Jim Flaherty needs Financial Literacy Task Force himself

Like, we need one more task force?!? This new Financial Literacy Task Force looks like a liberal project washed over with blue paint.

I find it rich that the federal finance minister, the grand overseer of monetary inflation, the recent corporate bailouts and the largest deficits, is now telling Canadians that they need more financial literacy. Jim Flaherty should be getting more financial literacy himself, if you ask me! Not too long ago Flaherty was trying to convince us that we believe we need more credit. What happened to that campaign? et cui bono? by the way.

If my car is not working, I go to my auto mechanic and he helps me. If my back is malfunctioning, I go to my chiropractor and he helps me too. Those guys also give me advice on what I can do on my own but in the end, they are the ones who have the specialized knowledge. In common economic parlance, we call that the division of labor. I do not need to improve my literacy on auto mechanics nor on vertebral physiology. I just need to pay them to do their work. Having confidence in their abilities to deliver service helps too.

I do not believe tax-payers are ignorant. Rather, I think they need to keep more of their own money and they need to stop financing cronyism, task forces and government nonsense. I also believe they should not be obligated to use a perpetually inflating currency but it will be a cold day in hell before any “conservative” even sees the monetary supply for what it truly is.

Instead of funding a task force, I think Jim Flaherty should focus on making life easier for financial consultants by putting an end to false economic signals. Maybe he can lead seminars called “How To Take Wild Guesses On What Sectors Of The Economy Will Get Bailouts” or “Who Gets The Cheap Credit First?” just to name a few.

Yeah, that was sarcasm. What I mean is that financial consultants, i.e. people who make a living off of precisely what the Financial Literacy Task Force is addressing, are misled by the government.

See, the problem is government intervention in the markets. The government inflated the money supply so, credit was made available to anybody. To stay competitive, the bankers and the money lenders had no choice but to ease their credit requirements. Thus, people who would ordinarily be turned down for loans, soon became eligible for mortgages. We got a housing bubble. Since printing money does not create wealth, vast sectors of the economy were given false signals of future productivity which, surprise, surprise, never materialized. Now, we have a recession while markets adjust.

As long as the government still gives people hope of bailouts and monetary inflation, the recovery will be slow. Business cycle theory is not more complicated than that.