Canadian Banks Didn’t Blow Up
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Clearly this is because our maple syrup loving brethren up north are commies.
One place where none of this banking drama is taking place is Canada, as CBS Evening News weekend anchor Jeff Glor reports.
Ed Clark is a plainspoken, polite and prudent Canadian bank CEO with a few simple rules: “We should never do things for our customers and clients that we don’t actually understand. If you wouldn’t put your mother-in-law in this, don’t put our clients in it.”
You may never have heard of Clark or Toronto Dominion bank (aka TD Bank), but it’s the sixth-largest bank in North America – and, in the middle of a global banking crisis, a profitable one at that.
“We will make more money in this quarter than any bank in North America,” Clark said. “So for a little Canadian bank sitting up here, yeah that feels pretty good.”
How did that come to pass?
“Basically, because we didn’t do the things that blew other banks up,” Clark said.
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many American Banks didn’t blow up either, just the New York City ones (yes they might be based in Delaware or North Carolina for tax reason but the important people are in Manhattan)
“we need the freedom to have a depression”-anarcho-capitalists
Happens to be my bank; and yeah, don’t gamble money that isn’t yours in high risk ventures.
Seems like a good business plan; maybe US banks should try it.
Or should have.
Here’s the insane thing. This is what I always thought conservatism was supposed to mean – a distrust of new, slick, hyperexciting things. Instead we bought into this low-rent libertarian hype that the market was always good, that it was a machine that spouted money, and anyone who wasn’t in on the game was a fool.
Not just a plan. We have specific regulations that limit what banking entities can do.
To quote Long Ball Larry David, “thing are pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good” up here.
The first time in almost 15 years that our federal government will run a deficit this year.
“This is what I always thought conservatism was supposed to mean – a distrust of new, slick, hyperexciting things.”
Unless of coarse you can make a bundle and then blame the government and over regulation when the plot fails and you loose a ton. It’s a win win for the nut bars – ride the crest when capitalism is “working” and blame the rest when it’s not.
A lot of people may be surprised, but there are more than a few large regional banks in the U.S. which acted responsibly and are doing compratively well, other than how their general situation has been affected by the calamities of the bankster/investor class in general.
It’s funny, though, that the CBS story made it entirely seem like the product of a Canadian “culture” of banking, instead of talking about the complete anti-rational actions of our regulatory banking & investment environment over the past decade and a half.
I don’t know, but I’d be willing to ignorantly bet that Canadian regulators didn’t allow this bullshit game of pretending that “credit default swaps” were really the same as “insurance” but without having to uphold the high financial backing standards required of actual “insurance”.
But then, if you rename torture “enhanced interrogation,” it turns out it’s not torture, either, so definitions don’t matter any more.
We Canadians do not share your American fetish for “deregulation” and “unlimited competition.” We believe “Capitalism” is a “System” of “Economics” that needs to be policed, monitored and regulated NOT a “Religion” where just because you believe it – that makes it so.
From our Airlines to phone companies to banks – generally speaking we allow “enough” competition to prevent “monopoly” but NOT ENOUGH to beggar everyone in the game. That is why we have 5 banks that have 90% of the Canadian banking system between them – The Royal Bank, Toronto Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian Imperial Bank and the Bank of Montreal or BMO as it known to one all here in snow country.
Our banks took a SEVERE but not CRUSHING set of losses from your fiasco BUT that was because your “rating agencies” rated “junk” as “AAA.” It was these rating companies that LIED to the world’s banks and spread your poison abroad. To the WORLD – these bastards are the CRIMINALS – how your banks fuck over their fellow Americans is YOUR business – but spreading your contagion around the world BY OUTRIGHT LYING is just not the done thing – old boy.
“instead of talking about the complete anti-rational actions of our regulatory banking & investment environment over the past decade and a half.”
They can’t talk that way because people pursuing their self interest can never act irrationally. It’s against human nature, that’s what Rush said.
This following comment is OFF TOPIC – BUT for our American friends it is the single biggest area in HOW Canada and the WORLD sees America DIFFERENTLY than Americans do.
And that issue is – your “Revolution.”
