Cost of living hitting food banks in Canada so hard that visits are limited to once a month (www.ctvnews.ca)

submitted 5 days ago by yogthos@lemmy.ml to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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[-] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

That's the cool thing: there's plenty of wealth to cover all of that, it's just currently being hoarded by the ultra wealthy.

There's no reason that people in Canada should face food insecurity. Basic nutrition is a human right, necessary for survival.

The PC party in charge right now is better than the Reform Party they beat to gain power, but neither of those parties have any plans to help 90% of Canadians with meaningful reforms to income and business tax.

For example, the "Liberals" (PC party, in all but name) axed their legislation to a modest increase on capital gains tax advice $10K/year. You know who's earning over $10K/year in non-tax-deferred investment accounts? Only the 1%.

Bring back 70% marginal income tax rates for income in 7 figures and no special status for capital gains (except for being able to subtract capital losses at par). That alone would pay for basic life necessities for every Canadian who can't afford to live.

[-] Teppa@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Well do you think wealth can really horded, isnt it true that if those rich people dont consume then the money supply grows, until somebody consumes. Which is how interest rates get so low in a recession, people stop consuming and the wealthy are made richer until somebody has the money and the desire to consume.

[-] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

That's not really how it works.

Interest rates get low during recessions by deliberate choice from central banks. They reduce interest rates directly to stimulate economic activity. This works because the cost of longer-term investment in growth is, largely, based on interest rates.

You're slightly right that holding wealth increases money supply, but only indirectly, and only to a certain extent. Most importantly, the amount of money held in banks and investments isn't affected much by market cycles—the amount saved changes dramatically, but that's a small percentage of total wealth holdings, so it doesn't matter much in the short term.

The bigger factor for increasing financial activity is something called monetary velocity, which is a measure of how many times the same dollar is spent per year. Like, you buy something from a store, they pay their employees with that dollar, the employee pays their rent, then the landlord... etc. Monetary velocity can change suddenly in a recession, so it has a far bigger impact.

If you're interested in this, I'd suggest taking an introductory macroeconomics course. There are lots of free MOOC course options for this, but it'll take 50-200 hours to complete one of them, likely, depending on your academic background and academic skills.

[-] Teppa@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The rich hoarding wealth does directly increase money supply because they generally reinvest, which is excluded from the CPI, which decreases interest rates leading to further money supply growth. Their wealth isnt really real when viewed through the lens of monetary policy, its inflated based on past consumption and things like hedonic adjustments or substitutions.

Money velocity increases more when the poor get the money, via things like Covid stimulus, which lead to the large inflation print. While the rich just put it into assets, driving up the stock market and real estate, which made them nominally wealthier.

I think this is why QE hurts the poor and benefits the rich, their salaries are being debased to push up asset values, until someone with a propensity to consume receives that nominal windfall; whether its a home sale or an equity sale. I dont see how the rich is at fault for any of this however, and I think if they did give their money away then nominal asset values would fall and inflation would rise.

What I'd perhaps like to see is instead of dropping interest rates taxes were tied to inflation, where they rise if deflation occurs. That I could perhaps see working, though its a working theory for me at the moment.