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PT6A posted:Truly, they deserve to be be poor because they made lovely, stupid choices. I take no pleasure in these individual people getting hosed by their stupidity. But I take a great deal of pleasure in this and similar events occurring from a larger, Canadian-societal viewpoint. I'm absolutely tired of these real estate geniuses everywhere, and in everyday conversation, and in the endless housing porn on TV and so on - so some humbling of its adherents is very welcome. It's necessary - the longer this thing goes on, the worse off we all are. Perhaps CI is confusing the latter with the former. Or, then again, perhaps not.
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Jun 20, 2014 19:19
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I should point out that in that article that Dolan wrote, he makes a cascade of loving stupid decisions - sometimes aided by Canadians, sometimes not. That's all on him. The part that's unique as an American is how no one wants to help him even a little bit later. I don't mean help him by giving him a bunch of money, I mean help him by buying him a sandwich or finding him some help. Maybe in that article he's just got a point and is writing directly at it, facts be damned, but that's what struck me. If you're a poor, idiot motherfucker wandering around America and you're not obviously homeless and panhandling then someone is going to help you out - take you to a food kitchen, let you sleep in a church, find you a shelter, something. It's not the world's most institutionally generous society, but people will go out of their way to help you out, actually. I can't speak from personal experience in Canada, but the vibe I get from a lot of people (and this varies greatly by province) is superficially very friendly, but quite cold when push comes to shove. Meanwhile, Americans in our khaki pants and guts stick over our belts in our company Polo shirts can't shut the gently caress up about out families and where we're from and where we went to school and what we do and so on, heh.
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Jun 20, 2014 19:43
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The only thing I know about that guy is his Wikipedia page and that article he wrote about working at some hilarious university in Iraq. I'm not surprised, at all, that he couldn't find someone willing to help him.
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Jun 20, 2014 19:57
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^ It was quite unsettling the first time I left Canada and went to Portland, I was on their version of the skytrain several times over the course of a few days, and people kept striking up a conversation with me out of the blue. My initial reaction, every time, was "Am I about to be mugged? What does this person want from me?  Maybe it just comes from living in Vancouver, I certainly don't remember being this paranoid of strangers before I moved down here and experienced the constant sidewalk scamming.
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Jun 20, 2014 19:58
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ChairMaster posted:Why do you feel bad for them? The whole point of capitalism is that you're supposed to lose your money if you do retarded things with it. Upon looking at the article again, I see they still have plenty of money. Okay, now I don't feel so bad (or bad at all, really). I thought they were literally $500k in debt now, but they still have a positive net work in the high six figures. I thought they were basically counting on rental income for their retirement which, although retarded, would still be sad.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:07
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PT6A posted:Truly, they deserve to be be poor because they made lovely, stupid choices. Poor in Canada is making less than $40K/year all your life and then retiring on nothing more than a lovely CPP pension. While these ladies have been caused some serious financial pain, with a combined salary of $130K/year and net worth of $800K, they are anything but poor. (E: beaten, yeah good you saw that too.) I think we established some time ago by looking at Stats Canada data that the problem with this country was rich people living beyond their means. Seeing rich people actually suffering the consequences for their excesses is, indeed, satisfying.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:15
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Poor in Canada is making less than $40K/year all your life and then retiring on nothing more than a lovely CPP pension. While these ladies have been caused some serious financial pain, with a combined salary of $130K/year and net worth of $800K, they are anything but poor. Yeah, I missed out on some important details the first time I skimmed the article, as I mentioned in the post right above yours. Apologies. The headline was fairly misleading.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:16
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I'm doing pretty good, at 2001 level  Except my girlfriend is definitely at the 2014 level 
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Jun 20, 2014 20:24
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I just paid off my student loan which brings me to a staggering zero percent 
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Jun 20, 2014 20:29
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THC posted:I just paid off my student loan which brings me to a staggering zero percent Grats dude. I'm down to like $14,000. 
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Jun 20, 2014 20:35
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THC posted:I just paid off my student loan which brings me to a staggering zero percent Yesssss, what up zero percent buddy?
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Jun 20, 2014 22:20
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PT6A posted:Truly, they deserve to be be poor because they made lovely, stupid choices. I have an opinion about where the market is going but I'm not so cock sure of myself that I could claim to be able to see the future. Yes the investment didn't work out but what if it did? If house prices had continued to go up as it well could have then those douchebags would be lording it over me about what savvy investors they were, and they'd be right. So as I say, it's all in the game and they chose to play it instead of doing honest, productive work.
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Jun 20, 2014 23:32
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THC posted:I just paid off my student loan which brings me to a staggering zero percent now you just need to finish  nice work man
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Jun 20, 2014 23:41
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Jesus wtf does it cost to go through undergrad these days? I think my tuition cost $7k over 5 years. That was with jacked up Quebec out-of-province tariffs too. gently caress you Lucien Bouchard.
