Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Help me, I'm rich!

What amazes me right now is how the US government is showing itself eager to throw money at the big banks in trouble... the very guys who caused the housing credit bubble in the first place. You know, so they don't get poor and have to start bringing lunch to work with them or suffer some other fate worse than death like that. But will the government be so quick to extend a hand to the families losing their homes, to help them stay put, see the kids through school without being dislocated, spare the marriages broken by financial strain? This is far more fundamental, but still, I have my doubts.

Canadian banks are far less exposed, domestically... but like crack heads, they just couldn't resist taking a big, expensive snort out of the US bag, and so they're exposed to loads of bad US debt... and, of course, they're going to want to make their customers here, the taxpayers here, cushion the fall so they don't drop all the way from caviar lunches to baloney sandwiches... just prime rib, shudder. People are going to lose their jobs here as a result, sooner or later. People are going to start losing their homes, unless the government folds its arms and forces the banks and their greedy shareholders to take their rightful medicine instead of transfusing the poison to us while they take our lifeblood. But again, I doubt that's going to happen. Particularly under a Tory government. Maybe they'll surprise me, but I doubt it.

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