't charge you for the tuition? Is there, is there a model for that? Cause we talked about this, I think with, wasn't there like a baseball version of this? Well,

that's an agent that did this. It wasn't, it wasn't an agent. I think, I think it's a league where you get prepared to play pro they'll, they'll, but you know, they'll fly you around.

They'll play their pay. They'll pay your per diem while you're in development. But then when you get into the draft, they want 1% of your lifetime earnings. It sounds like a trade-off. It's going back to Vern Gagne from AWA. He was the guy that owned wrestling territory in Minnesota. And when he trained people, he said,

whenever you get a job, you're going to be sending me a percentage of your paycheck for the rest of your life. Obviously, nobody fucking did it. But you can't fucking expect something like that. Right? I don't know. Well,

so what's the model that works then? Like to me, that's the model that works. If you come here, we won't, we'll charge you a nominal fee for the education, but you have to give us some percentage of your lifetime earnings. And we guaranteed it.

It needs to be substantial because the education is going to be good. I don't know whatever right you figure out the wording i'm a bigger fan of just giving them a lump sum having them provide a service and everybody's happy in the end but that service is is gotta have value up to stuff yeah it's gotta be up to and if they're just pumping up people in a particular program and the majority or a good number of those people aren't able to find jobs in that program or anywhere else that is able to sustain themselves then people in charge have to say fuck we're not doing our students service and the students have to fucking look at them yeah there's no

mirrors anywhere in this equation though for sure everybody's got it and i'm pissed off at the fact that everybody is going to have to foot the bill, but the people that got paid, they get to keep the money and that's it. And then university administrators famously, like some of the highest paid quote unquote public servants here, the States, basically anywhere, right?

The sunshine list is full of university administrators here in Ontario. I'm not sure what's like other places, but you know what? I'm going to say like, I'm fine with that because I would like to have the best and the brightest teaching our young kids to make them the next generation of the next generation.

I'm fine with that. I want to ensure that we're trying to prepare them for life not with a shitty degree or shitty diploma, but something of value that they could use and they could contribute to society moving forward. Anyways, let's on notable north i think there's a couple of stories we should talk about we're getting let's say it toronto downtown uh they're my favorite

it's one of our favorite places a frequent visitor of notable north here downtown train tax now their office vacancy rates it's becoming a real problem. And so this is one of the side effects of shutting down the economy in 2020 and 2021. Office workers, they were starting to work from home as a result. And now they haven't yet all gone back to the office at the same clip in 2019 and before. So some people are working a hybrid or some days at home some days not so new stats show that 18 of office offices in the core of toronto are vacant during the first quarter of 2024 so this number a lot it's going up too you figure that it's because

in q4 2023 it was 17.4 and now it's 18 slightly increased but it's because in Q4 2023, it was 17.4%. And now it's 18%. Slightly increased, but it's not going in the right direction. It's going in the wrong direction. And this number is going to get even worse because there are a bunch of new construction builds that are, they're not putting the finishing touches to them. And when those come in, when they're ready, well, that's more vacant offices. I'll give you an example. And when those come in, when they're ready, well, that's more vacant offices. I'll give you an example.

Of the total of the 5 million square feet of office spaces for the new buildings that are being constructed, only 2.9 million square feet have already been secured by tenants. So we'll say 60%. 40% are still vacant. And I'm not sure exactly how they're going to find tenants but i suspect there may be a creative solution to this and i'm not making a joke here but i can see that there may be a push to find a place for homeless to get right like if you have an empty office or offices you have a homeless problem that needs to be addressed especially next winter because you know what are you doing well let's just solve one problem and with this here and everybody's happy in the end who pays and who pays the leases and the rents for the office buildings

of course everybody does you and me exactly it's like completely insane when people ask how you know how you went bankrupt the answer is always slowly but suddenly i think we're getting close to suddenly here so much so that the tax on rainwater seems to have enough legs that it's going to pass uh you know i told that i told you guys a story about um my uncle who built a house in toronto and had all these rules and regulations how much he could put down in terms of like impermeable service area etc etc and now they tax you on that then to your point i'm glad you brought it up because it is the case i know it's the case because uh i don't know if you have the guelph donation of land for temporary encampment site story we'll do that next yeah why don't we let's loop it in here i know that the the thing about the homeless or even like, you know,