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Jun 21, 2014 00:26
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Cultural Imperial posted:Jesus wtf does it cost to go through undergrad these days? I think my tuition cost $7k over 5 years. That was with jacked up Quebec out-of-province tariffs too. gently caress you Lucien Bouchard. Depends on the school and program but it looks like ~$13k per year or so. (I'm using this for comparison)
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Jun 21, 2014 00:38
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holy poo poo
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Jun 21, 2014 00:41
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Cultural Imperial posted:holy poo poo There's a reason students were literally rioting in the streets of Montreal two years ago. And yeah, young people are pretty much screwed now. Both education and housing are prohibitively expensive, in a bury-you-under-debt-forever kinda way.
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Jun 21, 2014 01:11
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Cultural Imperial posted:holy poo poo yeah I'm around 8k/year out here in BC (and that's with some summer courses). Wanna get done as fast as you can because they keep hiking credit hour costs each year!
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Jun 21, 2014 01:14
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JawKnee posted:yeah I'm around 8k/year out here in BC (and that's with some summer courses). I started my degree at UBC and it was about 2.5k a year. It was pushing 7 by the end. Bastards (the Liberals) - I genuinely feel bad for anyone coming through it now.
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Jun 21, 2014 01:17
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CI, this explains why you thought my skipping post-sec ed for a job instead was stupid. Debt->Cash I'm richer than any of my friends will be for decades to come. I took one look at the costs when I graduated in '08 and noped right the gently caress out. Lying on your resume goes further than a degree ever will in this country.
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Jun 21, 2014 01:17
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So what in ever living gently caress is all that money from demolishing b-lot and all the rest of the endowment lands going towards at ubc? How the gently caress are they running a deficit?
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Jun 21, 2014 01:27
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Holy poo poo, I dropped out in 2007 and it was still only 5k a year or so then
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Jun 21, 2014 01:48
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Cultural Imperial posted:Jesus wtf does it cost to go through undergrad these days? I think my tuition cost $7k over 5 years. That was with jacked up Quebec out-of-province tariffs too. gently caress you Lucien Bouchard. I went to school in New York, so mine cost about $45k USD a year... when the exchange rate was bad.
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Jun 21, 2014 02:09
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Are these prices tuition/fees alone, or tuition plus room and board? Because goddamn 13k a year is about what I pay in tuition for a University of California school.
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Jun 21, 2014 02:14
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Franks Happy Place posted:I went to school in New York, so mine cost about $45k USD a year... when the exchange rate was bad. For that sort of coin, I hope you walked out with a Bachelor of Alchemy.
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Jun 21, 2014 02:32
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Turning gold into lead is a sort of alchemy in itself I suppose.
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Jun 21, 2014 02:33
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If I could do it all over again, I'd go to Berkeley and get a BA in Rhetoric.
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Jun 21, 2014 03:05
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Lexicon posted:For that sort of coin, I hope you walked out with a Bachelor of Alchemy. My education was such that I walked out of school into the teeth of the 2008 recession and still landed a $60k/year job for my first ever full-time employment, so... yeah pretty much. More importantly, I can honestly say that a U.S.-style liberal arts education is pretty much the best life training you will ever get. I learned economics, microbiology, literature, political science, visual arts... it was totally worth the money, even at that price. I was in classes with nine or ten other students taught by Nobel laureates and truly global leaders in their fields. Hell, I now work in university administration at a small school, and we're basically aiming to turn our BA program into an American-style liberal arts program. Our academic chairs and deans are all about it, since this is pretty much one of the few cases in stodgy, ultra-conservative Canadian academia where they are allowed to do it.
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Jun 21, 2014 03:30
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Cultural Imperial posted:So what in ever living gently caress is all that money from demolishing b-lot and all the rest of the endowment lands going towards at ubc? How the gently caress are they running a deficit? UBC has done a lot of development in recent years and their endowment is a lot larger than it used to be (it's over 1 billion now). Anecdotally, the campus looks a lot better than it did 10 years ago. Any sort of 'deficits' that they are running are probably illusory (but a good excuse for fundraising).
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Jun 21, 2014 03:31
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Franks Happy Place posted:My education was such that I walked out of school into the teeth of the 2008 recession and still landed a $60k/year job for my first ever full-time employment, so... yeah pretty much. Paying 200+ grand for a degree, especially a BA, to get a 60k job in a high turnover industry (i.e., education) doesn't seem like a sure bet. I'm guessing you were family funded as opposed to self-funded?
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Jun 21, 2014 03:37
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shrike82 posted:Paying 200+ grand for a degree, especially a BA, to get a 60k job in a high turnover industry (i.e., education) doesn't seem like a sure bet. I'm guessing you were family funded as opposed to self-funded? I got a scholarship for some, loans for most. My first job was actually working as a lobbyist; since then I've done policy work, worked as a regulator for government, all kinds of stuff... I credit the education for making me flexible enough to do all kinds of cool stuff. Now I'm rebuilding a school's admissions department from scratch. All of my Canadian friends have been doing the same thing for eight or ten years.
