Global financial system 'pushed to the brink,' RBC's Nixon warns
Last Updated: Friday, September 5, 2008
The worldwide financial system has been "pushed to the brink" in its most severe downturn since the Great Depression, although the actions of American policy-makers have averted disaster, the head of Canada's largest bank said Friday.
"Not since the [Second World War] has the financial system itself been in such a state of dysfunction," Royal Bank chief executive Gordon Nixon told a roundtable of prominent business leaders in Calgary.
Royal Bank CEO Gordon Nixon, shown above in 2007, said Friday in Calgary that the global financial system is in 'a state of dysfunction.'
However, Nixon said "decisive actions" such as the bailout of investment bank Bear Stearns, which was bought by JPMorgan in a deal orchestrated by the U.S. central bank, prevented a potentially disastrous ripple effect from taking place.
Friday, September 5, 2008
So why did RBC recklessly advise BCE to borrow $44 billion, if not to take it to the brink?
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1 comment:
Could the CON HYPOCRISY be any clearer?
Can you say DEFICIT?
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Tories Keep Spending Amid $8.8-Billion Tally Of Pre-Election Largesse
The Canadian Press
Sept 5, 2008
OTTAWA — The Conservative government maintained there's nothing untoward in trumpeting projects on the eve of a federal election, even as it heralded a fresh billion-dollars' worth of taxpayer-funded largesse Friday.
"It's the business of government," said Chisholm Pothier, a spokesman for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.
With Canada's faltering economy set to be a pivotal issue in an autumn election campaign that's already underway in everything but name, one of this country's traditional pre-writ ploys is in full swing.
Half a billion dollars for Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Ont., and another $140 million for Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, N.B.; $279 million into a Manitoba building fund and another $42.5 million for the province's roads; $3-million security grants tossed here and there like nickel antes - it was all in a day's work for the busy Harper cabinet.
Even before Friday's spending crescendo, the penny-pinching Canadian Taxpayers Federation had compiled a list of almost 300 Tory announcements totalling $8.8 billion since June.
The NDP says it tracked more than $6 billion in the last week alone - and provided a spreadsheet to prove it.
"As opposition, the Conservatives lampooned the Liberals for doing this kind of shameless pre-election spending," said taxpayer federation spokesman Adam Taylor.
"Now, lo and behold, the Conservatives in government are doing the exact same thing. It seems no matter who's in power, all politicians play this little pre-election game."
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gnGWQ-pi421in_2VE1ff9ffwJjEA
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