homeless immigrants who are coming to Canada, um, especially at a time where the mood toward immigration has completely done a one 80, the generosity is completely has completely evaporated in the last like fucking eight weeks, basically across political lines. It's coming. They're going to take office space that's vacant and use it for these purposes. To what end? I don't know. You're going to just have these people living there forever? Why would they leave? That's the other thing. It's like these temporary solutions, but I see no permanent fix on the horizon, nor do I see any attempt to formulate one by any of the governing bodies, municipal, provincial, or federal. So why would I submit to this? Now, the Guelph story ties into this.

Why don't you summarize that, and then we'll keep going. The Guelph story is fucking nuts. It's fucking nuts. So details on this are very skimpy right now but i could give you what i have and maybe you could fill in the blanks what i'm missing sure and the city of guelph is asking for help to deal with their homelessness problem and they're doing this by asking for people to donate land for a potential temporary encampment site and part of the criteria is that the property owner must be

willing to donate the land for a minimum of three years and the city is looking for a spot close to downtown but they're willing to consider for other sites as well and for those who are interested in donating land they are asked to email the city at purchasing at wealth.ca i love that address that inbox is going to be just full of hilarious fucking emails but anyway keep going while they're doing this they're asking people who wish to donate land by april 26 so you don't have very much time to submit your request they say let us know if you're interested then we'll get into details at a later date said james graham the manager of economic development and tourism so

based off this they don't have very much information many details to share but they it's getting to a point now they cannot deal with the homeless problem that they have on their hands and they're asking for people to donate lands for up to three years in order to temporarily provide shelter man like who who would want to do that but like they're asking for the highest value land okay have you been to guelph when was last time you were in guelph i don't even know the last time i've been okay so i dated i dated a girl who lived in guelph when i was like 24 she she was going to waterloo but she lived in guelph and so i went there a bunch of times ali she's a very nice girl things didn't work out obviously but uh anyway sort of another

time i'm happily married now don't worry about me the the uh the the guelph downtown is is like a kind of a relic of when guelph was a smaller place obviously the university is there now they have the veterinary school who took great care of scoopop when he was sick. And they have a lot of sort of positive community aspects there. But open land for an encampment downtown does not exist. If it did, it would be some of the highest value land in the province. Because what do you have in Guelph? You have a lot of the amenities that make living downtown great without a lot of the fentanyl drug alcohol homelessness crime and other problems that exist and are proliferating in places like hamilton oakville brampton burlington toronto etc you go all the way down the list there okay go out to ajax coburg it's all the same shit guelph doesn't seem to have those problems uh they seem to be almost immune to the influx of immigrants that have filled sort of low wage jobs in places like Kitchener-Waterloo, where Conestoga is.

And by and large, it seems to be insulated themselves from almost all the problems that have become prevalent in most Ontario cities. I think, I think it's been a while since I've been there, but last time I was there, this wasn't the case. So the thing I would know here is, again, if you go downtown Guelph, the reason they're asking for property near downtown Guelph, and this is maybe a deep cut if you're not on the social services scene, but the reason they want property downtown is because it's near services that addicts, people on welfare, new Canadians, et cetera, the people who are most likely to need a tent encampment to live, it's near the services they need. When I hear that, there's the Mayor Guthrie there, Cam Guthrie. I don't know much about this guy, but when he says that he wants to land for three years, but it has to be near the services that these people need, what I hear is you're going to bring people into these tent encampments.

