this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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The prime minister is meeting with his youth advisory board this week to hear its most 'pressing concerns,' with the aim of informing future policy decisions.

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[–] psvrh@lemmy.ca 18 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Housing would be nice, but how about electoral reform?

Or, you know, fucking actually do something instead of endless committees, boards, surveys and studies. You know what you need to to:

  • Build housing directly (like, employ people, buy land and buy equipment, don't subcontract)
  • Tightly regulate the market
  • Tax the rich to pay for it ...but you won't do it because it would cost your donor class money.

I'm sick of this. This government didn't need a study when they bought a pipeline for Alberta, and they didn't need a study to buy fridges for Galen Weston. They only need studies when they don't want to do something.

Want a model of what to do? Look at Doug Ford. That corrupt mobster-wannabee just straight up sold government land for pennies on the dollar and netted his daughter's wedding guests billions. Did he have a committee or a study? Nope, just git'r'done.

Holy shit, you're the goverment. You can print money. You can even claim all sorts of Keynesian multipliers as to why it's worth doing. Just fucking do it.

[–] huiccewudu@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Holy shit, you’re the goverment. You can print money.

Honestly (and unfortunately) our political leaders do not have the financial literacy or expertise to understand contemporary monetary policy or how our economy works. Frankly, most people do not understand this system because it is made to be intentionally complex and opaque. Nobody has the objective, overall view on all of the interrelated actors/factors that comprise this system. It's hard for people to accept the fact that our own governments do not fully understand how our economies work, but it's a fact. This is not just a Trudeau problem.

For example, in a process that is both possible and maddeningly complicated (at least in my understanding, which is barely adequate enough to type out here), the Treasury can collaborate with the Bank of Canada to adjust its target reserve funds rate, mitigate the knock-on effects to its Tax and Loan accounts to protect its reserve positions, adopt a non-neutral monetary financing policy (and get the Feds to mitigate the consequences, if they can, to our foreign relations, which would be severe) or use other tricks, increase the monetary financing rate to pre-1982 rates (e.g., around 20-25%), get the BoC to 'print' what economists call 'high-powered money' and follow Canada's somewhat unique process of indirectly funding government deficit spending (in this case to to build low-cost housing), all the while trying to balance out the liabilities and fighting like hell against run-away inflation.

Do you understand those steps, the benefits/risks of each, how they relate to one another, and how to implement them? Again, I only barely understand the approach I've tried to summarize above, each aspect of which economists of various ideological stripes may/will reject as totally unworkable. I'm certain that I've missed critical steps/considerations; I'm just not smart enough to know what I don't yet know. You can bet Chrystia Freeland, our Minister of Finance, doesn't understand this process. I bet there isn't a single member of the Conservative Party of Canada caucus who understands this process. I doubt there's more than a handful of MPs in Parliament who could even credibly describe the relationship and interrelations between the government and the Bank of Canada, much less how to accomplish the above scenario.

Our government simply does not have the technical expertise required to fix this problem.

[–] Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ignorance isnt nearly a credible argument for a government this size and 100% looks, smells n tastes like shit to me.

Then why didn't doug for have to use some infinite knowledge to stick his dick in our environment? I can only image the size of the environmental models and studies he went through to gsurentee the safety and wellbeing of the Canadian people right?

Or did he want another boat.

[–] huiccewudu@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I spent a lot of time writing this brief explanation of the complex dynamics surrounding this country's fiscal and monetary policy, and why I think the Liberal government doesn't have the expertise to "get 'er done." That you think I was defending this government, and the general tone of your reply, shows that it was a complete waste of my time trying to share something I've learned.

I won't make that mistake again.

[–] lorax@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 years ago

I’m still very bitter about the broken electoral reform promise.