Oil in the engine:

Remember the hyper inflation of the 70's and 80's? Sure you do. Anyway it was pretty bad for our economy, because it weakened the dollar and made capital more expensive to import. Also it drove people out of stocks and into bonds. These things are signs of economic decline. So now we have moderate, predictable sustainable inflation between 1-3% per year. Now the National Post wants the inflation rate to go even lower, possibly as low as 0%. Well great, we must think. If lowering inflation a little is good, then lowering it even further will be excellent.

That, ladies and gentlemen is the same logic used by John Crow in 1990 and it was an exascerbating factor in the '90 recession and the jobless recovery that followed. An economy needs a certain amount of inflation so that prices can change more readily, relative to one another reflecting changes in demand and input costs. This brings us to the metaphor of the oil. Just as an engine will run poorly with too much oil running between parts, thus creating extraneous motion, our economic engine will run poorly with too little economic lubrication (inflation) causing prices to stick until they face massive correction.

Keep the economy moving. Keep inflation.