It’s as ignorant as it sounds.
As of late, Jagmeet Singh spends most of his time propping up the Liberals and then complaining about the Liberals.
He seems unaware that his keeping Trudeau in power.
And when he’s not expressing ignorance about his coalition with the Liberals, he’s spreading ignorant economic ideas.
Fix inflation by giving out more money?
A key factor behind the rise in inflation is that there is too much money chasing too few goods.
The Bank of Canada massively expanded the money supply, and the Liberals gave out tons of money.
Meanwhile, there wasn’t an equivalent increase in the supply of goods.
That means each ‘unit’ of money is worth less, and we see that represented in higher prices.
As a result, to get inflation under control there needs to be a reduction in the increase of the money supply, and more goods need to be produced.
Literally the worst thing we could do would be to continue the anti-growth high-tax policies of the Liberals while giving out more money.
That would deepen the existing problem, serving only to drive prices higher.
So, it’s no surprise that that is exactly what Jagmeet Singh is proposing:
“I’m calling on this Liberal govt to prioritize you
Up to $1000 in inflation relief to help cover the cost of gas, groceries, & rent by taking on crooked corporations & taxing their price-gouging record profits
I’m not going to back down, stand with me”
https://twitter.com/theJagmeetSingh/status/1541464516742959104
This would be akin to trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.
Why not $10,000? Why not $100,000
A key way to get a sense for why this is such an ignorant idea is ask this question:
Why not give out $10,000 or $100,000?
Surely, if $1000 would help, wouldn’t $10,000 or $100,000?
Why not give out $1 million to ensure all Canadians are millionaires?
Why not give out $1 billion so Canada can be the first nation (aside from Zimbabwe or Weimer Germany perhaps) where everyone is a ‘billionaire’?
Because, as we know, money only has value relative to what you can buy from it.
If we gave out $1 million to everyone, there would be a rapid short-term surge in spending, followed by massive price increases that would quickly reset the value of our money and ensure that being a ‘millionaire’ was meaningless.
The same is true of giving out $1,000, only to a lesser extent.
There would be a very short-term boost to economic activity, but that would be cancelled out by higher prices going forward.
You can’t make a country rich by giving out printed money. It’s been tried over and over and over again, and it has failed every time.
To grow richer, the economy of a country must produce real things and provide real services, and become more and more efficient at doing so over time.
Peddling ignorance
This is not early 2020, when the government told people to stay home and shut down hundreds of thousands of businesses, thus obligating the government to help Canadians financially for the short-term.
The fact that the Liberals decided to keep on extending that ‘short-term help,’ while imposing higher and higher carbon taxes and anti-growth policies is a key reason we have so much inflation today.
A problem cannot be fixed by doing more of what caused the problem.
Canada needs lower taxes, higher productivity, restraint in the growth of the money supply, and lower government spending.
That is the only way we will reduce inflation and make life more affordable for Canadians.
By saying otherwise, and by peddling ‘fixes’ that make things worse, Jagmeet Singh continues to double-down on ignorance.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – Twitter
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