They're going to be near the services, become dependent on them, be with other people who are dependent on them. And the community is going to build in a way that you don't want and fester. And I use that word purposely because it's not growing and blossoming. It is festering in your downtown core, ruining all the things that make the wealth downtown core great. You can say whatever you want about that, but drug use, alcoholism,

dependency on other substances, mental health issues, people who need real support, real ideas and real help and don't need to suffer in public for the love of God, do not need to be in your downtown core. They certainly don't need to be there for three fucking years. On top of that, if you look at the Guelph tax structure, the Guelph tax demographics, places like the Guelph University downtown bar scene where McCabe's is and stuff

like that, or was, these guys pay the most property tax in the area. Are you really going to tell those people who rely on friendly frontage, available parking, clean streets, inviting communities, inviting neighborhoods, generally safe conditions outside, especially in the summer months, especially when the university students are there, are you really going to tell them that you're going to take away all those things in favor of a tent encampment that you're claiming is going to be three years, but is sure as shit going to be there longer than three years? Why would they stay? If they want the land, get it from the university. The university, to your point, is making a ton of money.

I'm sure they're offering some quality programs and maybe some that are lower quality than they should be, and no doubt have a huge chunk of money in the bank and tons of land in their real estate portfolio, almost without a doubt. Every university is like this. The swath of land that the Guelph Veterinary Hospital is on, for example, is enormous. I went there with Scoop. We were an hour early when he was going to get checked out for his cancer in his mouth. We walked the full hour and I didn't walk over the same blade of grass twice. It's a huge,

huge campus. You fit a lot of tents on there. You can fit a lot of tents on the Guelph University proper campus. It's a beautiful kind of roaming green space with a lot of huge buildings right on the main strip. I'm sure there's services nearby. Put the tents there. Don't ask a private citizen who has purchased land, presumably with the intent of developing it and contributing to your community, to give it to you for free instead. Pertence. It is an admission of failure and a normalizing of a condition that is not conducive to building community or building cities if you do this you're going the wrong direction period end of story it's embarrassing these people should be ashamed of themselves well the only thing i

could think of from all this is if somebody does have that mythical piece of empty land and they are not going to develop on it for some time and they want to keep it empty so rather than just continually pay property taxes on something that you're not going to develop i i think that the only thing that they're banking on is they'll expect uh accept this donation for a short period of time and probably waive any property taxes i just i don't that's the way yes i don't believe them i don't it. I don't believe them. I don't believe that it's going to be for three years. I don't believe that it's worth not paying the property tax.

You're talking about contamination when it comes to drugs and other illicit substances. You cannot do this. It's not feasible and it's not what modern society should be doing. Solve the problem you have. Stop addressing the symptoms. Stop. The problem you have is with money, it's with immigration, it's with whatever. That's what it is.

Throw the dart wherever you want. There's a million places you could throw the dart and you will find the problem on the board, but you can't keep saying, well, we just need a place to put them. No, you don't. You need to improve the situation for these people. Putting them in a tent in someone else's land is not how you do it. It's again, it could not be more. There is no more shameful request than this in my opinion

an admission of defeat normalizing all the wrong things terrible shame on guelph shame on the mayor shame on all these people well at least they're not forcing it from somebody's hands right now they're just not forcing it yet yeah forcing it yet let's do one last story because we started a little bit later on this one sure people. People are still upset at the higher costs, obviously. And one third of Canadians are, can't believe they're doing this, but they're blaming grocery stores as a result of this. And this is according to a recent Nanos poll. 32% of those surveys said grocery stores are the number one reason for the sharp rise of food prices and the surveys surveyors also blamed food manufacturers themselves for increasing prices as well as weather events they also are

blaming the government the carbon tax or a combination of everything so the survey also says that nearly one in five canadians say they know somebody who has they or sorry they say one in five say that they've used or know somebody that have used a food bank in the past year yeah 20 and you know what of five people that i i don't know of anybody that admitted to me you and me are not in that thankfully you know like knock on wood blessed and lucky and i think did a lot of the right things you and i do not know anybody in that situation but man i bet there's a lot of people who know five out of five of their friends you do the odds if it's one out of five and i know zero out of five and you know zero to five then somebody's got to have three out of five and then yeah right so that's it's a scary situation

what's being um let's do what's out there and so i'm just shocked that people are blaming grocery stores as the main culprit for increasing why are you shocked why are you shocked there's there's like a a plague of financial in like incompetence and and illiteracy innumeracy whatever you call whatever you want you see it everywhere you see it like we mentioned earlier in the states people who think they need their loans forgiven but can't bother to apply you see it here and people who think we need a higher minimum wage or whatever like there is an illiteracy that exists in the general population and 30 is lower than i would expect it to be but i guess that's a positive sign that people are realizing hey it's not just like these guys slap stickers on stuff and try and charge me as much as they can without consideration for their costs.

