Associate professor Puns

https://ricochet.media/en/3786/it-feels-hopeless-housing-an-afterthought-in-election-campaign

“Overseas buyers were a force in the market in 2014-2016,” said Thomas Davidoff, associate professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business. It’s “less clear that is a strong effect now.” He does not think banning or taxing overseas buyers will be very effective as existing taxes have limited their participation in the market to a very small share of all transactions.

Yan said Canada is catching up with other countries when it comes to policies for overseas buyers. Countries like Singapore, Malaysia and China all have very clear policies for foreign buying.

Also, Yan thinks federal policies in terms of mortgages, interest rates, taxes, even immigration and immigration support systems have an impact on housing.

“Generally speaking, Canada undertaxes housing and overtaxes income and sales. That system invites people to invest in housing here without making a living here, including both Canadians and foreigners,” said Davidoff. Higher property taxes (e.g., federal capital gains tax on owner gains above a certain threshold) and lower income and sales taxes would lessen the incentive to hold vacation or empty homes.

Inflation due to low-interest rates after COVID-19 is making things worse. “The concerns about inflation on houses are very different than on food prices. For food, you have substitutes so that you can move into other cheap choices. But for housing, there’s a point at which you will be living in the street,” said Yan.

Rezel said when the housing crisis occurred in Singapore in the 1970s, the Singaporean government decided that the only solution was for the government to be involved, so it invested a lot of money in housing. “But the Canadian government just leaves this to everyone else.”

“To improve affordability, either you need to increase the salaries or reduce the home prices,” Rezel said. The former means tripling salaries for many people in Vancouver, which is impossible. And no party in this federal election wants to introduce any measure that will reduce home prices because that will upset voters who are homeowners.

Over 60 per cent of Canadian households own homes, and recent data shows that 20 per cent of homeowners i

" Don't sleep, Quran nahi suna rahi " or " Don't sleep, Bible nahi suna rahi " or " Don't sleep any other religion holy book nahi suna rahi " Why only Hinduism ? why only Ramayan or Gita ? what's so sleepy in listening Gita ? I want to know ! Honarable Dr. Priya Joshi's logic is as rigged as her English !

Hi,

I am a tenured associate professor who is applying for new jobs at other universities. I have a lot of questions and I would like to hear some of your opinions.

I am at the stage where I can realistically apply for full professorship at my home university soon. This is actually an important reason for me to apply for jobs now because I feel that once I become a full professor, it will be a lot harder to get a job in another university because most openings in my area are at the assistant/associate level.

Already, one of my contacts in a university I am applying to already told me that they might not have the budget to hire someone with so much experience, even as an Assoc Prof (the salary there is calculated based on the number of years in service). But at the same time, some more senior colleagues told me that I should ask for full professorship (maybe not at the aforementioned university, but at the other places). I am worried that it might come across as greedy. But I also heard that being bold can pay off. In one of the openings, it says that "full professorship will be considered at exceptional cases". In others, only assist/assoc. What is the best strategy?

Another thing that I wonder is what I should do with my grad students and postdoc (there are 5 of them working with me at the current university). Should I ask the new school whether I can transfer them with me? Is it something I should mention at the interview stage, or only when an offer is made?

I am also supposed to be on sabbatical next year. Will it come across badly if I ask for sabbatical leave in the new school too early? Alternatively, how would it be perceived if I ask them whether I could start in the new school one year later, after my sabbatical leave with the current school?

Thanks in advance!

It's been a while since I weighed in on anything related to SARS-CoV-2/COVID. I see many posts describing the 'on the ground' impact of the Delta variant with desperate pleas for people to get vaccinated and wear masks. I couldn't agree more with these sentiments, but I will take a bit of a different educational approach. I am in a unique position to report on what is going on with the virus itself and how it interacts with the vaccines. I'm currently the Special Assistant to the National Director of Pathology and Lab Medicine for the entire VA system, with a specific role in advising on elements of COVID testing for the system. As such, I have a front row seat to all of the latest data, as we have to use those data in making our national policy decisions. So, here are a few important points about the Delta variant that may be of acute interest along with some education and salient points about the vaccines. I'll do my best to stitch this all together to where it makes some sense:

1. The Delta variant (lineage B.1.617.2) has a particular collection of mutations in the spike protein (that knob-like projection you see in renderings of the virus) that make it extremely effective in attaching to human cells and gaining entry. If the original CoV-2 strains were covered in syrup, this variant is covered in ultra-fast drying Gorilla Super Glue (industrial strength).

2. There are two recent publications which demonstrate that the viral loads in the back of the throats of infected patients are 1000X higher with Delta variant than with previous variants. I can tell you from data in my own labs, that is absolutely true! We are seeing viral signals we NEVER saw last year using the exact same assays.

3. This much higher load PLUS the ultra-'stickiness' of the Delta strains for adhering to human cells makes it remarkably more infectious than previous strains. You may have heard of R0 (Read: R naught) which is, in a nutshell, the expected number of persons to which an infected person would be expected to transmit the virus. Early versions of the virus had a 2 to 2.5 R0 value. So one infected person would infect two or so people on average. Delta has an R0 of about 8! In the infectious disease world, that's almost unheard of. Chickenpox and Measles are about all we have ever seen that spread that efficiently from human to human. This changes the story line completely from earlier in the pandemic and makes this surge, in many ways, like a completel