Lee Valley carry’s them, and I’ve seen them at commercial supply shops. I’ve never seen anyone use one, but I guess a VDE one would have some good applications over a measuring tape. I’ve also been using my laser measure a lot more lately, it eliminates a lot of the measurement errors common to measuring tapes.

Just the US copying our homework. Wasn’t a war crime when we did it though.

On a completely different subject, anyone started stocking up on canned ham?

I’d interested to see how much outstanding is actually people gaming the system, vs people that got caught up in a system that was intentionally designed to get money in people m’s hands and figure it out later. In my wife’s case, she qualified for CERB and received it, then the wage subsidy program came out and applied retroactively. She was made retroactively ineligible with no clear way to return the excess and when CRA dod reach out for repayment they made the process much more painful than it should have been.

Then there’s things like the benefits would be front-loaded, so presumably anybody that was laid off and then found employment would have ended up with some amount owing. Somme people that would have been eligible for regular EI got moved to CERB and were then found in-eligible for that. There was also a lot confusion about how it applied to things like seasonal workers or people in positions that may or may not have ended during the time that CERB was available.

Yep. Not sure of it’s still true recently but I know last time I looked up pricing between other carriers the prices in Sask were about $20/month lower than other provinces. Presumably this is due to Sasktel providing real competition and providing real service in rural areas.

Shitty think is they’ve kind of been limited by the Sask Party preventing them from providing services outside Saskatchewan, even if those services were profitable and bringing money into the province.

On the home internet side, Sasktel has always seems to have more consistent service, more upload bandwidth and no bandwidth limits. I even tested out some online backup systems, uploading about 20 TB/month for a few months straight and never heard anything about “excessive” usage. As far as I know they don’t do any kind of traffic monitoring or shaping on their home internet services.

They also have their own MVNO, Lüm Mobile, that can be pretty affordable for most users.

Yep, been a while since worked at a place like that, but there was definitely a crowed that would be there most days. This was mid 2000’s. Partly dried up when smoking indoors was banned, I think that was the last straw for a big part of the culture that was already drying up.

Ya, some small/moderately sized single dwellings would be good. I get that part of the goal is densification and the existing plans support that well, but I think there’s room for more compact single family dwellings designed for smaller lots. Maybe even something that’s designed with the idea of future additions where a person can get a starter home built, and add on as their family grows.

Is that still a thing? I know the greener homes grant is ending and not taking new applications. Presumably something else will be implemented in the not too distant future. I will say that depending on the project the grant is a relatively small benefit. We used it for windows, and it covered something like 25% of the cost, but it also meant we had to pay for everything up front and get the rebate back months later. That’s not affordable for a lot of people. The home loan program helps a lot with that but wasn’t available until after we closed our grant.

Ya, people at the lowest end of data usage, like 1 GB or less per month and that had loaded up on the biggest data package for the lowest rates are paying more on renewal, and aren’t really benefiting from all the extra data they hadn’t used yet. Those with more moderate/high usage though(maybe 5+ GB/month) are likely paying less on the new plans. I know for me the plan is significantly cheaper than my original one and I get a lot more data available. They also rolled the 911 fees and unlimited calling/texting into the base rate so that makes it a bit cheaper than just comparing the base membership rate. Maybe some particularly heavy users are still further ahead on other carriers “unlimited” plans, but I know even when I had an unlimited plan paid by my employer, I rarely used more than 10 GB/month which is still less data than Lüm’s current cheapest plan.

Yep, like anything it’s hard to get the full story through the media and people seem to latch on to parts of the story while ignoring other parts. I got the impression the farmer was being shady, deliberately using communications that the buyer would reasonably interpret as agreement while intending to dispute the validity of the contract when it went poorly for him.

Ya, some people kind of got screwed when they changed their pricing structure recently. It’s probably the most unique option land assuming its model is sustainable long term, it shows how much of your cell bill goes to things like retail spaces and device subsidies. There’s a reasonable argument there for people that can afford a moderate monthly fee rather than paying it all up front, but over a 2 year period it’s cheaper to get Lüm and buy a device outright. Even borrowing at a moderate rate and paying that back over time can be a better deal than standard carrier plans. They tend to have regular new subscriber deals as well as referral codes (xEYOpL) and any relatively modern cell purchased in Canada will be compatible with their network so there’s a good argument for making the switch and setting aside what you would have been paying at another carrier to pay for the next years service and future device replacement.

Too bad Moe says they’re not allowed to provide service to customers outside Sask.

Yep, it’s a shitty system, but most people’s finances are tight enough that they don’t want to give up that 1-3%(plus other perks) just on principle. Good example though of how those with the lowest income won’t qualify for a credit card but still pay the fees baked into store prices while those with the highest incomes qualify for the cards with the best befits.

Isn’t the WealthSimple card a Visa though? Costco only takes Mastercard so you wouldn’t be using it there. Costco card is 3% on Costco gas and restaurants, 2% on other gas and Costco.ca. For me that’s a big part of my spending.

