To make things worse, apply Government Liberally

The only problems that government ever solves are problems that government caused in the first place.  Their solutions invariably make things worse and cause a whole host of new problems requiring government intervention.  Many western countries have a problem with escalating food prices.  This is 100% the fault of government.  Energy taxes, green energy, and rampant deficit spending have increased input costs and caused runaway inflation.  So far the solution has been to threaten grocery stores.

Minister of State Neale Richmond has called an emergency meeting of the retail forum for Wednesday afternoon amid soaring food and grocery costs, which are putting extra strain on families already hit by increases in energy bills.

Ireland has issued an ultimatum, either grocery stores voluntary start losing money or the government will force them to lose money with wage and price controls.  This is government 101 pick something that does not work and do it again.  The knee jerk reaction to inflation caused by government is always wage and price controls.  Wage and price controls are disgusting for 2 reasons.  First it is the government down loading their problems on the private sector and second they do not work and always make things worse.

Canada has a housing crisis which is causing rent escalation.  The solution in British Columbia is controlling prices by capping rent increases at 2% per year.  The problem is that government has escalated operating and mortgage costs way more than 2% per year.  Landlords can choose to go bankrupt or evict the tenant to sell the house.  The new owner is free to start over with a new renter at a much higher rent.  This now results in 85% of all evictions.

This province is an outlier in the national data for another reason revealed for the first time: The vast majority of evictions in B.C. — 85 per cent — are deemed to be at “no fault” of the tenants, and that rate is far greater than the national average of 65 per cent.

Eventually the government will move to stop this which will cause landlords to go bankrupt and default on mortgages.  Existing homes will fall in to disrepair and become unlivable while no new homes get built.  There will ultimately be fewer homes in a market that already has too few homes.  But that does not matter; according to Canada’s federal housing commissar more homes is not a solution to not having enough homes.

B.C. Conservative MP Tracy Gray questioned Houle, asking, “Would you agree part of the solution is we do need more building of houses in order to bring prices down?”

Houle replied that “this is not how housing works.”

Apparently the law of supply and demand does not apply to housing, at least not in Canada.  According to Marie-Josée Houle the problem is really capitalism.  She believes capitalism does not work and we should never have allowed housing to be sullied by capitalism.

She noted that “the market needs to be regulated,” adding that “markets are not working well” and that “we have let housing be market-driven.”

Housing must be regulated in order to avoid the current problems that were paradoxically caused by regulation.  For these insightful comments Marie-Josée Houle is paid $174,000 per year of your tax dollars.

This is precisely why Canada is rapidly becoming a failed state.  Our governments are stocked full of ideological morons like Marie-Josée Houle; people who believe market forces will bend to their will.  The solution to a housing crisis caused by government is not more government.  The solution is simple but not quick or painless.

1. Stop pouring gas on the fire. Eliminate immigration until the problem is under control.
2. Allow rents to rise to incentivize construction of more housing.
3. Lower input costs by reducing taxes.
4. Eliminate regulations that do nothing other than increase the time and money required to build new projects.

Canadian governments have created a problem that will take years to fix even if they get out of the way which they are not willing to do.  We need to stop giving government the option of getting involved.  It only ever makes things worse.