REALITY by Bob Kismet
Our biggest trading partner is printing money (they euphemistically call it quantitative easing), and are thereby impairing their own ability to import our goods. The result of this, if unchecked, will be to do more damage to the already suffering Ontario manufacturing sector. One might ask what is Stephen Harper doing to control the fallout of this dangerous economic dynamic. It would be logical if he were to employ the same tactic as the Americans are in order to keep the value of our currency stable in relation to the biggest buyer of our products, or to prop up our manufacturing sector.
We can print money too, so why don’t we?
More importantly, why isn’t the option even 
being discussed? The collective conservative consciousness of this country is programmed to respond that increasing the money supply will result in inflation, which erodes wealth. This is bad for the wealthy. However, depending on how the extra money that is created enters the economy, it does not necessarily have to be inflationary. Inflation occurs when a larger amount of money chases the same amount of good and services in the economy, or when the same amount of money chases a decreased amount of goods and services. If the money that enters the econony served to increase the amount of wealth (goods and services) in the economy, then there would be no inflationary effect due to the increase in the money supply. This is not what the Americans are doing, and therefore the effect of their “quantitative easing” will be inflationary, depreciate their dollar, and not stimulate their economy. The extra money supply will enter the economy through private banks that will loan it back to the government, and use it to buy devalued and stressed financial assets. Some of it will flee the American economy entirely as banks seek the best possible return in developing economies.
If the Canadian government were to print money, with the goal of avoiding inflation while protecting our manufacturing sector, the appropriate method of introducing the currency into the economy would be to invest it in government owned manufacturing capacity. If one million dollars worth of something such as… solar panels were built using every million dollars worth of new money, then there would be no inflation, and our manufacturing sector would be insulated from the soon to be devasted American capacity to buy stuff.
Our ability to export stuff to our traditional biggest customer is all but finished.
China, India, and other emerging markets want only our resources, they can handle their own manufacturing. We need to become our own customer. It is a great opportunity to print money and use it to pay for something that we make for ourselves. Solar panels is a good idea, because the government entering the alternative energy market in a big way is not going to harm an existing, thriving, industry. We need extra energy generating capacity, especially here in Ontario, as we can’t compete with Quebec in this regard. We also need to be able to move away from unclean supplies such as coal and nuclear.
Wait a sec… the Stephen Harper conservatives are government of the tar sands, for the tar sands, and by the tar sands. Hence, we’d be foolish to think he would even dream of advocating for alternative energy, or for Ontario’s manufacturing sector for that matter. If the issue of the appreciating Canadian dollar is not addressed, Ontario is in trouble, and if we are interested in preventing the economic carnage, we have the wrong Prime Minister on the job . No one in Ontario should be entertaining the notion of voting for Harper.