Now if someone doesn’t do Costco then the WealthSimple card is probably a better option than lots of other cards. Particularly if they qualify for not paying the monthly fee.

I’ve got the Costco Mastercard and it looks pretty comparable. Phone/ purchase protection, travel insurance, etc… Costco is 2-3% on some purchases and 1% on everything else, though you can only spend the cash back at Costco. Maybe if I took the time to pick between each I could average an extra 1/2%. More choice is always good though and this helps squeeze other issuers to get more competitive.

I think it’s easier to qualify for the Costco card though than the no fees for the WealthSimple one.

Been a little while since I looked up the utility rates, but last I remember gas is about 1/7 the cost of electricity in Saskatchewan. Makes it hard to justify heat pumps for heating in most places. Hope the technology continues to improve and it’ll be a more sustainable option when we have a more sustainable grid.

I’m torn. With broadcasting there’s an argument that the bandwidth is publicly owned so there should be some oversight in the content that’s transmitted. Mandating Canadian content here seems okay, kind of like how we control .ca domains and have some say in who gets to use them. For streaming though it seems to be private infrastructure, it’s been built using public funds, but the people running the infrastructure aren’t really making decisions about the content it caries. They just lease it out to anybody with minimal oversight. It’d be kind of like mandating that some% of phone calls need to be Canadian content.

Then again, we do control the .ca domains so we might argue that foreign companies using them should make some effort to carry or promote Canadian content. Get too restrictive though and companies just shut down the .ca domain and make us use the .com version which we can’t really control.

Sure, but to some extent you could say the same about any necessity. Groceries, clothing, healthcare, etc… Then we could extend that to the things that are required for those necessities, transportion, natural resources, sections of the labour market, etc… Maybe housing does actually have a larger gap between input costs and market rate, and it’s probably the single largest expense for most and particularly those at the lower end of the income scale so it’s good place to start making changes.

If we trusted most people to manage their budgets we wouldn’t need things like EI and CPP, people would just be setting aside enough to cover that. People also need time to build those emergency or planned upgrade funds so telling someone who’s only been on their own to make sure they have enough se aside to cover a major repair isn’t very practical.

I would argue that landlords provide a service in providing a relatively predictable monthly cost of housing. On any given month a homeowner(and/or landlord) could have anywhere from $0 to thousands of dollars of unexpected expenses, things like a major appliance failing or plumbing/electrical issue. Plus there’s intermittent expanses that can be planned for, things like replacing shingles or proactively replacing an appliance approaching its end of life.

It also seems like a market with relatively free competition, given that the cost of purchasing a rental property can be relatively low compared to opening another kind of business. It’s relatively low risk since most of the expense is an appreciable asset, but also relatively low return (historically and over an extended period) than other market investments. Many would actually come out ahead by renting their home and putting the equivalent of what would go to toward their home’s equity into something like a mutual fund.

I think the biggest issue is just lack of good options at the lower end of the housing market. So much new construction is above the average home pricing because that’s where the builders are able to make a reasonable return. The more affordable properties are usually older units, often with significant issues. The Canadian government seems to be on the right track to getting more affordable units built. We don’t need more 1500+ ft^2 units, we need more units in the 500-700 ft^2 range. Something that a single person or young couple with minimal possessions can use as a starter home to build equity. Even if it gets bought by someone to use as an investment property, it can still have a relatively affordable rent while still providing a landlord a reasonable return on their investment.

More affordable units also reduces demand for the currently available units, bringing down prices for the mid-range market as well.

That’s an issue, but it’s not the whole issue. You’re not going to get a reasonable home down to the price of a budget vehicle. It’s not just home prices alone that have gone up over 60 years, it’s most essential goods combined with stagnating wages that means people need to spend a greater portion of their of their income on basic essentials and don’t have as much left to save for future big purchases.

Don’t get me wrong, homes need to be more affordable, but arbitrary reductionist ideas like let’s ban landlords don’t really work.

Some other ideas might be to increase minimum wages, yes this increases inflation but the people at the lower end of the wage scale still come out ahead. Have a crown corp for housing, even if it needs to be subsidized. Give people affordable and reasonable quality options and make private industry have to compete against that. Some better benefits for tradespeople, like lower the exemption on the trade tools tax credit to make construction more affordable. Though there’s a weird thing that happens where companies bring in big crews of apprentices for cheap labour and then lay-off the journeypeople so they don’t have to pay Journeyperson wages. I guess this keeps costs lower, but it’d be nice to see something combat this so there’s better job prospects for people that complete their apprenticeships.

Housing is one of the most expensive purchases most people will ever make. Are you saying everybody must be able to commit to that to have a place to live?

Reminder that “engagement” is likely a major factor regardless of whether it’s agreement or not. Commenting that you disagree with something is the same as commenting agreement as far as the algorithm is concerned. Ignoring things that you don’t want to spread seems like a good way to combat this, but that leaves you with the “echo chamber” issue. If we only engage with things we agree with then our ideals are never challenged and we don’t have an opportunity to improve. Seems kind of damned if you do damned if you don’t.