

The Great Solvent North - ojbyrne
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/opinion/28tedesco.html

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bwd
Reconfiguring the American banking system to look like the Canadian model
seems excessive. The current problems were caused by a bug in the financial
system regulations: banks and people who purchased real estate were permitted
to use too much leverage. Instead of a rewrite, maybe we should patch the bug
by reducing the level of permitted leverage. This has already been done for
banks, but it could also be done for real estate purchases in a fashion
similar to the way that Fed regulation T limits leverage in stock investing.
The great depression was kicked off by excessive leverage in stock investing,
and reg. T was part of the patch applied to fix that problem back in the 30s.
The fix seems to work pretty well since the internet stock bubble didn't
endanger the financial system. In fact, the regulations that require stock
brokers to consider whether an investment is suitable for their customer
should probably also be mirrored in new regulations for mortgage brokers as
well.

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jderick
Its just a matter of hiring enough lobbyists to get the leverage limits
changed. I think as we see the true consequences of the current crisis
Canada's system will look better and better.

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mistermann
"Yes, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government may buy as much as 125
billion Canadian dollars (about $100 billion) worth of mortgages, increasing
banks’ capacity to lend. But this is small change compared with the scale of
Washington’s bailout."

Well, considering we have 1/10th your population, that would translate
proportionately into 1 trillion, not exactly small potatoes. And keep in mind,
we are about 2 years behind the US in the housing bubble, so the domestic non-
performing loan problem is just now starting to kick in here. So I think we
Canadians should perhaps wait a while before we get too full of ourselves.

