The Harper Government's Secret Bank Bailout

[kn]

$118 billion according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives...
http://www.calgaryherald.com/busines...930/story.html

[jayswin]

Holy crap, wait til Slava sees this.

[Lt.Spears]

This was before the Majority.... so its not like it was just pushed under the Liberal/NDP rug.

[Azure]

Still got pushed under some kind of rug.

How did this not get out? Last I heard the number was around $75 billion, not $118 billion.

[Bobblehead]

A lot more info in the CBC report, including a response from the banks.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/stor...lout-ccpa.html

[Rathji]

Does the wording of that article, specifically the stuff that was attributed to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, seem like it was very strange to anyone else?

[calumniate]

Not to worry, it's probably just an accounting methodology discrepancy that failed to capture the true cost of bailing out the banks.

[Fire]

I thought this was common knowledge.

[Fire]

Also the $75 billion in short term loans to the banks have been repaid. The $69 billion in mortage-backed securities the government bought will actually make the government money ($2.5 billion by 2015) assuming the housing market doesn't crash hard.

[Northendzone]

And here I thought the banks were making record profits for years.....

[bomba]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[GP_Matt]

It sounds like the banks just cut the government in on the action.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Holy crap, wait til Slava sees this.

Originally Posted by Fire

Also the $75 billion in short term loans to the banks have been repaid. The $69 billion in mortage-backed securities the government bought will actually make the government money ($2.5 billion by 2015) assuming the housing market doesn't crash hard.

This is basically what happened. Honestly this is a case of the CCPA trying to make a story from old news and trying to re-frame that information to look like the government gave away money. The majority of the money was guarantees for the banks and CMHC, and given the circumstances was entirely necessary.

I don't care for these special interest groups, personally. Quite often they are pushing some agenda and not actually providing any thoughtful discussion. In this case it would be interesting to see what their policy alternative would be? I suppose it would be some kind of perfect blend of hindsight and knowledge of the outcomes four years later.

[Cowboy89]

^ I should add the point for everyone's benefit that the CCPA is essentially the NDP's thinktank. So expect the same kind of truthfulness and rigor out of their economic reports as the NDP themselves.

[troutman]

CCPA is the Yin to the Fraser Institute's Yang.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

^ I should add the point for everyone's benefit that the CCPA is essentially the NDP's thinktank. So expect the same kind of truthfulness and rigor out of their economic reports as the NDP themselves.

To be fair, you could say the very same thing about every political party and their affiliated ideological think tanks.

[Azure]

CCPA might be the NDP's thinktank, but I honestly have no problem that they brought this up again. It seems to be all over the news right now too.

It is the job of the opposition to challenge the government. Even if they attempt to make a new story from old news. At least they're bringing it to the public's attention.

The opposite would be the US, where it seems like nobody has a clue what happened to the billions they spent bailing out their banks.

[Azure]

From the overly conservative Toronto Star.

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/05/01...ure-propaganda

It sounds like a wonderful conspiracy theory: Banks get secret bailout worth $114 billion during the 2008 recession!

Bailout discovered by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In fact, this is all hooey. There was no bailout of our banks. The government did, in 2008, set aside $200 billion to help all Canadian businesses and households hit by the global credit crunch and banks were the tool the government used to help us all out.

Taxpayer money was never at risk of being lost and, in fact, taxpayers are making a tidy profit with the credit crunch assistance program.

....

As Laval University economist Stephen Gordon noted on Twitter, the CCPA “took a low-grade Internet conspiracy, worked it up to a 25-page ‘study’ and managed to get the media to report it as news.”

[GP_Matt]

I was shocked when I read that that came from the Toronto Star. The Toronto Sun seems in line with the story though.

[Azure]

They do seem to have a pretty good explanation about the whole deal.

They even said it wasn't a bailout at all. Just money to help the banks keep the credit flowing, and we all know every bank in the world was facing a credit crunch in 2008.