As IF Times

link Young families pull up stakes for better life.

While at first, articles such as this will provoke lots of knee jerk responses from those who will say “something must be done”, the reality is that in a free society, that would make little sense.  The constant promotion of Vancouver over the past decade or so though the staging of  world class events such as the Olympics has resulted in the benefits we see today.  Vancouver is a world class destination no longer undiscovered by those that have means.  We kept telling people what a wonderful place it was and whaddya know, it’s worked!  Go figure that people would find the stunning scenery, benign climate and amiable population attractive.  Attractive enough to lure people to buy homes here.

As residents are always proud of proclaiming,  Vancouver is a world class city.  That’s the upside.  But now comes the unintended consequences. The downside is that locals may not be able to afford to live in a world class city.  Unless you were fortunate enough to have owned property here from 20 years ago, it’s unlikely that owning a house within the city proper is affordable for most people.  That’s the way  it is.  It’s not likely that in New York City, or Hong Kong, or Honolulu or San Francisco,  young families would be able to get a 2000 sq ft house with a small yard for the dog and kids for $300,000.  In all of those cases, as is in Vancouver, they are victims of their own success.

If it’s that wonderful, guess what, people will pay to be there.  The wave of enthusiastic property purchases have made innumerate locals wealthy beyond their wildest dreams for simply having the good fortune to have owned property.  Some of that money goes back into the local economy through lifestyles and undoubtedly some will get passed on to the children of those fortunate homeowners.  Because of this wealth effect, people don’t blink when paying $4 dollars for a half calf, double mocha with a latte twist at the hundreds of coffee shops in this town.  They don’t hesitate to pay $200 to watch the Canucks play hockey at a stadium where they pay $30 to park and $12 for a beer.  And my favorite, $120 bucks to buy Lululemon yoga pants.  While of course it’s a burden for young families, it does require an evaluation and assessment of expectations.

The fact that we are seeing young people move to more affordable communities is the natural order of things. (If that weren’t the case, everyone would still be huddled around Plymouth Rock in Virginia).  These people  will then build communities and create opportunities in places more affordable. Eventually, they’ll sponsor a hockey team and pay high ticket prices there too.

What should not be encouraged is the ugly populist notion of entitlement.  As it should now be obvious to most sane people, the blanket mentality of entitlement  threatens to smother progress everywhere.  Living in a comfortable society allows us the luxury of heightened expectations for all aspects of our daily lives, but expectations are not rights.   The next time you hear about someone complaining about how high property prices are, ask them if they’d be willing to sell theirs for what they paid for it.  After the laughter dies down, the only sound you’ll hear are crickets.

link Davos elites to seek reforms of outdated capitalism.

An interesting postulate, if only there were some evidence of it.  While it’s popular for the socialist crowd to bemoan the structural inequities of the capitalist system, in fact, there hasn’t truly been a capitalist system in place in any nation for many generations.  Certainly not in Europe, where in most countries, the predominant train of governing regimes moved from historically entrenched monarchies,  directly to socialism with only the  briefest whistle-stop at the capitalist station.  What they consider capitalism in Europe is akin to equating Dominos to Italian food.

It was historically natural for people to whine and complain that the King or the Queen (as the case may have been), weren’t treating the peasants well.  Under monarchies, upward social mobility was pretty limited.  You were either born royal, or married into it.  Even having money wasn’t a guarantee of social mobility.  Therefore, the majority of the population lived at the favour of the ruling class, receiving whatever crumbs the rulers deigned to confer.  This same mentality carries over to present day wherein people whine and complain about those in charge, demanding more of this or less of that.

The model for America was rather different, at least in the beginning.  People who were tired of others telling them what they could or couldn’t do decided to start their own country, a meritocracy based nation free of the constraints of entrenched and corrupt governance.  The problems arose many many years later when, along with great wealth creation, came the disease of entitlement.  Instead of a healthy focus on creating wealth and prosperity, the malaise of an entitlement to wealth and prosperity mentality began to spread.

Which brings us to today.  According to reports, fully 40% of Americans pay no federal income tax.  According to http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html , over 70% of federal income taxes are paid by only the top 10 percentile of taxpayers.  Even worse, apparently there are 70 federal welfare programs in place now to address “poverty” in the U.S., according to The Heritage Foundation.  Hardly a true capitalist system.

Meanwhile in Europe, the ability to fund months of holidays for workers, retirement benefits starting at 50, social welfare to accommodate everyone who asks, is coming up against the harsh wall of reality.  States such as Greece, Portugal, Italy and on and on are unable to fund these entitlements.  Somehow, the blame is laid at the doorstep of capitalism, when in fact socialism is the disease that afflicts all nations.  It’s brilliant sleight of hand that those who benefited the most from crony capitalism, which is in fact socialism, are crying crocodile tears about the failure of capitalism.  This is the same logic as decrying the existence of laws since the jails are so full of people.  It is the same as refuting the idea of universal education because some people are still illiterate.

We don’t  know who these so called ‘elites’ in the Cristal and caviar crowd are and how they came to be spokesmen for anyone, but it’s a good idea to be skeptical when the ones trying to sell you on the evils of wealth are the ones that have the most of it.  Next, Hugh Hefner complaining about promiscuity.