Welcome, Mr. Carney and Mr. Jenkins. It's always a pleasure to see you.
Mr. Carney, you gave a good answer earlier to the question from my colleague Mr. Laforest concerning the difference between your quite optimistic forecasts and those more tempered ones. You indeed drew the necessary distinctions.
I share the opinion of my colleague Mr. McCallum, who congratulated you saying that you are doing a good thing by giving some assurances to people who are perhaps planning to buy a house. That's one way of stabilizing the situation and generating confidence. I think that's somewhat the purpose, even though you refrain from saying that you might at times be cheerleading. You said that you were only giving the figures. I think there's nevertheless a matter of trust that people have to have in the economy. When you provide that guarantee of more than one year on the interest rate, there's something reassuring that ultimately can only help.
The conclusion is that it is much safer to make predictions about things we control than those we do not, which is very good. We have greater chances of not missing our shot.
I want to go back to the topic of inflation, which has come up in the discussions.
You will no doubt remember—because you have a good memory for these things and for many others as well—that I spoke to you about that a few months ago. You reassured me by saying that you had all the necessary tools.
Earlier you said that we were talking about $4.1 trillion at the world level. I always take the trouble to say that “billion” in French corresponds to “trillion” in English, because that may be confusing. The French billion is 1,000 English billion. So we're talking about $4 trillion worth of debts, bad bank debts.
Mr. Obama has already printed billions of dollars, as though he were a creditist. He's channeling Camil Samson. We are happily printing money, and you are nevertheless sure that that money will have an impact on the market and that we won't have the same kind of inflation as we experienced in the wake of the Vietnam War.
Let's remember that the price of the Vietnam War, apart from the price in equipment and human lives, was terrible inflation because the cost of the war had to be paid. We've already spent billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan that will have to be repaid sooner or later by printing money.
Reassure me by telling me that we won't be repaying the billions of dollars in question through Zimbabwean-style inflation.