G Huxley

"1. And yet many economists say it's the cause. I already posted that." I think you draw incorrect conclusions from what they are saying. They are saying that the fallout from COVID is a factor, not a direct cause of inflation as Trudeau is saying. There is nothing a virus does that directly causes inflation. Can a virus control the interest rates? Tell me an economist that believes that and I'll point to a charlatan or liberal party member, or both. "2. You are just stating it's a lie and not why." I stated why its a lie and that is that inflation including the current spike has multiple factors involved, from the Bank of Canada's policies, to interest rates, to carbon taxes, to the government mass printing money, the money supply, policies regarding international/global finance, high migration rates, to handouts driving consumer prices up etc., etc., To simply say that inflation is directly caused by Covid as Trudeau stated is a lie. "It's obvious that Covid 19 has disrupted the supply chain and the fact that you haven't even mentioned that is more deceptive than Trudeau agreeing with a plurality of economists, sorry." I haven't once denied that COVID has disrupted the supply chain. There is nothing deceptive in that. I am not making the claim that COVID is not an indirect cause of a good portion of the inflation spike, in fact I have openly stated that it is. What is a lie is what Trudeau stated that inflation is directly caused by COVID. It isn't. During the first phase of COVID inflation actually decreased steadily to at one point negative inflation (deflation). https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/canada-historical-inflation-rate/ The inflation rate has only really taken off in the last 8 months, whereas COVID has been in existence for two years.

"Very modest inflation of around 1% is good. " Why even have 1%? Albeit it is better than the target of 2% we have now which is actually around 5% in recent times. " Also, you want at least a modest rise in the stock market, property values, etc., as otherwise we won’t have pensions." The pensions we have dependent on that are a ponzi scheme. I would rather we didn't have them based on those. And Canada pension is weak anyway. I'd rather just not pay into the ponzi scheme and keep my money instead. If we didn't have inflation, we could simply save money for retirement instead of relying on phony government pensions, which have so often acted as slush funds and come attached with all this growth garbage, which really just subsidizes big business. "Also remember that without a little inflation it’s very hard to pay down current debt. " As if debt is actually being paid down right now. Debt is skyrocketing under the present system. To pay down debt taxes must be raised accordingly, as they used to be in earlier times. "However, rampant inflation like we’re seeing now is very dangerous, especially since our wages aren’t keeping up and housing is unaffordable." Absolutely. "Get rid of carbon taxes (replacing them with a green building code)," Nah carbon taxes are good for discouraging carbon use and they actually generate revenue which pays down debt. ", increase fuel and energy supply (pipelines and deregulation)," More environmental destruction. No thanks. Invest instead in alternatives. "Increasing housing supply for a only possible with some deregulation. " As long as you have an increasing population, increasing housing supply doesn't make a difference. " Slowing or setting more conditions on immigration should slow the demand for housing in our major cities. " Agreed on that. "Keep in mind that our Liberal government won’t do any of these things. It’s all a transfer of tax revenue to non-workers and non-taxpayers, hyper-immigration, and massive borrowing." Asbolutely. "They’ve put climate activists in charge of resource development. " I don't have a problem with that. Relying on dino fuels hasn't gotten us anywhere productive.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-meets-2021-immigration-target-with-401000-new-permanent-residents-2021-12-23/

"What? Of course covid doesn't cause all inflation, since inflation existed before covid. Obviously we're talking about the current spike in inflation here. So I really need to point this out? " Again the current spike in inflation has multiple factors involved including the carbon tax (again I'm not arguing against that), not merely covid. To pretend that covid is the direct cause of even the current spike in inflation is simple dishonesty. At best a considerable part of the current spike is indirectly caused by Covid. There is nothing that the virus does that directly causes inflation. That is far different from Trudeau's lie that inflation is a direct consequence of COVID, but hey throw out the big lie and expect the public not to see through it. It's been working for him so far.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/top-canadian-museum-to-be-immediately-gutted-in-the-name-of-decolonization " And in less than two weeks, almost all of the Royal B.C. Museum’s most signature attractions are being abruptly ripped out in the name of “decolonization.” The demolition contracts have already been signed. Starting on Jan. 2, crews will start taking crowbars to life-sized dioramas of a Peace River homestead, a salmon cannery, a Vancouver Island coal mine and HMS Discovery, the flagship of British explorer George Vancouver. " When the American Alliance of Museums gave the exhibit their Excellence in Exhibition award in 2015, judges marvelled in particular at the RBCM’s work to track down speakers for some of B.C.’s rarest languages in order to build an accurate auditory catalogue to accompany the exhibit. Our Living Languages — as well as Chinatown and the rest of the third floor — is scheduled to be gone in less than two weeks. "

