• 14 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • “The total all-in cost was about $1.7 million," says Victoria fire Chief Dan Atkinson.

    Two grants from the provincial and federal governments – totalling $660,000 – bring replacement costs in line with a new diesel truck at around $1.2 million.

    “Total cost to ownership is definitely lower so when we look at that total lifecycle of say a 20-year vehicle, we’re saving a lot of money in fuel over that 20 years,” said Simon Upshon, manager of fleet operations with the City of Victoria.

    Seems to be a fairly financially sound decision to make. Fuel is a massive cost for a car of this size.



  • I think a rent cap could be a good way. It could be raised wrt to inflation. Then, government housing, better loan systems for non profit and maximize density to allow building taller rather than wider (making land cost minimal), but not tall enough that would create increased cost (elevators are expensive to maintain for example). A lot of initiatives need to be put in place, but one that could be effective is to lower costs of construction and find ways to increase productivity by improving resource management


  • The fundamental issue with housing as an investment is that it is a monolithic and non-fluid vehicle, which makes it worse when leverage comes into play. Whereas stocks can be purchased/sold at any time in an instant and have fractional costs (sometimes as cheap as 10$ per stock), houses are not, and fast fluctuations in prices could heavily impact your ability to realize your gains. So it is, on that aspect, a terrible investment.

    For large companies owning thousands of units, this is not an issue since they are spreading the risks across the units (by buying diversely located units of all types). They can also quickly execute purchases and sales since they are in that exact business.

    So the argument that houses are ways to pass down wealth is misguided: they are terrible ways to pass down wealth, and parents should leave a trust fund or safe investments rather than a house if their goal is to build generational wealth - housing should be passed down for personal reasons.