I, for one, welcome our new Canadian Banking Overlords

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Asher
What's interesting is in the election campaigns all four of the biggest left-wing opposition parties are running on the platform that Canada's Prime Minister -- who has a Masters degree in Economics -- has no idea what the **** he's doing. They keep fearmongering that the economy is going to collapse and the banks are going to go under, when they're all fine -- but the fearmongering itself is very dangerous. It's grossly irresponsible.

Is this what you hear in the English side of the campaign?

Because here, what Dion has said, is that Harper has shown himself not to understand the situation of jobless manufacture workers, by suggesting that they "buy stocks".

I've not heard a single prominent liberal say that the banks are crumbling.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


Is this what you hear in the English side of the campaign?

Because here, what Dion has said, is that Harper has shown himself not to understand the situation of jobless manufacture workers, by suggesting that they "buy stocks".

I've not heard a single prominent liberal say that the banks are crumbling.

They've been all over the news fearmongering about the economy.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/10/09/national-post-editorial-board-layton-and-dion-are-stoking-panic-for-political-gain.aspx

National Post Editorial Board: Layton and Dion are stoking panic for political gain

Stéphane Dion and Jack Layton should be ashamed of themselves for stoking panic in our financial markets just to win votes.

Yes, the Bank of Canada has cut interest rates and injected small amounts of cash into our financial sector in an effort to keep credit fluid. But there has been no $700-billion bank bailout here -- or $70-billion, or even $7-billion. Why? Because Stephen Harper doesn’t care enough? No, because our banks simply aren’t in trouble. They have largely avoided the international credit crunch because their loan portfolios are secure and their management practices sound.

Other nations have begun casting envious eyes at the stability of our banking sector. So how can Messrs. Dion and Layton justify whipping up public panic? If private-sector executives were engaged in the kind of manipulation the Liberals and NDP leader are attempting, they would lose their trading licences.

Consider, for instance, that in the past three years in the United States, nearly one-quarter of home loans were made to high-risk borrowers -- mortgagees with questionable chances of paying back their loans. In Britain, that figure was 12%. Here, it was under 5%.

Canadians’ family indebtedness -- largely determined by banks’ willingness to make consumer loans and issue credit cards -- is low by G8 standards. Here, household debt amounts, on average, to just 20% of total family assets, a figure that has not changed much since the late 1980s. Meanwhile, in the United States, household liabilities are more than 27% of assets, having climbed steadily from 18% in 1998.

If the United States enters a recession, that will certainly be bad news for us -- that much is obvious. And yes, the Toronto Stock Exchange has suffered losses. But things are much worse elsewhere. In Belgium, to take just one example, France’s BNP Paribas had to buy 75% of Fortis, Belgium’s biggest bank.

The German and Danish governments felt the need to ensure all deposits to prevent runs on their banks. Berlin has also extended lines of credit to banks to keep them liquid. In Britain, the Labour government stepped in and assumed part ownership of major banks to stem their collapse. Meanwhile Iceland is on the verge of national bankruptcy. Absolutely nothing on this scale is at play in Canada.

On Tuesday, former prime minister Jean Chrétien took credit for our banks’ stability, claiming it was the result of his refusal in the 1990s to permit four of our big five banks to merge. This is self-serving nonsense. Even without the quashed mergers, three of our banks are among the 10 largest in North America. Had they wanted to involve themselves in the U.S. “subprime” market, they easily could have.

TD Canada Trust, for example, moved into the United States with much success. It was even courted by the U.S. Treasury Department last week in its efforts to find a suitor for the failed North Carolina bank Wachovia. The irony here is that the one merger the Chrétien government did allow was the one between TD and Canada Trust, a merger that gave TD the asset base it needed to expand its reach southward.

