Western Standard - May 19, 2022


CORY'S RANT： Government is the problem, not the solution.


Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

196.49393

Word count

1,360

Sentence count

104

Harmful content

Toxicity

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about inflation and how the government is at the root of it. Inflation is a problem, but the root cause of it is the government's interference in our supply and demand, and the resulting increase in prices.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 So until enough people realize, and here's where the whole base of it is, is that the government is the problem rather than the solution.
00:00:07.540 So until we realize that, until you start your thought there, we're going to keep sliding down the economic hole.
00:00:15.100 Now, I don't want to travel down the whole rabbit holes of economic theory too far.
00:00:19.380 It's a big, complicated area.
00:00:21.080 But all one really needs to know when it comes to inflation is the simple and inviolate rule of supply and demand.
00:00:27.800 When demand for a product exceeds the supply, the cost of the product rises.
00:00:31.840 It's as simple as that.
00:00:32.940 More people want it, they will bid on it, and the cost of it will go up.
00:00:37.220 If you flood a market with a product, the value of the product will go down.
00:00:41.120 We're seeing that right now with currencies, as governments use their central banking ability to create more money while borrowing to get by while they keep spending.
00:00:48.560 The money creation devalues the currency, thus the inflation.
00:00:52.300 You're flooding it, the dollars aren't worth what they were, you devalue them.
00:00:55.760 And the cost of everything else goes up relative to it.
00:00:58.740 So while borrowing temporarily kicks that can of the consequences down the road, we still always pay for it.
00:01:04.280 On the supply side, the government creates nothing.
00:01:06.720 Never forget that.
00:01:07.880 Government creates nothing.
00:01:10.060 It only takes.
00:01:11.680 It only costs.
00:01:13.640 The government impacts supply through regulation.
00:01:16.680 And this is where we see government interference causing inflation.
00:01:19.780 Energy is the number one area in Canada where there's a problem.
00:01:22.660 I mean, the cost of it going through the roof.
00:01:25.940 And where are we sitting?
00:01:26.760 Well, through shutting down coal generation, pipelines, oil sand expansions, delaying every other project from nuclear to hydroelectric with loads of red tape and regulations,
00:01:36.080 the government has choked off growth in energy supplies.
00:01:38.700 Since we can't live without energy, and since the cost of energy impacts the price of every consumer good we have,
00:01:45.260 inflation, of course, quickly follows as energy gets squeezed, and as we're seeing right now.
00:01:50.420 So when the government intervenes in energy production, we pay more.
00:01:53.980 Demand can't go down.
00:01:55.480 Turning on the lights, or turning off your lights, you know, and wearing a sweater won't cut it.
00:01:59.500 We need energy.
00:02:01.120 Housing.
00:02:01.780 It's another need.
00:02:02.760 And it's becoming less affordable all the time as well.
00:02:04.900 And again, the government's the prime culprit.
00:02:07.560 And again, it's through interference and supply.
00:02:09.820 Municipal governments have built such onerous regulations around new housing developments,
00:02:13.600 it's become impossible for builders and developers to keep up with the supply.
00:02:18.060 In Calgary, for example, it takes eight years for a housing development to go from concept to completion.
00:02:23.980 And that's assuming it's even approved.
00:02:26.160 Calgary city councillors were patting themselves on the back and crowing in pride in the fall of 2020
00:02:30.780 when they rejected applications to develop 11 new communities in the suburbs.
00:02:35.700 Now they're scratching their heads wondering why houses have become unaffordable.
00:02:39.600 Food costs as well, they're spiking.
00:02:41.620 Much of that's due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
00:02:43.960 But bear in mind, it's governments who start wars, not individuals.
00:02:47.620 Government, again, is at the root of the inflation.
00:02:50.800 It's at the root of this rise in your cost of living and putting you under pressure.
00:02:54.760 So, with energy being a big contributor to the cost of food production, though,
00:02:59.560 from everything from growing it to transporting produce, that ties in together.
00:03:03.420 Did I mention Canada's government's hindering energy development?
00:03:06.660 Fertilizer, another big factor in food production costs.
00:03:09.980 Canada is looking at raising taxes on fertilizers in order to fight climate change.
00:03:15.700 Yeah, so again, we're going broke, we can't make the bills,
00:03:18.880 and our government's working its hardest to make everything more expensive.