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Jun 21, 2014 04:20
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shrike82 posted:Paying 200+ grand for a degree, especially a BA, to get a 60k job in a high turnover industry (i.e., education) doesn't seem like a sure bet. Yeah, that seems like a pretty bad financial decision on economics alone.
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Jun 21, 2014 10:30
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Franks Happy Place posted:My education was such that I walked out of school into the teeth of the 2008 recession and still landed a $60k/year job for my first ever full-time employment, so... yeah pretty much. This is actually really interesting. It's easy to look at the price tag and dismiss it as a way for aristocrats to overpay for the same thing you can get at UBC Arts, but that's clearly not the case. Attendees are clearly paying for something. (I'm still not convinced generally about the price:value ratio of course, but it seems like you're happy in your case, which is good)
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Jun 21, 2014 15:12
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I think a lot of you are misjudging the value of an undergrad from say, Columbia or even Dartmouth. While an undergrad from UBC is very high quality, for non STEM subjects, I'd say they're worth significantly less than at the aforementioned. I'd be more willing to foot the bill for my kid to go to an ivy(or equivalent) to study classics than UBC or SFU.
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Jun 21, 2014 15:55
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Cultural Imperial posted:I think a lot of you are misjudging the value of an undergrad from say, Columbia or even Dartmouth. While an undergrad from UBC is very high quality, for non STEM subjects, I'd say they're worth significantly less than at the aforementioned. I'd be more willing to foot the bill for my kid to go to an ivy(or equivalent) to study classics than UBC or SFU. Counterpoint: Ted Rall has a BA in History from Columbia and he's a loser.
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Jun 21, 2014 16:02
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ThirdPartyView posted:Counterpoint: Ted Rall has a BA in History from Columbia and he's a loser. I pledge to euthanize my child if he is Ted Rall.
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Jun 21, 2014 16:23
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My sense is that it only makes sense to do a 200 grand undergrad if you're being sponsored by family or bursary. I'd be really leery about a kid taking on that much in debt (even if it's HYPS) especially if he is going to study a liberal art. a) A lot of liberal arts careers require post grad credentials down the road. Is the kid or family prepared to lump another 100-150 grand a couple years down the road? It might make more sense to do a cheaper undergrad and shooting for a top tier post grad program. b) Going into that much debt forces a kid to look for a career in a high paying field (i.e., finance) whereas he might have naturally been interested in NPO work or education etc. To tie it back to Canada poo poo-talking, an ex-colleague who did his MBA at Rotman (UT) never failed to poo poo on his program and the idea of doing an MBA in Canada at all (a lot of people at the firm were from top tier international MBA programs). Apparently, not a single Canadian MBA program was in the top 50 of the most well-known global MBA ranking this year and the Rotman MBA dean actually sent out an email to alum trying to make excuses for it. shrike82 fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Jun 21, 2014 |
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Jun 21, 2014 16:42
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ReindeerF posted:This was one of the most eye-opening reads in a while back when I read it: I just have to comment on this. I was born and raised in Victoria and attended the University of Victoria, though I now live in the US and I've also lived for substantial amounts of time in Montreal and Germany. This article is more representative of the author's completely unrealistic view of Canadians and poor choices than it is of Victoria. I mean, he actually left a tenured job to move to a foreign country with no connections and no job prospects, apparently without doing any substantial research. Sure, Victoria is full of elderly people and hippies who go in for feel-good "ethical" consumerism, naturopathic medicine, and other dumb stuff more than the inhabitants of the average Canadian city, but for the rest it's pretty similar to most other cities its size. It's pretty clear that his stupid choices and some bad luck leading to a terrible experience have severely jaundiced his perspective. Victoria is a touristy city with a modest economy and disproportionately high real estate prices, not some sort of utopia as he seemed to think it was, and not some hellhole full of terrible people as he seems to think now.
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Jun 21, 2014 18:42
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shrike82 posted:My sense is that it only makes sense to do a 200 grand undergrad if you're being sponsored by family or bursary. I'd be really leery about a kid taking on that much in debt (even if it's HYPS) especially if he is going to study a liberal art. Going to HYPS for undergrad doesn't result in anywhere near 200k of debt. I was accepted to Princeton about 10 years ago for undergrad and the total cost after financial aid would have been under 15k a year for me (and that's just need-based financial aid, not scholarships). Most of the schools that would cost 200k for a middle class family are on the next tier (or below) of selectivity. For various reasons (probably not very good ones in retrospect) I ended up taking a huge amount of scholarship money to stay in Canada and later did a Ph.D at UBC with a ton of funding as well. Right after finishing my Ph.D I got a job in industry that's only tangentially related to my Ph.D (but not finance) with compensation in the ~150k/year range. Obviously sample size of one here, but even though there's value to going to a top school, a better predictor of your future earnings than the school you go to is the highest ranked school that you got into.
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Jun 21, 2014 21:37
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Not in finance, opinion is invalid. (Went through a technical cegep program, 20k all told including living expenses, first job out in 2007 was 65k a year or so)
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Jun 21, 2014 22:14
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