Adam's Ideas

I remember when I was still in high school when the major banks of Canada were screaming for the opportunity to go international in ways they weren’t allowed. At the time I was thinking that the banks were just really greedy (greedy banks – shocking ) and were planting the seeds of their own destruction. The rule change would allow the banks to invest in crazy foreign schemes and be bought out by larger international banks.

That would’ve been the end of Canadian economic sovereignty, and luckily, Paul Martin (as finance minister) said a big fat NO to the banks.

Now, there’s an educated analysis of what was going on at the Progressive Economics Blog called the Left was Right:

My personal theory as to why the Canadian banking system survived the great global financial crisis relatively unscathed is that calls by the big Canadian banks in the late 1990s to allow mergers were successfully resisted. Had the big banks been allowed to merge to pursue their global ambitions, they would have ramped up their US and high risk foreign operations considerably, and the cozy, profitable, risk-averse Canadian banking oligopoly would have been broken up by the quid pro quo for mergers – allowing foreign takeovers of Canadian banks. The Liberal Government decision to effectively prohibit bank mergers – despite massive pressure from the big banks – effectively maintained a national financial system under widespread Canadian ownership, and thus subject to national regulatory oversight and control. Much of the credit goes to the popular movements which fought for bank regulation, not to the government regulators who largely bought into the financial sector arguments for deregulation.

Here’s a quick thought, since California is the state most likely to go bankrupt thanks to bipartisan efforts to destroy the American economy, will Cali be the first state to break away from the republic?

Oh, and on a side note – Toronto police admit CCTV setups don’t prevent crime, but want the cameras anyway.

Aw shucks, because the economy is tanking we won’t be able to witness such awesome parties.

Telling it the way it is.

Whiner Jerkins All Hands 10/13/08 – Get more Business Plans