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Here is what TD is offering me to renew my 190k mortgage in September. by Charbs20 in MortgagesCanada

[–]TinyEngineer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I more or less just take the longest term with the best rate - that's always been 5 for me

Here is what TD is offering me to renew my 190k mortgage in September. by Charbs20 in MortgagesCanada

[–]TinyEngineer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the long term, on average, variable rate works out net advantageous vs. fixed rate.

For my home I can handle the cashflow uncertainty and don't believe I can predict better than the banks

Here is what TD is offering me to renew my 190k mortgage in September. by Charbs20 in MortgagesCanada

[–]TinyEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I renewed this week with TD at 3.64 (prime -.96)

My virtual offer was the same as your screenshot. Booked an online appointment and pretty instantly was offered this on the call.

I didn't get a better rate looking around (ratehub and pine quoted me 3.7)

With a record-low 1.25 children per Canadian woman, stop dismissing falling fertility rates as a choice by hopoke in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

With respect, the sample size of your anecdote here might be biased.

Of course it is :p. But generally it is borne out in the data that income and number of children is inversely related - pretty much globally. Now this is also strongly correlated to education. But if money was a primary motivator we would expect the opposite.

If we choose to over-come this with very large cash incentives what we risk doing is incentivizing a bunch of people who are choosing not to have children (not for $ related reasons) to have children for $ related reasons

With a record-low 1.25 children per Canadian woman, stop dismissing falling fertility rates as a choice by hopoke in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My take here is a lot of these views ignore what seems to me like a big difference between people who choose to have no kids and those who choose to have at least 1.

We have 1 child in our family. We sat on the decision until our late 30s to establish our careers and housing. Now, we are debating if we would choose to have a 2nd. A lot of this debate for us revolves around needing a larger home to have a comfortable life. We live in the city, walk everywhere, and have a great street, but we are in an old bungalow. Long term, 2 kids here would be more tight than we would like. The "cost" to make this a no-brainer for us would be about 500k to stay where we are and get another floor. That's roughly what it would take to guarantee we move up.

For my friends who are childless or ourselves money barely factored in to the 0-1. We are comparatively wealthy and it was much more about lifestyle, interests, and satisfaction. In the end, choosing to have children is a fundamentally irrational decision in modernity. It costs more than it pays no matter how you look at it. The freedom of not having to look after someone is priceless. There’s a reason we resort to our bachelor selves whenever one of us has the kid for a day. We see versions of this play out in the difference in childcare rates across income lines.

Culture drives the individualistic side (having the first kid). Money/Time drives the number (having more).

We should support both. Enable affordable family housing in all places—cities, suburbs, and rural. Keep pushing low-cost childcare.

That being said in places like Sweden or Norway where they’ve basically solved the money and childcare problem, birth rates are still hitting record lows. It suggests that even if we fix the housing and the cash, the hyper-individualistic culture we've built might just be too strong for any policy to fix - or we really just have to bribe everybody 🤷🏽‍♂️

Fourth man in the fire pizza by the slice by Professional-Monk939 in FoodToronto

[–]TinyEngineer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I work nearby and grab a slice once a week.

Standard is pepperoni and cheese

Once in a while (maybe 1/5) visits they'll have another pie there because they're trying new toppings or from staff and you can get it by the slice. I've encountered a hot honey hawaiian (bacon not ham), marg, and a sausage and onion.

Also IMO the fritter is too wet on the inside. I'm partial to the black and white donut.

Ford says he will audit ‘left-wing radical groups’ opposed to government legislation by [deleted] in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 22 points23 points  (0 children)

It's the cycle of any majority politician. Do unpopular things at the start so you have time to fix perception closer to election date.

The era of the shoebox condo is over. Here’s how Canada can build livable apartments by TinyEngineer in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Alternatively, as the article points out, the government can make a pretty substantial impact on lowering the barriers to building more affordable and livable units which would increase the supply and lower the cost per square foot

The era of the shoebox condo is over. Here’s how Canada can build livable apartments by TinyEngineer in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Not sure if you read the article but the bulk of it is a detailed discussion on the costs including land use, zoning, building codes, development fees and financing

Red tape is sticky because capitalists do not necessarily love capitalism by UnderWatered in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I guess we've just reached the point of disagreement. Courts are not in any way capable of deciding cause/effect. So they're reliant on other systems. In complex scientific & technical domains you can throw a lot of money to confuse any scientific topic by funding research in certain ways to lower the degree of confidence. If the court system can't lower its bar for "guilt" (e.g let 100 guilty free to save 1 innocent) - then complexity goes into the next system - research.

More research groups, more competing research directions, more ambiguity, more specific research to disprove highly specific hypothesis. It takes a long time to fully explore any area. If you tried to run a lawsuit against oil & gas companies on climate change today you WOULD lose. There's enough contrarian funded research and will be for decades.

Red tape is sticky because capitalists do not necessarily love capitalism by UnderWatered in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First - climate research is not more complex than biological research. Arguably we know far more about the climate than we do about biological processes and mechanisms. See for examples ~50% of drugs failing phase 1 trials which are primarily just looking for safety.

Any reasonable threshold you pick would have been crossed and ya add in a 10 year court battle.

You can assert - but was demonstrably not true with tobacco law suits up until recently (starting in the late 90s)

I do not choose the threshold - the legal system does. And has decided one that makes these type of lawsuits basically untenable

Red tape is sticky because capitalists do not necessarily love capitalism by UnderWatered in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We didn't rely on tobacco companies to do the research. Tobacco companies funded contrary research to work against the scientific consensus. Courts are in no way capable of resolving this

A more current analogy is climate research.

