week 1 finished

In the 100 push up challenge, the first week was not a complete success as the category the test placed me in was impossible to complete. This week, I will be doing week 3 for a second time. Hope that this time I'm able to complete the allotted exercises..

Ticket Dispute Won!

3 for 3 now. This is a late post. At the end of January, I successfully defeated a ticket from June 07 on constitutional grounds in Provincial Court. I will post the trial transcript once I order it.

100 Push-ups

Today is day one of the 100 Push-ups challenge. I did the initial test just after being ill with a flu. I'm hoping that this underestimated my rank. I managed to do 30 which puts me in the 4th rank.

According to the site, I can skip to week 3! So that means I'll be done 2 weeks earlier.

Shorts

One has to be careful these days trying to short the market. Many institutions now refuse to lend stocks to their clients and subsidiaries. They don't want to be left holding the bag. You can be forced out of a successfully initiated short position by your institution. In this market, that is going to be a much more common occurance. What you want to do is buy/sell options/leaps.

2 4 2

Went to court today. I'm now 2 for 2 for ticket disputes. Fight your tickets!

Rents Decreasing in Vancouver

Yup, you heard it here first. Rents are dropping in "the best place in the world".

Vancouver doesn't have a real economy besides some head offices and some IT shops. The real commodities in BC are far away from GVRD. What we have is more of a ponzi scheme. The really low interest rates have made it easy for foreigners and recreational property buyers to invest speculatively.

To make this worse we had the Olympic infrastructure spending to send things even higher. We've gone up as high as we could go with property prices and there is nothing real that'll keep us at this extreme level. The spending has stopped, now it's the fun part of the roller-coaster ride.

With so much supply out there, economics 101 will tell you what rents will be like in 2 years.

Just for fun, lets look at the choices rich foreigners have to make when deciding where to retire:

Retirement Possibilities

Can't Make Money on the Way Down In Realestate?

.. Oh yes you can!

In Canada we have Home Capital Group. They specialize in crappy mortgages. Short, anyone??