"Well how can Trudeau be 'lying' if most economists agree with him? Are they lying also? " - Michael I don't think any economist worth their salt will say that inflation is a direct consequence of Covid. Obviously Covid has been a driver of inflation, but to pretend that all inflation is a direct result of Covid is absurd. We had inflation long before Covid. The task of the Bank of Canada is to keep inflation around 2%. Completely non covid related. There are numerous drivers of inflation other than Covid, e.g. gas prices, the carbon tax (which I'm not arguing against), the housing bubble, inflation targets set by the bank of Canada, printing money to finance the government's wild expenditures and poor fiscal governance, the effects of globalization on capital etc., etc.. Pretending that inflation is a direct consequence of Covid is a lie and is an insult to the public's intelligence.

What about it?

Let's put it this way Michael, if Trudeau does have the barest grasp of inflation, then he is lying through his teeth with that comment and throughout the interview in that link.

"Watching your assets lose value is frightening and puts a chill over investment and activity. " A. I don't invest, as it is, because the stock market is rife with unreliability, poor regulation, outright scams and terrible ethics and it is based on endless growth, which is the problem. Would you invest in cancer if it brought a good rate of return? " Environmental clean-up is indeed economic activity and represents an increase in GDP." This is double speak. Cleaning up the environment does not require growth and is an absurdity anyway based on circular logic anyway. What is driving environmental destruction? Economic growth. More growth means more clean up necessary, it's a circular cycle. "The goal is always to add value to what we create and efficiency to our methods of production, as that increases the value of what we sell, allows us to charge more for it, and produce more units more cheaply and competitively, making it possible to raise wages and living standards. " The increase in wages is wiped out by inflation. If you increase wages at a rate lower than inflation as we have now, you aren't increasing real wage, which is the cynical understanding economists like Keynes actually pointed out was a means of driving down the real cost of labour and thus keeping down the working class. The cost of living is not improving when housing prices have increased 77% in just over half a decade. "Automation complicates this if companies hoard the profits rather than passing them onto employees. It’s also bad when there are fewer workers in high paying jobs because machines replace the workers. " This could be solved by modifying the tax system accordingly, but that is not what is actually happening.

I definitely don't want inflation, which is driven by growth including the 77 percent rise in housing prices look at this: "HOUSING AFFORDABILITY Solomon: Cost of living and affordability is slightly different than inflation…. But let's talk about inflation in housing, which is the other big issue. Since 2015, when you were elected, the average house price has gone up 77 per cent, and we can talk about who's to blame for that… What will your government do on a material level, to help people buy houses and to stop the housing crisis from inflating? Trudeau: One of the things we need to do is create more supply, and that's why we put forward a plan in the last election to invest $4 billion to municipalities to help accelerate the creation of supply, of creating more low income and modest income rental housing. Cut down some of the red tape, provide federal lands to build on, move things forward in a way that incentivizes the creation of more housing, not just so housing prices can go down but so that we can continue to bring in immigrants to continue to contribute to our workforce." https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-on-deficit-concerns-his-2021-regrets-and-what-he-thinks-will-define-2022-1.5712061

Does anyone else think that Trudeau doesn't have the barest grasp of the multiple causes of inflation? https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-on-deficit-concerns-his-2021-regrets-and-what-he-thinks-will-define-2022-1.5712061

"Growth is economic activity, which can be environmental clean-up and restoration" Environmental clean-up and restoration do not require growth. "You need a modest level of growth because stagflation and deflation are terminally bad for economies. " Endless growth is terminally bad for economies. It is unsustainable and will ultimately collapse in on itself. I don't find deflation to be a bad prospect. It increases the value of your savings and wages. I find inflation to be much more abhorrent, which decreases the value of your savings and wages. Inflation and economic growth are tied to the waist. "People naturally build and produce, even when population growth is flat. We build and improve on the civilization of our ancestors. " Increasing environmental destruction through endless economic growth is not some sort of progress. How many Subways and Starbucks in a city block does it take to realize that building endlessly doesn't actually accomplish anything? "You want a reasonably productive society, but not a burnt out unhappy society where people literally die from work, a phenomenon more common in Asia but not uncommon here. " Asia is overpopulated, the result of too much growth. We should not be repeating that mistake here. Having a laid back life dependent on other people to do our work is the sign of a decadent and a collapsing society like ours.

What ends up happening is that if there is a closed border populist, they almost invariably end up coming from the right and end up with a contradictory trap, because the right tends to depend on economic growth to sustain its economic/political model. Thus they typically denounce illegal migrants, which make up often only a minute portion of the total number coming in, while still taking in hoards of legal migrants.

