So there's really no new model for how to run this economy, and nobody's even, I think, thinking about that question, much less an answer."
-Doug Henwood, of Left Business Observer, on The Real News Network
financial regulation
Financial sector plays no role in deficit reduction
Ever since the 2008 financial crisis, Canadian banks have enjoyed almost heroic stature for not being like those bad Wall Street banks that collapsed, triggering a global recession.
Certainly there's been no talk of imposing higher taxes on Canadian banks, to make them help pay for the huge government deficits brought on by the financial crisis and resulting recession.
That wouldn't be fair, since our banks -- unlike the Wall Street banks -- played no role in bringing about the financial crisis.
But why doesn't that logic apply to other groups who also played no role in bringing about the financial crisis?
Banks and the derivatives scam
John Kenneth Galbraith famously described financial genius as "a rising market." This was on display in the expansionary era of the 1950s and 1960s. New bank credits funded growing businesses. Investment bankers injected their own capital into initial share offerings of "public" companies, allowing businesses to grow by taking in shareholders as partners. Finance flourished.
Just say no to corporate greed: The case of Iceland
Capitalism is looking pretty mean these days. No amount of profit is enough, and no level of collateral damage to get that profit is unreasonable. And when capitalism on steroids runs amok, any extremes of public pain are justified to save the butts of those who made the mess in the first place.
Corporations understand that they have a green light to punish people ruthlessly for even a modest improvement to their bottom line (ask Caterpillar workers if you want details). Whole nations may be bled dry to shield financial institutions from the consequences of their own bad behaviour. The Greek government is deliberately creating a national great depression to appease international financial interests.
Canada supports dark side of international finance
You can say one thing for the powers that be in the banking industry. They've got a lot of nerve.
This past week, our own finance minister, Jim Flaherty, along with Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, came out strongly in opposition to a modest proposal to regulate the U.S. banking system.
Their interventions followed a concerted effort by American bank lobbyists to spark international opposition to U.S. regulatory reforms.
Of bailouts and liquidity shakedowns
Here is an amazing multimedia article published by Bloomberg Markets Magazine in the U.S., that lists all of the individual banks which received financial assistance from the U.S. Federal Reserve during the 2008-09 crisis. It shows each bank's peak borrowing from the Fed, the number of days they held the funds, and the timeline for paying it back. You can sort the banks by name, amount borrowed, and other criteria.
'What do banks actually DO?': Teach-in with Occupy Toronto
What do banks actually DO? Create credit out of thin air.
Were Canadian banks bailed out? Absolutely, to the tune of $200 billion. And they are still protected and subsidized more than any other sector of the economy.
What must be done with these banks? Tax them, control them, and ultimately take them back.
Challenging the private credit system: Who's bailing whom?
The time since 2008 has been a crucial historical moment for progressive economists to pull back the green curtain that surrounds the operation of the for-profit banking system, and expose that system for what it is: a government-protected, government-subsidized license to print money.
The problem is, as soon as you start saying things like that, people conclude you are some kind of wacked-out conspiracy theorist nut-bar. It sounds insane to claim that private banks have a license to create money out of thin air. As John Kenneth Galbraith put it, "The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled."