Marso teh fuckin' whiskey thread

Ensuring that you can feed yourself and otherwise provide for your own needs with minimal obstacles or interference. Assuming you're capable of such, of course.

you mean like, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?

but yeah, I tend to agree about obstacles... as mentioned in the past, I run an underground bar that is also a bit of a late night drug shelter. The cops turn a blind eye because we keep it contained and save them work.

on the other hand, I believe in rent controls and tenant rights vs property speculators and landlords. If we allow imbalance in human necessities to get too far, things collapse.

Yup, when the concentration of wealth goes too far we essentially just end up with kings and lords again.

I don't wholly disagree, but there's a fine regulatory line between guarding the rights of tenants versus allowing property owners to manage their own property how they see fit- which includes setting prices in accordance with supply and demand. I do believe there's a happy middle ground in there.

Yup, it's called removing the owners' property.

I don't begrudge them for owning the building... what bother's me is that it was able to be sold for over 3.5 mill and rather than take a decade to let it pay for itself, they feel entitled to force out people who have lived here for up to 45 years and change the building usage/zoning. That it sold for so much itself is symptomatic of what happens when the money being used is based on credit rather than actual cash.
Yes, we pay less than what fresh tenants would have to. We've earned that by virtue of the length of our tenure.

But yeah, I tend to agree that the concept of "ownership" has to be more of a lease to exploit a resource when it comes to property. Should I be forced to leave here, I couldn't find similar quality housing in this city, let alone the less tangible qualities of the life I enjoy in this community. I'd have to go no closer than about an hour from here, giving up not just the social network I co exist in, but also my regular jobs. Reasonably speaking, I'd be sidelined for a year. I don't think someone should be able to cause so much collateral damage because they want to raise the ROI by turning low income housing into an air b'n'b.

So you're saying that even tho you live in a home that you yourself don't own - you pay rent - and that building has aged and therefore requires increasingly expensive upkeep to maintain it as livable . . . the owner bearing those costs does not get to come back to his/her tenants for higher rent, even tho the tenants are the people causing the wear and tear? I think I see a flaw in your reasoning. "Because I've been here a long time" is not a basis for paying less for something. If it were, I should be paying 1980s prices at the grocery store because I've used the same one for all that time.

You don't own the property. You pay someone who in exchange lets you live there. What that owner does with his/her property is at their discretion, not yours.

Back in 1985 I moved to Maryland after getting out of the Navy and rented a townhouse. In the span of about twenty months the rent went up twice. The place wasn't getting any bigger or nicer (indeed, it was arguably getting nastier as low-income people moved in and out on short-term leases and messed up the whole development because they weren't there long enough to care about it), so I elected to move farther out and buy a house I could afford. And lo, suddenly I had all the say in what happened to my housing.

You might not be in a position to buy something, or you may simply not want the attendant nonsense that comes with home ownership. But that means you're at the mercy of your landlord.

So by your logic, Martin Skreli had every right to hike those drug prices to the point of unaffordablity?

Funny thing is this neighbourhood is going to shit from new, upscale endeavours. Every business that's displaced an older, often multi generational one has flopped... you guys are always on about "what the market will bear", well, the market as it stands is unsustainable. The only thing being created is debt for would be landlords and enterpreneurs while the cultural currency of the area is being destroyed.

My time here isn't the rationale for why I should pay what I do... that I contracted to live here for an indeterminate amount of time at a specific rate of increase is. They bought the building, they bought the terms of my contract with the previous owners.

Actually, yes. He did have "every right to." Which is not to say that it wasn't an extremely poor business decision, as the blow-back from such a move was easily predicable and avoidable.

How is that not parasitic?
Rent sitters, figurative or literal, contribute nothing.
Several of us who live in my building, on the other hand, have built and maintained parts of this neighbourhood for years.

You're starting to embody my notion that without intervention/regulation we'd revert to feudalism...

Contribute nothing? Is that building you live in imaginary, then?

No... it's almost a century old.
Everyone who built the original is long dead, including the investor.

Explain to me how some trust fund kids with nothing but a line of credit and no actual ties to the community are contributing?

Maintaining the building? Providing you a place to rent?

More broadly, do you really not understand how economies work?

actually, the new landlords haven't been maintaining things... which is what I pay them rent for in the first place.

I've consistently met my financial obligation to them.

They have no (legal) cause to evict me.

They have no legal right to convert the building to a ghost hotel, or anything else for that matter.

I may not be much of an economist, but I do know that part of what collapsed the French economy just before the heads started rolling was a couple decades of borrowing on speculative real estate values.

Other than borrowing some money to create interest, what does gentrification accomplish?

Actually, they do. It's their building- they can do as they please with it.

Point of disagreement on that one.

Ontario... so at this point, they don't. Now were the building devoid of occupants, that'd be another story... as it is, many of us have been here for decades.

There was a "public" meeting today with their PR person... They invited our city councilor... who in turn CC cc'd me their response.


Thank you for sharing the details of the meeting.

Our office has been informed by Planning that a representative from the landlord of XXXXXXXX reached out to the City in early January to set up a meeting to discuss the Rental Housing Demolition By-law and application process. The representative was told by Planning that any change to the number of dwelling units or number of dwelling units by type would require a permit from the City and that the City would impose conditions. The landlord's representative subsequently cancelled the meeting, and has not been in touch with Planning since.

Councillor XXXXXX will not be able to meet with you until appropriate discussions with Planning have occurred, and until attempts at illegally evicting tenants cease.

Please continue to keep us informed.

There's a shit ton of paperwork they have to complete jsut to get permission to convert and renovate before they can even consider asking us to leave. After that, they still are obligated to offer us our places back at close to the same rate or pay out "damages". Beyond tenant rights as stakeholders, there's also the matter of the area being a heritage site-i.e: protected, and a moratorium on precisely this type of conversion that's been in place since before they bought the place last June.

The numbers for the place were in the real estate listing... It sold for 3.5, and brings in just shy of 300K a year. Dilapidated as it may be, there is a waiting list to get in here. There's no compelling reason for them to change the nature of the building and as tenants, our right to a roof outweighs their's to make money off of it. (being up to date on financial obligations, natch)


Any obstacles are the fault of them not doing their due diligence on regulations that have existed up to 40 years.

Now, if they wanna offer me the statutory resettlement and a years wage for the time I'll be out of work, I'll consider it. Until then, they purchased my agreement with the previous owner, which supersedes their claims.

Back on track though, what's your stance on Glenlivet vs Glenfiddich?

I am not above the occasional indulgence.

Unfortunately, I've burnt out on bourbons. So, rum and happy it is.

A double tall Kraken and Coke Zero and ELO.



Join me as I study the contrasting natures of the titles "Son of Man" (Jesus' favorite title for Himself in the New Testament) and "the only begotten Son of God" (monogenes) as it relates to "Homoousios."

By the way, I'm old. It is currently 0126 CDST on 04-30-2019. My last trainee when I was a Training Field Officer (TFO), delivered his last 10-42 (off-duty) today at 1800 CDST 04-29-2019. . He's retiring as a Sergeant after 25 years of service.

I've seen a lot of good, but I've also seen a lot of bad.

Remember that he didn’t get into trouble for killing poor people, he got into trouble for cheating other rich folks.

The later the American Justice System severely frowns on.

That’s nothing. Most of the people hired here in the last four years (either by me or by someone else) are the same age as my kids or younger.

I turned 50 this last month... A few of the regulars at my bar offered their condolences, which was kind of them. Then there was my friend who told me I was the same age as his mom...


Asked him to hook a brother up.

Yeah, a couple of our newer reporters have some very MILFy moms who are around my age.

At 33 I'm one of the the Wordforge babies, but I tell ya I felt old when a new Trek fan left a review on a fanfic of mine I wrote in my senior year of high school in '03.

They were fifteen.

Well, I'm 57 and y'all kids need to get off'a my lawn.

Anna you played witcher trilogy darker then hbo's dwarf porn.

Hey @Minsc&Boo are you gonna change your avatar now that GoT is ending?

Nah will you watch Netflix's witcher or dark crystal series lanzmanl. Peter Dinklage is my favorite actor.

Dark Crystal, yes. Witcher, no.