They, of course, consider their costs. We should mention Carolyn Rogers' speech from two weeks ago in Halifax. Carolyn Rogers is the deputy head of the Bank of Canada. In no uncertain terms, saying that the fix for all these things is basically two-pronged. It is getting rid of all these stupid monopolies in grocery and telecom and every silo that we have them, these oligopolies, I should say, and increasing productivity, investing in research development and things that will help people produce more for each hour worked. She noted specifically that when you have oligopolies like this, profits are good. Like your income statement looks great and you don't have to do anything to innovate, you don't innovate. This is, this is the, this is the case here. And so, you know,

innovation doesn't just come on the side of, you know, increasing wages, but also increasing your efficiency in terms of productivity, transport, packaging, all this stuff. They don't have to do fucking any of it. And worse, you know, if I think about stuff like the carbon tax, it's only really one part. One thing people don't talk about nearly enough is this war on plastic packaging. I was in the store yesterday. My wife and I wanted meatball subs for dinner. I love a good meatball sub. I go to the Fortino's here in Dundas on Main West. I grab the best buns I can find, like those nice eight-inch sub buns. I get the pack of Fortino's meatballs. I don't feel like making it myself. Fortino's makes a good meatball. The packaging now, Len, it's so clearly tailored for some stupid regulation around what you can put in packaging. That's expensive to do because not everywhere in the world requires you to do this. And so if you're a packaging manufacturer, you charge more to produce that package because you only have to produce it a little bit. And so you have to change your line,

your assembly line, right? To put it in general terms. When you start thinking about all these little things, these little cogs in a process that add costs, it's hard to conceptualize it for the average person, for one of those 32%, okay? The average widget buyer doesn't understand that. But when you ask somebody who's got some level of competence and understands sort of the bigger picture when it comes to the cost of things, the first thing they will point to is supply chain. And yeah, carbon tax, of course, contributes to it negatively, but also this other stuff contributes to it too. Because if you've ever ordered, I'll give you an example of how this looks when it's done right.

If you've ever ordered something on Amazon and asked yourself, man, why is this box so big? How could it be that this box is so big for something I ordered that's so small? The reason the box is big is because the warehouse that day had more of those boxes than any other boxes. And someone somewhere, some algorithm, some AI decided that sending Buddy too far down the warehouse to get a smaller box for your stuff was not worth the money. They put the box, put your stuff in the same size box as the guy who got the lawn chair, even though you only ordered protein powder. That's what efficiency looks like. That's why Amazon is so cheap. That's why they deliver for basically free. And that's why they do such a good job all around the world. It's logistics. And when you talk about logistics, there's so many different elements to go into it. People just don't understand.

And so, like I said, 32% is high, but it's also lower than I would have expected, honestly, with the number of just like media publications, television spots, constant berating from CBC, NatPost, Globe and Mail, The Spectator, The Star. Oh, the carbon tax. It's actually the carbon rebate. The rebate's going up. It's money in your pocket.

No, it's not. Nobody with any baseline level of confidence believes this to be the case because it's just not true. It's plain and simple not true. You see it everywhere. I think that's it for the show that's it that's it let's end it right here that's it good night god bless let me know if you want to play receiver for my team and uh until next time take care of yourselves and 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 uh if you like cbp if you like the nhl 94 podcast i guarantee you'll like that one. Search for it. Two whites and a blue anywhere you get your podcasts. We look forward to seeing you.