The fact of the matter is that Canadian banks are far more conservative and far better at retail banking than their U.S. counterparts. By and large, they don’t lend money to people who cannot afford to repay them, and they keep their loans on their own balance sheets. They never adopted the U.S. practice of subcontracting their loan debt to hedge funds.
Moreover, even if Mr. Chrétien could take credit for the lack of a banking crisis here, his party’s current leader, Stéphane Dion, could not. Three times in recent years, Parliament has voted on laws to increase bank accountability, and all three times Mr. Dion voted “no.”

There are no guarantees the U.S. contagion will not spread here eventually. We live in a globalized economy, after all, and political leaders cannot prevent foreign storms from soaking our native soil. But for now, Canadians need not panic. It is appalling that Messrs. Layton and Dion should try to convince us otherwise.

[Asher]

Of course, Layton is by far the biggest offender here (the farther left you go, the more clueless politicians become regarding the economy):

Layton is promising reforms to fix Canada's banking industry.

Layton promises to revamp banking regulations in Canada with U.S. measures

WELLAND, Ont. - Jack Layton promised Tuesday to protect Canada's economy from a U.S.-style meltdown by revamping banking regulations, although the solutions he proposed are measures already in place in the U.S. - measures that failed to prevent the economic crisis.

Steve Lambert, THE CANADIAN PRESS

"If I'm elected prime minister, the federal government will undertake an immediate top-to-bottom review of how banks, insurance companies and other financial providers are regulated in this country, to protect Canadians," the NDP leader told workers outside a John Deere plant slated for shutdown.

"We've got to ensure that our financial institutions are properly capitalized and that they fully disclose all of their risks to their investors, and that they don't substitute flawed ratings systems for real risk management."

When asked whether he had specific changes in mind, Layton could only mention two measures adopted in the U.S. years ago - increased shareholder rights to monitor the operations of company directors, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, adopted in 2002 after the Enron scandal. The law established new standards for public companies and accounting firms.

Those measures did not prevent the sub-prime mortgage crisis and its continuing effects on the American economy.

Layton's campaign bus drove by a series of small factories in the Welland area that have shut down in recent years. Thousands of manufacturing workers have lost their jobs in the Niagara region. Many, Layton said, have had to turn to low-paying retail jobs to try to make ends meet.

The jobs being lost at the John Deere plant are being transferred to the U.S. and Mexico. Layton accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of standing by while the manufacturing sector suffers severe damage.

"He is completely dismissing the crisis of job loss here," Layton said.

"It just shows he doesn't get it. He's been spending far too much time at the boardroom tables with his ministers talking about how to give tax cuts to his friends," Layton said.

Later, Layton held a town hall meeting where the audience, mostly wearing bright orange NDP buttons, expressed their concerns about job losses, the economy and health care.

The New Democrat leader promised to invest $100 million a year in expanded tax credits that would encourage companies to invest in worker training.

He also vowed to reform the employment insurance system to provide greater access to full-and part-time training - an idea he would fund with part of EI's $1-billion surplus.

[Fake Boris]

As usual, you don't answer the question.

[notyoueither]

The short answer, Boris, is yes.

During the English language debates, the opposition were making comments about the stability of our system. The were not talking about the auto makers. They were scare mongering about our banks.

[Colon™]

RANKINGS

7. Belgium

So much for that reports credibility.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Asher
When asked whether he had specific changes in mind, Layton could only mention two measures adopted in the U.S. years ago - increased shareholder rights to monitor the operations of company directors, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, adopted in 2002 after the Enron scandal. The law established new standards for public companies and accounting firms.

A Sarbanes-Oxley Act would protect your markets from accounting scandals. Those can cost a lot. It wouldn't protect your banking system though.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


As usual, you don't answer the question.

Are you serious?

Why do you have no ****ing clue what goes on in this country? If you are so ignorant, as you demonstrably are, stop pretending like you can make reasonable arguments. Figure out what's going on in your own damn country, not just Quebec. For **** sakes, Boris.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kidicious


A Sarbanes-Oxley Act would protect your markets from accounting scandals. Those can cost a lot. It wouldn't protect your banking system though.