Canada and EVERY OTHER WESTERN country sees that you “revolted” against “tyranny,” against “taxation without representation” to create a “Democracy.” BUT – that is not how Americans seem to see their “Revolution.” Apparently – MANY Americans see that you FOUGHT “Tyranny” NOT to get Democracy BUT to create a “permanently armed populous” that could “rise against” your “Democracy.” It seems you THINK the ability and OBLIGATION to POTENTIALLY have “armed insurrection” against your OWN DEMOCRACY is a good thing. To the REST of the Western World – that is SIMPLY – INSANE. Democracy IS THE GOAL. Your Revolution WAS TO ACHIEVE THE GOAL! It worked – NOW you just “vote the bastards out” every time you don’t want them – you not only don’t need to use violence – violence is TREASON to DEMOCRACY.
We just don’t understand your vies on this – we see it as a FATAL FLAW in the lessons you’ve learned from your own past.
Most confusing.
From our Airlines to phone companies to banks – generally speaking we allow “enough” competition to prevent “monopoly” but NOT ENOUGH to beggar everyone in the game
As much as I suspect Government regulation and the point you are making, Canada has failed to do this with regards to their airlines. Air Canada is quite possibly the worst airline I have ever flown; it behaves like a corrupt monopoly.
I was trapped in Vancouver during the Christmas snow storm that shut down the Canadian airlines. WestJet (the Canadian version of SouthWest) handled it beautifully, and was able to recover in 24 hours. Air Canada was shut down for a week.
Part of this was because they refused to put more people at the ticket counter and so people had to wait over 12 hours to get their flights rescheduled. At many points in time, there was only one person at the ticket counter; WestJet never had less than eight for substantially less flights. I sat all that time in line with Canadians, and none of them talked about Air Canada with respect. Many of them abandoned their tickets and bought new ones with WestJet. Airport employees said that the fiasco was as bad as 9/11.
I was on one of the first flights to get canceled (on that Saturday) and so I was trapped there for five days. And why was I trapped so long? Because the majority of runway maintenance employees decided to call in sick so that there was no one to plow or de-ice the planes.
I will never ever, ever fly through Canada again. As disfunctional as US airlines are, Canada is worse.
Err, that initial “suspect” should be “respect”. But maybe that was a Freudian slip.
“Because the majority of runway maintenance employees decided to call in sick so that there was no one to plow or de-ice the planes.”
They sound like some bankers. LOL.
Perhaps their government didn’t force lenders to hand out half million dollar mortgages to burger flippers in the name of social justice.
Yeah. That was it.
Yep, no subprime loans in Canada!
yo mama: Perhaps their government didn’t force lenders to hand out half million dollar mortgages to burger flippers in the name of social justice.
Where did that happen?
Sean,
in the imaginations of RWMN apparatchiks and their docile followers. The fact that no evidence exists of this actually happening in what us un-American types call ‘reality’ is quite beside the point.
From the ROB
“By the mid 2000s, this little-used lending practice was transformed into the fastest growing segment of the country’s mortgage market. Driving the changes was the migration to Canada of aggressive U.S. mortgage lenders such as Accredited Home Lenders Inc., Wells Fargo, GMAC and GE Money, which were drawn to Canada’s frothy real estate market, particularly the commodity-stoked cities in Western Canada.”
The real question, Parthenon, if you’d like to do more research, is what happened with the Canadian Chartered Banks. Far from me to love banks, etc., but it’s the banking regulations that saved the banks up here, and thus also helped the “folks.” If left to their own devices, the banks would shit where they eat. That’s the real point. Just a little oversight is all. But I guess oversight is Islamo marxists cuban loving statists. Silly really.
yo mama: “Perhaps their government didn’t force lenders to hand out half million dollar mortgages to burger flippers in the name of social justice.
Yeah. That was it.”
Interesting. The US government says you can’t treat black people differently that white people, and you assuming the black people flip burgers for a living.
That’s racism. 100% racism.
And before J.G.Thayer, Jay Caruso, or Dennis the Bigot show up for their circle jerk over The Southern Strategy, you guys can go fuck yourselves.
If you don’t want me to bring up the Southern Strategy, maybe you can do what Meghan McCain is doing and try and clean up the racism in the GOP instead of defending it.
My humble $0.02:
The big four Canadian banks got their fingers singed quite badly on Enron, especially CIBC, so I think that significantly contributed to them taking a pass at credit default swaps, et al.