Stephen Harper and The Canadian Banking System

Harper’s
Ultimate Treachery…your bank account

Please clink on the link above to view my new video blog mini-series.  Also please read accompanying text.

Have you
been listening to any of the internet chatter out there about the major banks
operating in Canada and the new “bail-in” rules?  And just what are the new banking “bail-in” rules compared to the old banking “bail-out” rules?  Well, it seems the new “bail-in” rules have the same purpose as the “bail-out” rules” that is, to make the tax payers pay for the horrific mistakes (i.e. greed) of our private banking system operators but with a new, more direct twist.  Instead of western governments using taxpayers’ money already collected to give it to the banks as in bail-outs, the new bail-in rules will just take it directly out of customers’ bank accounts and pension funds if banks and governments find this to be necessary to stabilize any of the big banks in Canada who get into trouble.  What?  Can the big banks really do this?

Well, they did it in Cypress.  Remember the banking crisis in Cypress in 2013 when taxpayer funds weren’t sufficient to deal with the situation?  When the Cypress government just allowed the banks to take what they needed out of citizen’s savings accounts? And guess what.  Stephen
Harper has already created the Canadian equivalent of the Cypress “bail- in” provisions by granting the same option to major banks operating in Canada if and when their greed and frenetic love of risk outstrips their immediate banking resources.  These provisions have been written into the Canadian government’s new banking rules called “Economic Action Plan 2013”  ( pages 144, 145).

On July 8^th, 2014 CBC News reported that the “Investor ratings service Moody’s has changed its outlook for Canada’s biggest banks from
stable to negative, citing  concerns over the Canadian’s government’s plan
to implement a “bail-in” system in the event of a bank failure.”  So, here we are in Canada, with our government and banks boasting of how wonderful our banking system is when in reality our banks are rated “negative” by Moody’s.  And Moody’s senior vice-president David Beattie, author of the report, said “he believed the risk of a bank failure (in Canada) was
remote, but was concerned about the trend of governments worldwide to provide for bail-in measures, instead of the bailouts seen in 2008.”

Are bail-ins actually becoming a worldwide phenomenon at least in Western and European banking?  No way, how could it be possible that banks internationally think they have the right to simply dip into their customer’s deposits when they feel the need as they did in Cypress?  It can’t be true.  But it is.  And furthermore this unthinkable, even unspeakable banking form of highway robbery of innocents has now been agreed to by the international G20 leaders of the world. 

As Ellen Brown wrote for the Huff Post Business on 01/31/2015 “On the weekend of November 16^th (2014) the G20 leaders were whisked into Brisbane, posed for their photo ops, approved some proposals, made a show of roundly disapproving of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and whisked out again.  It was all so fast, they may not have known what they were endorsing when they rubber stamped the Financial Stability Board’s “Adequacy of Loss Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks in Resolution”, which completely changes the rules of banking.”   

  
Russell Napier of Zero Hedge called it “the day money died”.  

Well, we know for sure that Stephen Harper knew exactly what he was signing in Brisbane because the same provisions had already been written into the Conservative budget in 2013 in Canada. Of course all Harper talked about at the meeting was what a threat Putin was to all of civilization and how Canada needed to get out into the war zones to prove what a powerful counter threat Canada could be to Russia and ISIS.  I don’t think either are shaking in their boots from Harper’s sword rattling but I think we should be shaking in ours, but from fear of what Stephen Harper and the banks together have lain the ground work for which is a massive theft of the people’s private deposits and pension funds.   

More later.

Waco Texas and Stephen Harper

Waco Texas and Stephen Harper

Aren’t we all glad that we don’t live in Waco, Texas?  The headlines screamed yesterday’s morning news (May 18^th) in most news outlets that members of five different rival motorcycle gangs gathered in Waco Texas Sunday afternoon at a restaurant called Twin Peaks.  The result of the meeting left 9 gang members dead and 18 wounded.  165 or so of the bikers, left standing after the shooting was over, were arrested.  At this point there don’t seem to be any reports of police or non-combatants being injured.

 Why do I use the term “non-combatants” to describe the citizens who were just going about their daily business when the shootings erupted in Waco, Texas?  Isn’t “non-combatant” a term for a non- fighter participant in a war?  Yes, it is.  And that’s what we are in.  A war.  And a much bigger war than the loss of one Canadian soldier in Iraq; tragic as that was.  We’re talking about thousands of Canadian lives lost in the War on Drugs every year counting both users and sellers plus thousand more lives destroyed by crazy prison sentences for drug use or selling.  I say crazy because street drug addiction should be a medical matter.

