journal features

woohoo, everyone borrow more!

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2015.07.15

Phew, the Bank of Canada just lowered interest rates – good thing we don't have a housing bubble. Right? It's just been a string of good years with unprecedented "returns". For instance, the average price for a detached house in Toronto went up 14% in the past year. In Vancouver, the average house was up 20% in one year. Residential housing makes up more than a quarter of economy now, and nearly a third of our employment market. No problem there! Clearly time to encourage people to borrow. I mean, they know what they're doing, right?

In unrelated news, one of our next steps in general preparedness is to buy a trailer hitch for the car. In normal times, it will serve us with a bike rack. Should society undergo a wrenching change due perhaps to an economic failure .. it'll serve for pulling a trailer with our bug-out bags.

rand()m quote

In the wake of 9/11, we [in America] have made the decision as a society that we can never again create something in which we can take pride, for fear that someone will destroy it. Moreover, we must suppress any trace of individualism, lest someone have the desire to rise above the bland sameness that protects us. I have, alas, no idea how to recapture our courage.

—Anonymous post to boingboing.net, 2009