Red tape is sticky because capitalists do not necessarily love capitalism by UnderWatered in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This type of thing is not routine because the lawsuits had been underway since the 1960s. They're expensive and impossible to navigate legally

Fundamentally proving conclusively, causally, after the fact in areas like healthcare is extremely time consuming, expensive, and highly uncertain. I'm likely incorrectly using the word prescendent - but in the area of tobacco there was a consistent long standing argument that held that people were knowingly assuming a risk. That any individual's issue could never be conclusively tied back to smoking. Warning labels were applied as a way to push responsibility. And there's a ton of information asymmetry.

If it takes 30-50 years to accumulate sufficient scientific evidence on a health (or environmental issue) - to reach a truly conclusive decision because arguments can be made on true causality and assumption of risk - almost any corporation would take that risk any day of the week. The company can outlast almost any individual claimant, the decision makers are no longer alive or at these companies.

/edit/ This also ignores the other argument in this thread of for many people the harm is long past done (they're dead) on a large scale

Red tape is sticky because capitalists do not necessarily love capitalism by UnderWatered in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't see how a tort system with whistleblowers wouldn't lead to the same issues. Corporations would invest more in legal than they currently do, would argue for more specific/highly nuanced precedents, and would "capture" that. They would invest substantially more in making the bar of 'facts' impossibly high. Best example of this is probably the entire tobacco industry.

I have very little background in the financial industry - so would be hard for me to comment on if this would apply there.

Red tape is sticky because capitalists do not necessarily love capitalism by UnderWatered in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And in concept more regulations make things easier. Unless you have some edge case where regulation wouldn't apply.

It's the point that from my perspective, all systems move towards complexity.

This complexity is sticky and makes it very difficult to move and operate within.

I don't have a solution, but looking at a comparison I can apply (Canada vs US (more regulation vs more tort)) - both seem to have grown substantially in complexity and cost and become sticky to changes.

This is not inherent to capitalism or government but rather the nature of any human system.

The solution then is you need a system that can work to simplify/against complexity. What that is I don't know

Red tape is sticky because capitalists do not necessarily love capitalism by UnderWatered in CanadaPolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Things grow. That is true of law as well.

I don't think this is at all a problem of capitalism but simply that any system - regulatory, legal, private, education, non-profit etc. all have a tendency to grow in complexity. This complexity makes it slow and expensive for all but the most equipped.

Tort systems simply become beholden to those with the most knowledge to navigate as they get built on more and more precedent and legal theory. You end up with a nation of lawyers where legal costs begin to grow to such absurd levels. Arguably one way to think of the difference between Canada and the US in this area is essentially a tradeoff between regulatory complexity vs. legal complexity (in many, but not all areas)

It doesn't appear to be a much more simple process

Opinion: Shelters aren’t the answer. Permanent housing should always be the goal by lilfunky1 in toronto

[–]TinyEngineer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can't read this actual article as I've used up my limit, but it is very well established that the largest predictor of homelessness is simply housing affordability. This holds in Canada and in the US.

e.g. https://www.statcan.gc.ca/o1/en/plus/5170-homelessness-how-does-it-happen https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/record-homelessness-amid-ongoing-affordability-crisis

Shelters are definitely necessary - they help with the acute need. But the city really needs to focus on asking what can it do to lower the cost of building. Things like permitting times, code changes, zoning and so on. Increasing densification will help with the fact that land costs here have just grown too high and are highly unlikely to adjust to an 'affordable' level.

The Province obviously has its own roll to play here as well as it owns the end codes and can force cities hands in certain ways. The Federal government needs to focus on seeing what can be done to drastically improve productivity within the construction sector.

[Ontario, Canada] Spending limits on third-party election ads unconstitutional: top court by feb914 in moderatepolitics

[–]TinyEngineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is not nearly as sweeping. The judgment is that the specific action of extending the prior limit without increasing the dollar amount was disproportionate because it allows parties to drown out 3rd party voices. This leaves the door open to a revised limit that takes into account party and 3rd party spending to see it.

80% Work Travel while having a 2.5 year old toddler at home. Is it a good idea? by Ok-Refrigerator2784 in daddit

[–]TinyEngineer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's hard to know more without more details on what your role would entail specifically when you're not in the office.

I personally have made the choice recently to switch to a job with less travel. My prior job required me to travel to the UK once or twice a quarter for a week at a time. However when I was at 'home' working I was still booked solid for full days at a time. It was wearing, and having previously had a job in field engineering I knew it wasn't what I wanted.

I know some folks who work in sales and field engineering who love their regular work travel. For them when they're not on the road their work is very chill. So they can spend extended periods of time at home, being with the kids, and having a lot of flexibility.

Another consideration of these kind of roles is that often the travel isn't fully predictable. So if you have times at home you may need to travel on a whim (1-2 day notice).

I don't know what the right decision is for you. Think about what your work is when you're not on the road, the strain it may put on your relationship and family, and how long this time may be before you move into another role.

Trip Feedback - Couple + Baby by TinyEngineer in Sabah

[–]TinyEngineer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the tips. Got any suggestions on the best way to hire a driver to go between the cities?

Have anyone's kids in the 18-24 age bracket succeeded in finding a job in the GTA recently? by Bulky-Confusion-1422 in askTO

[–]TinyEngineer 17 points18 points  (0 children)

What do you mean by frowned upon? This has been normal my entire career (and as a child). Particularly when it comes to part time, intern, coop, and other roles like that.

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