 The War on Drugs is actually “A War on the People” of the country hosting the US War on Drugs.  The War on Drugs is a rot in the body of civil and criminal law.  In my opinion what we have seen so far of shootings over drug turf in Canada has been relatively speaking, small potatoes.  Thousands of Mexicans are trying to flee their country now because the drug war is destroying their economy and their lives.  Ditto thousands, millions of others trying to get out of their countries and desperate to escape war lords that are almost all involved with the illegal drug trade.  In parts of Mexico now the drug lords have taken over the running of entire towns and villages because the original civil infrastructure has been destroyed by gang wars.

 So far there has been no reportings of beheadings or mass graves connected with gang wars in the US or Canada, the likes of which the Mexican cartels seem to Indulge in.  But we in Canada are not immune from this same civil rot of society.   The combination of guns, drugs, corrupt politicians and banks who will gladly launder anybody’s dirty money do business here, too, but usually quietly, like good Canadians.   Prime Minister Harper destroyed the national gun register, of course, which would have been a valuable tool to combat the influx of guns into Canada, and is now trying to pass a bill that would prevent Quebec from having the records of their own provincial registry returned to them. There were previous assurances from the Harper government that this would be done.  Not only has this not been done, but it seems the RCMP has destroyed the records.  Harper’s response?  Well, he says he will just pass a bill that will make it okay for the RCMP to have destroyed Quebec’s gun records and this bill will be retroactive.   The man is a magician.  He can wave his magic wands and major laws that were previously operable in our society just cease to exist.

The longer the War on Drugs drag on means the richer the US munitions corporations get (the US is the largest maker of guns in the world) and the higher the piles of dead bodies will grow.    Paid off government officials and government hopefuls in the US vie for the American Rifle Association endorsement and money. The ARA pour huge amounts of money into the coffers of US politicians in order to fight off any kind of gun control in the US.  And of course the drug cartels love The War on Drugs and launder their obscene amounts of money in perfectly respectable North American and European banks.  So it comes back full circle to guns, drugs, corrupt politicians and banks. The War on Drugs is the biggest deadly and corrupt war going and will only get worse in the future until politicians act.  And they won’t until the people do.  And what do our own politicians have to say about The War on Drugs?  Should we ask them?

Harper's Threats to Israel's Boycotters

Harper’s Threats to Israel’s Boycotters

Okay, let me get this straight.  Harper has announced that he and his government will severely punish anybody or any agency that signs onto the movement known as “Boycott, Divest and Sanction” (BDS). This organization, or movement, is aimed at encouraging Israel to do the right thing and stop treating its own Arab citizens as well as its Arab neighbours like dirt.  One way to do this is by boycotting Israel’s products and investments.  However, so far Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, backed up 200 per cent by our own Prime Minister says the BDS constitutes hate speech against Israel.  Furthermore, Netanyahu has pledged to continue with his practice of apartheid within Israel as well as the murderous methodical bombing of the Gaza strip (mowing the grass, as Netanyahu reportedly called it) whenever he feels it is warranted.  And Stephen Harper has pledged to Netanyahu that any Canadian who objects publically to this apartheid of Palestinians, and bombing of Gaza, especially by joining the BDS movement, will be prosecuted criminally by his government.  Harper says there will be zero tolerance for anyone who dares support BDS.  And that he will use Canadian hate crime legislation to back up his threats.

The man is precious.  He really is. Talk about illusions of grandeur. But we Canadians deserve this kind of treatment from a man who fits the description of a megalomaniac.  We just let him roll over us like a duck on the back of a June Bug.  Why?  Because we can’t believe how devious and delusional our Prime Minister actually is.  And how much he is guided by his Angelical Fundamentalist Christian Religion. Harper loves Israel so much that he took twenty-one Jewish rabbis’ with him to visit Israel last year along with along with ten evangelical ministers of Harper’s own religious persuasion.   Christian fundamentalists like Harper believe the Bible literally, including the book of Revelations.  This Biblical revelation explains that Jesus will return to earth when Israel is at war with its neighbours (Jews being God’s chosen people).  I believe this is the main reason Harper is so determined to get us into a deeper war in the Middle East.    Never mind that the Canadian economy is getting scarier every day, with Canadians living on credit cards, student debt crippling our young, housing out of sight for city populations, climbing unemployment and the stock market roaring not from increased Canadian production, but from corporations buying back their own stock to make the market prices rise even higher for the one per cent.

 I think we Canadians should demand a mental health test for all politicians when they become candidates for high public office.  And that would include an examination of religious beliefs.  Religious fundamentalists of any kind should be excluded from high public office.  Fundamentalist religions of any kind can make people crazy and give them the conviction that because they belong to the right sect that they are the special children of a powerful god and others are, well, dirt. Evidentially Stephen Harper considers the general Canadian population to be so stupid that we can be told anything and we’ll obey.  I don’t know about you, but for my part, I intend to find out pronto where I go to join the “Boycott, Divest, Sanction” (BDS) movement.