You will read in the Toronto Star that Toronto houses are under taxed. This is not true. What is true is that a $500K home in Toronto is taxed less than a $500K home in Brampton or Mississauga.

But, what is a $500K home in terms of support cost?

Here are three pages to let you see the actual average price of a home, and a detached home, in each city. I’ll summarize, for average and detached bungalow:

——————-average               detached
Mississauga: $658,925    and    $540,605
Brampton:      $513,092   and    $449,093
Toronto:          $776,684   and    $957,517

The point in the Star article is that a $500K home in Toronto gets a tax  break compared to a $500K home in the other municipalities.

I submit that this is fallacious arguing.

The value of a house has little bearing on its cost to the city it is located in. Put it another way, a detached house in Toronto at double the selling value is not twice as expensive to police, supply water/gas/hydro/sewer, pave the road,  as a similar house at half the selling value in another municipality.

I can show this with a silly example.
My neighbour and I each win the lottery.
He takes his million dollars and uses it to gold-plate his front door, renovate his basement, whatever. The MPAC value of his house goes up but his cost to the municipality is the same. He pays more taxes
I take my million dollars and tell the police I want extra protection as I have it in negotiable diamonds in my basement. The MPAC value of my house stays down, but my cost to the municipality goes up. My taxes stay the same.

MPAC is a way of deciding who should pay. It should be decided by level of service, but that’s far too logical for politicians. So they say how much they need, spread it over the entire MPAC sum, and tell you what taxes you’ll pay for the privilege of owning your property.

MPAC is imho a crock in that my assessment is similar to, or higher than, my neighbours with significant upgrades I don’t have. If I appeal and my neighbours then get shafted, I’ll still have to live here. So I stay mute.

Saying that Toronto taxes are a ridiculous bargain is ridiculous. If we paid for service, we could be expected to pay more – if we actually got more service. But much of our infrastructure cost is now in transit (pun intended) and we aren’t the only ones driving or commuting or taxiing. So why should we pay for that part of the bill? Why not share it with the commuters?

I had the bad experience of incorrectly going far west of Highway 427 on the Gardiner/QEW rather early in the morning. Twenty minutes west, I turned around to come back. Two hours to get back to the 427 exit. All of those drivers live west of me: Mississauga Brampton whatever. They should pay for the TO area roads. They are using them.

Yes, I am a toll troll.

I also think our politicians are smoking cheap dope. We have a lot of staff suggestions to raise revenue, all of which but tolls have been shot down by cowards afraid of their next time to the polls. We have $32 Billion ‘approved’ in infrastructure costs with no money to pay for any of it. We have a UPX that is a total joke; when ridership was a third of needed to break even, they cut the fare in half – now  needing seven times as many riders. Not to mention the one-stop Scarborough subway. Rob Ford must be smiling in his grave.

I am not.

Are you? That’s the dumb question.

War is the continuation of politics by other means. (? Churchill ?)

Economics is the continuation of war by other means. (imho.)

Here is one of many places where you can check the unemployment statistics of various European countries. I will content myself with a few observations that I find diagnostic.

• Euro zone overall: 9.8% unemployment.
• Germany:              4.1 % unemployment.
• Greece:               23.4%
• Spain:                 19.2%

My recollection is that Austerity was a German recipe to be eaten by other countries.

Here is one of many places where you can check the balance of trade of various countries worldwide. I will content myself, again, with a few observations that I find diagnostic.

• Germany:                        19,993 million Euros, surplus.
• European Union overall: 18,296 million Euros, surplus.
• Greece:                            1,176 million Euros, deficit.
• Spain:                               2,560 million Euros, deficit.

So Germany’s trade surplus is greater than the European Union’s surplus. The rest of the EU, as a whole, is running a trade deficit.

The austerity countries (I only picked two for simplicity) are running trade deficits while being forced to beg for money they can only repay with more money they will have to beg to borrow. In short, the future of the EU loser countries is being sabotaged, perhaps permanently.

Greece forgave Germany a large debt in the past. Everyone has conveniently forgotten this.You can find this on the internet easily, here is one example which I will quote briefly:

Germany, apparently, never forgives. Even the fact that it was helped after losing a war it started.

So now, ‘By Other Means,’ Germany is, imho, at war with most of the Euro zone.

Now for the dumb questions:

If the tables get turned again, will there be any sympathy for a Germany needing a bailout?

Is the UK right to want out of the Euro zone? Is Trump right to want out of trade deals? Are those deals the continuation of war, by economic means?