My sentiments echo Mr. Burleton's. In the U.S. right now, there's also an issue of the velocity of money. It's actually fallen so low that as they've put more money into the system, it doesn't seem to have much impact. It's almost like the “pushing on a string” type of analogy.
Then there's the concern that once you do get the velocity, and that assumes a number of financial institutional changes, as well as consumer and business sentiment, then all of a sudden you could have a jump in that velocity. That's when it becomes an issue.
But the U.S. Federal Reserve has published a number of good papers that have indicated when they see the pre-signs of that happening, they can drain the money quickly. One appreciates their arguments. Again, we are in uncharted territory, so whether they can actually respond quickly and substantively enough remains an issue. Our situation in Canada is so different that I don't see it, except in terms of Canada's tight linkages to the U.S.
In terms of a strategy to deal with debt, high inflation is very punitive for those on fixed incomes--all the reasons we've tried to stay to the 2% target. I think the Bank of Canada has been very clear on that.