The Great Solvent North (Canadian banks "soundest in the world")

NY Times ^ | Published: February 27, 2009 | THERESA TEDESCO

[dennisw]

HAS the world turned upside down? America, the capital of capitalism, is pondering nationalizing a handful of banks. Meanwhile, Canada, whose banking system had long been notorious for its stodgy practices and government coddling, is now being celebrated for those very qualities.

[mbraynard]

You know what you are talking about.

Not only do Canadian banks own and handle derivatives and CMOs, they and almost all other banks are required to use derivatives in order to attain stability.

Yes, see, like HANDGUNS, derivatives can be a great tool to balance risk. And like HANDGUNS, they can be mismanaged.

What it comes down to is whether or not you support economic freedom or the inane notion that, somehow, a politically-driven federal agency can better manage a market than the people who work and invest in it.

HINT: it was politically-driven federal interference that caused the problem we face now. Effing LEARN something once in a while, k?

[mbraynard]

Actually - that’s “you don’t know what you’re talking about” as the first line. Typo.

[Thorin]

>>>>Canada is too socialist for me but they got the banking part right. Our bankers and Wall Street’s investment bankers simply cannot be trusted with large sums of money. Greed takes over and they run wild. Dragging down our economy and being bailed out because they are too big to fail

Yes, you are exactly right.

[expat_panama]

Every so often I run into someone here in Panama who says that they have a relative that lives in the US and they ask if I know them --they can't imagine how much the US is bigger than Panama.  Same with Canadians.  

Canada has a little more than a 10^th of our population and it's economy is a little less than a 10^th.  Their wanting to tell us how to run our economy is like some kid on a tricycle trying to tell a pilot how to fly an airplane.

[free_life]

Canada is too socialist for me.......

Americans just elected the great socialist as President and a congress that Stalin could have worked with. They are redistributing the wealth of America and setting in place the bankrupcy of the nation for the next 50 years and going to send corporations fleeing from the US, while working to silence conservatives and fix the next election....and you say Canada is too socialist? Glass houses, dennisw!

See you in the bread line comrade.

[dennisw]

Not only do Canadian banks own and handle derivatives and CMOs, they and almost all other banks are required to use derivatives in order to attain stability.

Then they din't go crazy with them the way AIG did, the way Wall Street did the way our bankers did
And due to the Canadian system they couldn't even if they wanted to

Kind of amusing to see your phony libertarian flailing against what this article calls the "soundest banking system in the world"   Knock yourself out buddy!

Oh...and your tax dollars are paying AIG another 30 billion today because if AIG goes down it will drag down others due to their involvement with AIG credit default swaps

[dennisw]

Thanks I am paleo same as you. Somehow for years and years the USA got along just fine without derivatives

[Candor7]

Ping Piggy Bank

[Candor7]

Thanks for the Ping Dennis

[dennisw]

Canada -— your second home :)

[Candor7]

Soon to be first the way things are going.

[dennisw]

One good thing about the cold weather... It keeps out the riff raff

[Candor7]

One good thing about the cld, But then why should I not move to Victoria BC?LOL.

I think the time is coming to move back home to my native Saint John River Valley in New Brunswick.

Things appear to be heading for the nasty side of crazy here.

[Grig]

If Obama continues on his course unchecked, it is possible that Canada could surpass the USA before too long.