I would thank you sarcastically for stating the obvious, but I genuinely believe this is the first comment you've ever made that is correct. Thank you. Seriously.

[Asher]

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/515349

Feds buy $25B in mortgages

Julian Beltrame
THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA–The federal government is buying up $25 billion in residential mortgages to give the chartered banks additional cash to issue loans, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced Friday.

"This is going to make loans and mortgages more available and more affordable for ordinary Canadians and businesses," said the finance minister.

The extraordinary measure means Ottawa, through the federal government and the Bank of Canada, will have injected a whopping $45 billion in additional cash into the financial system in an effort to counteract the tight credit squeeze that has paralysed markets throughout the world.

Flaherty insisted that Canada is not facing the severity of problems seen in many industrialized countries, but he is acting before the same problems develop in Canada's money markets.

"This is a serious, severe, protracted freezing of credit markets globally," he said.

"Unlike some other countries we are being proactive. We are taking this step now to avoid a situation where there would be a lack of availability of mortgage loans, a lack of availability of business loans."

Flaherty was scheduled to head to the G7 finance ministers' meeting in Washington later in the day, where he is expected to argue for tighter regulations of the kind that has kept Canada's banking system solvent in the middle of the global crisis.

The minister assured Canadians that the government is not bailing out the banks, as has occurred in the U.S., nor will the government take on risky loans.

He said the mortgage pools the government is taking off the banks' books are already insured by the government.

In fact, he said the government stands to make a small profit from the mortgages because government borrowing costs are lower than what the assets will yield in interest.

The move comes as Statistics Canada reported the economy had created 107,000 new jobs in September, although most were of the part-time variety and concentrated among youth.

The minister said the additional liquidity may also provide an added benefit for Canadians.

He said the chartered banks will now be in better position to pass on the remaining quarter-point in the half-point interest rate cut announced by the Bank of Canada earlier this week, although he added the flow-through will not be a condition of initiative.

The Canadian government is concerned that if money markets become tighter in Canada, consumer spending and business investment will deteriorate, damaging an already vulnerable economy.

Flaherty said the auction will be handled by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. starting next week and that Ottawa will be holding most of the mortgages to maturity in five years.

"As insured mortgage pools in Canada already carry government backing, there is no additional risk to taxpayers," he said.

The purchase represents about three per cent of the total outstanding residential mortgages in Canada.

[Kidlicious]

@ Canada

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Asher


Are you serious?

Why do you have no ****ing clue what goes on in this country? If you are so ignorant, as you demonstrably are, stop pretending like you can make reasonable arguments. Figure out what's going on in your own damn country, not just Quebec. For **** sakes, Boris.

You have failed to provide any quote as to Stephane Dion pretending the banking system is crumbling.

NYE doesn't have any quote, but at least he does try to answer the question.

And wake up Einstein, you guy's don't have any clue either as to what's going on in Quebec.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


You have failed to provide any quote as to Stephane Dion pretending the banking system is crumbling.

NYE doesn't have any quote, but at least he does try to answer the question.

And wake up Einstein, you guy's don't have any clue either as to what's going on in Quebec.

The difference is I'm not voting for Quebec's provincial government and I'm not entering arguments about how Quebec should be run...

You don't know **** all about Canada but proceed to argue with people who do about it, then spout bull**** demonstrating you know **** all about Canada.

Did you not watch the same debates NYE and I saw? Where Dion and Layton both fearmongered about the stability of our banks and economy and blamed Harper for it all?

[Fake Boris]

I asked you if that was what you heard on the English side of the debate.

Instead of answering (like NYE did), you posted an article that had no mention of liberal claims wrt to the banking system.

Either you're an Albertan brown shirt (if something is said in English it's my duty to know about it), either you lack basic reading skills to answer a question.

You're probably both, actually.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
I asked you if that was what you heard on the English side of the debate.

So the answer is you didn't watch the debate.

I'm telling you, nye told you, that's where the claims were made.

Feel free to make yourself useful and google a transcript of the debate you missed. Why should I hold your hand?