Juno News - Does Jagmeet Singh understand basic economics？

00:00:00.000 want to pick up on this video of Jagmeet Singh because it is one of the most juvenile, ridiculous

00:00:06.100 takes I have ever seen in Canadian politics. Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP party, puts out

00:00:11.300 a video, the very, very, very simplistic, like 18-year-old communist kind of stuff,

00:00:17.960 saying that the real reason that prices are going up, not because of inflation, not because of

00:00:22.500 Justin Trudeau's spending, but because of corporate greed, okay? Corporate greed. I want to play you

00:00:27.180 this video to show you just how silly and ridiculous it is. So here is Jagmeet Singh.

00:00:32.860 The cost of everything is going up. Some say it's because of supply chain issues. Some say it's

00:00:37.360 because the government spent money on programs to help people in need. Here's the truth. Why is the

00:00:42.360 cost of everything going up? Simple answer, greed. When the cost of things go up, it hurts some people,

00:00:49.300 but it benefits those at the very top. And it's not the grocery store workers, those that stock the

00:00:54.500 shelves, farmers that grow your food, or small businesses and grocery stores like this.

00:00:59.900 Large corporations, big box stores, and big retail are making record profits in this time.

00:01:04.960 Okay, wait, just hold it right there. Okay. So this idea that Jagmeet Singh is saying that it isn't the

00:01:09.860 fault of independent grocers and local grocers like the one that he's in, but he just blames it on greed

00:01:14.860 of these big box stores. Okay. That defies the very basic logic of Econ 101. Because the idea,

00:01:20.960 if it was just greedy, greedy people sitting in Walmart and Loblaws and these big box stores,

00:01:26.060 then the smaller places would have a huge opportunity, a huge market opportunity to

00:01:29.700 undercut them in price. Because as Jagmeet Singh is saying, they're not greedy. It's not their fault.

00:01:34.220 So they could just charge a much lower price. And then consumers wouldn't go to the big box stores,

00:01:38.780 they would go to the little ones. Of course, what Jagmeet Singh is saying is complete nonsense. What,

00:01:42.840 did greed just suddenly come up in the last like year? You know, the actual cause of inflation rising

00:01:50.080 at 7% this year over last year is because corporations just suddenly became 7% more

00:01:55.860 greedy. That doesn't make any sense. It's silly. It's so ridiculous.

Juno News - April 25, 2022