Banks, Bailouts, Rescues And Double-Talk

Neocons never cease to amaze me with their duplicitous double-talk. Case in point, current (CPC) Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on Ottawa's consideration of proposals to help banks if the credit/economic crisis persists, in his own words:

“We are not looking at a rescue package for banks,” he told reporters. “We are not looking at creating any additional risk for taxpayers.”

He added he had “absolutely no concern about the health of our Canadian financial institutions. I have concerns about the availability of credit.”

Of course, the real point here is that if banks do not have credit available (i.e. they can't lend money), then it is because they are not healthy!

(Du-uh)

Then what?

You guessed it: it will be bailout rescue time at the expense of our tax dollars!

Which brings me back to yesterday's post discussing the potential implication for our banks and financial institutions buying U.S. "toxic assets", as the U.S. Fed is courting them to do so:

What is particularly troubling here is that A) it remains "unclear" whether Canadian (Harper) government officials are involved in such talks; and B) that Canadian banks and financial institutions are even considering to take such risks when considering the current sputters of our own economy.

Or is it that they are confident that if their risks pan out, the Harper government will have their backs? This would be quite likely despite Harper's previous claims otherwise (...)

So, to recap: things are bad over here and are already being felt by our banks and financial institutions - and yet, these same banks and financial institutions are considering bailing out the mess in the U.S., putting themselves further at risk of melting down themselves ... but hey - our government (with our money) will bail them out in turn, so there's no problem here, eh?

You read it here first, folks ...


(Cross-posted at NetRoots)