00:03:21.560 I mean, there's supply chain interruptions, and they've contributed heavily to inflation, too,
00:03:25.960 because products are available, they're not available, demand gets stunted, and the price goes up.
00:03:30.900 But let's not forget, it was the government that caused those interruptions.
00:03:34.100 With everything from vaccine mandates on truckers to outright lockdowns and shutting down businesses,
00:03:38.860 the government caused the supply chain disruption that we're still working through today.
00:03:42.980 It's a whiplash effect.
00:03:44.100 It's going to take years to get out of this.
00:03:46.860 Some people may or may not, as a separate discussion,
00:03:48.920 felt whether or not lockdowns were justified in fighting the pandemic.
00:03:51.280 I don't feel they were justified, by the way.
00:03:53.660 That's fine, but let's not forget, it was the government and nobody else who imposed those lockdowns.
00:03:59.180 Government can't run businesses, nor can they create products. 0.99
00:04:02.500 As I said, they're just parasites. 1.00
00:04:04.520 They're horrifically inefficient when they try. 1.00
00:04:06.800 I mean, despite countless world examples of failure, 0.99
00:04:09.340 we still hear a constant chorus of fools calling for the government to do such things as 0.96
00:04:13.320 get into the housing market or even nationalize oil. 0.97
00:04:16.520 Ask some people from Cuba or Venezuela how well that all worked out for them.
00:04:22.240 The government can and does try pouring money through subsidies into areas in order to ease
00:04:26.680 the cost of living as well.
00:04:28.060 Of course, that only increases demand on something while the supply is still missing.
00:04:32.180 So it just leads to more inflation and, of course, tax increases, and your cost of living goes up.
00:04:36.880 Regulation, another area, another tool of the government, such as rent control, is always a failure as well.
00:04:44.600 All that does is drives private money out of the rental industry and creates a shortage of supply.
00:04:49.200 Getting back to those basic rules again.
00:04:51.500 When the government tries to fill the supply directly, you know, government built houses off.
00:04:54.520 Then we get slums.
00:04:55.460 Then we get scandal.
00:04:56.400 Then we get scams.
00:04:57.760 Check out some of the housing projects in the northeastern United States if you've ever been out there
00:05:01.220 to see how well government housing works out.
00:05:03.220 It's quite something.
00:05:03.960 Using more government to fight inflation is the same as pouring gasoline on a fire in an attempt to put it out.
00:05:10.260 I mean, look at the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project.
00:05:13.360 Years of applications, billions spent by Kinder Morgan, and that was just to expand a pipeline that already existed
00:05:19.580 and has been operating safely for over 60 years.
00:05:22.160 Like, that's all we want to do is put one right next to one that was already there.
00:05:24.800 We're not even breaking new grout. 0.99
00:05:27.180 Kinder Morgan finally threw up their hands and told Canada to go to hell. 0.95
00:05:30.680 They pulled out.
00:05:31.240 The government bought the line since then.
00:05:34.160 Costs have gone from $7 billion to over $20 billion.
00:05:37.340 While the construction remains hopelessly delayed.
00:05:39.900 Some people are questioning if it'll ever get done, and I'm one of the people among them.
00:05:43.160 If the government had just gotten out of the bloody way years ago, that line would be in production today.
00:05:47.580 Just think of how well the ability to export an extra 900,000 barrels a day of oil would be serving the economy right now in Canada in light of world oil prices.
00:05:58.020 Instead, we're sitting on the third largest oil deposits on Earth and can't effectively get it out to market.
00:06:03.360 That's 100% due to the government, guys.
00:06:05.360 Keystone XL, it was killed altogether.
00:06:08.460 Biden, now he's groveling and begging Middle Eastern oil producers to increase production on the USA's behalf.
00:06:14.640 While he shunned and shut down a line capable of carrying 800,000 barrels a day from Canada into his country.
00:06:20.400 Most of that line was built.
00:06:21.580 The money was put in.
00:06:22.500 It would be near production, if not in production, if it hadn't been for years of interference from Obama and later Biden.
00:06:29.460 This is why the cost of everything's going up, people.
00:06:31.960 It's government.
00:06:33.060 Every time.
00:06:34.540 There's no quick solution to the rising cost of living, but the longer term solution is simple.
00:06:38.640 We need less government. 0.98
00:06:40.140 Get government out of the damn way. 0.96
00:06:42.340 Cut regulations, open markets, and let creative people fill the voids. 0.95
00:06:47.380 Until, though, we're willing to face that reality, we're not going anywhere.
00:06:50.280 Quit looking to the government to solve your problems.
00:06:53.660 Government is the problem.