| Archives du Réseau for Nov8-98 | Sun, 8 Nov 1998 | Vol. 2.235 |
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Date: 8 Nov 1998 08:46:35 -0400 canalsud a écrit: > Canalsud propose un entretien avec Michel Auvray autour de son livre ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 1998 18:34:46 -0400 >X-Sender: chossudovsky@pop3.sprint.ca - -- * *
From: canalsud
Subject: Re: L'âge des casernes
> "l'‰ge des casernes" tiré de l'émission "encres noires".
> http://www.worldnet.fr/~canalsud/agesdescasernes.html
From: norbert@uni.de
Subject: THE "AMERICANISATION" OF CANADA'S BANKING SYSTEM
>Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 09:34:05 -0500
>To: (Recipient list suppressed)
>From: Michel Chossudovsky
>Subject: "Americanisation" of Canada's Banking System
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>
>
>THE "AMERICANISATION" OF CANADA'S BANKING SYSTEM
>
>by
>
>Michel Chossudovsky
>
>Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, author of The Globalisation
>of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Third World Network,
>Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997. (The book can be ordered from
>twn@igc.org)
>
>Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky Ottawa 1998. All rights reserved. To
>publish or reproduce this text, contact the author at fax: 1-514-4256224,
>email: chossudovsky@sprint.ca
>
>OTTAWA- A Liberal task force on financial services recommended (November
>4, 1998) to Finance Minister Paul Martin to turn down the proposed bank
>mergers. The latter would haver led to the "Americanisation" of Canada's
>banking system. Under the merger proposal, two mega-banks, Canada's "Big
>Two" (CIBC-TD and Royal-Montreal) would control more than 70 percent of
>the nation's bank assets, loans and deposits.
>
>The "Big Two" have already established themselves (through their US based
>affiliates) as bona fide American banks confortably positioned in the US
>financial landscape. They have close ties to Wall Street and have offices
>scattered in the numerous offshore tax havens. Wood Gundy Securities
>Corp., CIBC's brokerage firm has recently acquired the New York based
>investment bank Oppenheimer and Co. Inc. The latter specialises (on behalf
>of CIBC) in high risk hedge funds in the former Soviet Union.
>
>Royal Bank CEO John Cleghorn, stated triumphantly in July 1998 that "he
>would use Bank of Montreal's Chicago-based Harris Bank subsidiary as the
>launch pad for an expansion in the United States..I [Cleghorn] would think
>on the wealth management side you're clearly talking about acquisitions
>because we've got to build a stronger base of capability there [the US],
>especially in investment management and mutual funds,"(Reuters dispatch,
>Royal Bank CEO targets U.S. expansion, July 17, 1998). In return for their
>admittance to the US market, the Canadian banking system would be thrown
>open to foreign competition. "The Big Two" will unselfishly share the
>spoils with their Wall Street counterparts: "Canadian banks [meaning the
>"Big Two"] welcome unfettered competition as long as mergers among the
>country's largest banks are allowed"(Ibid). The large Wall Street
>commercial banks and brokerage houses including Citibank, Chase Manhattan,
>J.P. Morgan, and others would eventually come to dominate a large share of
>the Canadian financial services industry.
>
>"Americanisation" of Canadian Banks
>
>Rather than "enhancing competitiveness" as claimed by the MacKay Task
>Force on the Future of the Canadian Financial Services Sector, the mergers
>combined with an "open door" to foreign financial institutions would lead
>to the rapid "Americanisation" of the Canadian banking system. Canadian
>and American banks (and brokerage houses) would eventually become
>indistinguishable. The "Big Two" already consider themselves as
>North-American banks; the smaller chartered banks as well as the Credit
>Unions would eventually be edged out or swallowed up, more than 20,000
>jobs in the banking industry would be lost. The mergers would
>dramatically affect access to loanable funds particularly by small and
>medium sized enterprises. According to Bank of Nova Scotia's CEO, Peter
>Godsoe "one third of [Canada's] highly successful [banking] system will
>either change significantly or disappear completely... [Two mega-banks]
>would have an overwhelming dominance... [with] a level of concentration
>without precedent, and one that would be considered unacceptable in any
>other country of the world." (Financial Post, Toronto, May 27, 1998)
>
>By-passing the Democratic Process
>
>Finance Minister Paul Martin is anxious to enforce the "Americanisation"
>of the Canadian banking system without consulting Canadians. An executive
>decision on behalf of the "Big Two" and their Wall Street counterparts, to
>authorise the bank mergers (alongside the deregulation of the financial
>services industry) would blatantly violate Article 91 of the Constitution.
>The latter stipulates unequivocally that "the exclusive Legislative
>Authority of the Parliament of Canada extends to (...) the borrowing of
>money on the Public credit, (...) Currency and Coinage, Banking,
>Incorporation of Banks and the Issue of Paper Money, Savings Banks..."
>(Canadian Constitution, section VI Distribution of Legislative Powers,
>art. 91).
>
>National Sovereignty
>
>The mergers combined with financial deregulation would transform Canada
>and its provinces. With Canadian banks fully integrated into the US
>financial landscape, Canada would no longer constitute a separate economic
>and financial entity. Canada as a nation would be transformed. The process
>initiated under NAFTA in the areas of trade and investment, would reach
>its fruition: monetary policy (implying the command through money creation
>over productive resources including the financing of government spending)
>would eventually be tranferred to the US Federal Reserve System leading to
>the demise of the Bank of Canada or its transformation into a regional
>subsidiary of the US Federal reserve system. At the same token, this would
>signify the privatisation of monetary policy, --ie. the federal reserve
>banks although operating as State banks on behalf of the US Treasury are
>in fact controlled by private commercial banks which are their
>stock-holders.
>
>Money creation is the basis of economic and political sovereignty. If the
>bank reforms were to go ahead, this would affect the foundations of the
>Canadian monetary system. In the words of William L. McKenzie King: "Once
>a nation parts with control of its currency and credit, it matters not who
>makes that nation's law. Until the control of the issue of currency and
>credit is restored to government and recognised as its most conspicuous
>and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and
>of democracy is idle and futile". (Radio Address, 1933).
>
>The recommendation of the Liberal task force on financial services does
>not signify that the bank merger proposal is dead. The banks have not
>given up the battle: CIBC and TD have stated that "while it is a setback,
>the game is not over". It is also important to make sure that the mergers
>are not implemented in a de facto fashion through the back door, by
>bypassing Legislative approval.
>
>
> Michel Chossudovsky
>
> Department of Economics,
> University of Ottawa,
> Ottawa, K1N6N5
>
> Voice box: 1-613-562-5800, ext. 1415
> Fax: 1-514-425-6224
> E-Mail: chossudovsky@sprint.ca
>
>http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/chossd.htm
>http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/eco/
>http://heise.xlink.de/tp/english/special/eco/6099/1.html#anchor1
\ /
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