"We could grow our population a bit beyond the current number, slowly, if we can do it in the right ways. " - Zeitgeist And yet the question remains why would you even want to do that? The answer usually follows, because we are dependent on it for our economic model. Well that logic is circular. Ultimately it points to one direction: if our economic model is dependent on constant growth, then our economic model is crucially flawed, because endless economic growth is utterly unsustainable in a finite world and is utter contempt for nature itself and all the species and complex evolved webs of life within it. If you want to increase the population slightly, then where does it stop? Even if you are increasing the population slightly (which again begs the question why increase population at all) over enough time even that increase will become utterly massive. So why not stop the increase now and stop kicking the can down the road?

"It’s not an oxymoron if some of the growth involves removing asphalt from former industrial sites to restore former green fields, retrofitting buildings with insulation, installing wind, solar, geothermal, and deep water cooling, adding green roofs, building hydro plants and mini reactors." None of that requires growth, except for the bit at the end about building hydro plants and reactors. Why not use the ones we already have? " We can grow by utilizing existing footprints, using infill developments, and building up, repurposing commercial and office buildings for residential, etc. " Again back to growth. We do not need to grow and we should not be growing.

"So you are doing your part, though not enough. Every state is reporting population decline, especially among first-world nations. There is a lot more to this than just having fun and sex. You are screwing for god and country!! " 2 children is a fine number to have. The population should be declining as the world is overpopulated.

"All because you people are liberal hedonists who don’t make babies. " Who is "you people?" I have a one child and plan to have another.

Cougar indeed. Ponzi scheme is another word I'd use in addition.

"I hear what you’re saying, but then we’ll have to shift to a low growth model." Why any growth? At the very least stop growth, or go to a de-growth model. "Our economy is built on the idea that by locking in today’s prices, for example by buying a house right now and taking on a mortgage, over time, as wages and the economy grow, that mortgage payment becomes a smaller portion of your income. You get wealthier. The inflation that goes with this growth also means that when you sell your home 20 years later, it will be worth far more than you paid for it. This is the story of how most Canadians have built their nest eggs and moved up financially for the last century. Much of that growth and inflation depends on a steady increase in development, which comes through settlement, mainly immigration, since our birth rate is close to negative. " Indeed. "A world in which your asset values and wages are essentially stagnant would require a more modest lifestyle and slower accumulation of wealth than we’ve had in many decades. Doable but difficult. " A better situation. Wages are stagnant anyway as they are wiped out by inflation. "Basically we’d end up living in small apartments and living on essentials. " I don't see why small apartments are necessary under a de-growth model. They become a necessity under the current model as housing price inflation and increased growth development/density lead to exactly this picture. "It jibes with efforts to slash greenhouse gasses" Naturally. "recent totalitarian restrictions on movement and surveillance to control the “pandemic”. " Non sequitur. De-growth involves none of the above. "I think we have to find sustainable forms of modest growth. " Sustainable growth is an oxymoron. Endless growth is a tumour plain and simple.

"Half of our remaining richest farmland will be paved over. " Then why do you want to facilitate this by bringing in 30 million+ more people? (doubling the population) "If a certain amount of net population increase is necessary," Key word "if". Why do you think a certain net population increase is necessary? " the focus should be on making northern communities with the potential to be sustainable the focus for future growth. It would provide the necessary workforce to tap national resources" Read more environmental destruction so that you can try to grow your antlers. "sustainable the focus for future growth." There is nothing sustainable about future growth. Endless growth is a tumour.

That will simply cause massive environmental problems and probably end up requiring more subsidization than we actually get back in taxes, as is already the case with the North as far as I am aware. And where are this extra 30+ million people going to come from? Are they going to come here, because they patriotically believe in Canada's vision and care deeply about its environment? Or simply to make a quick buck?

They are actually calling for 100 million. Have you heard of the Century Initiative? https://www.centuryinitiative.ca/ One of the founders of the organization is Dominic Barton, who just resigned as Canada's ambassador to China. Seriously. https://www.centuryinitiative.ca/our-team/dominic-barton

Either way the MIC is always still itching for adventurism to justify its sky high budget, which has hardly slowed its pace during the pandemic: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/6/weapons-trade-booms-as-profit-hits-record-531bn

Zeitgeist agreed in all, but beefing up our military. Instead of going on Uncle Sam's expensive and useless crusades we should be using money saved to actually defend our borders.

Myata have you seen this one? https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/vacant-piece-of-land-less-than-30-centimetres-wide-hits-the-toronto-market-and-it-s-attracting-attention-1.5694423 Land less than 30 centimeters wide going for $50,000 in Toronto. Kind of goes against the B.S. we are being fed by the shovelful about higher density lowering housing prices.