Financial crisis

A great many people around the county were rightfully shocked and horrified by the recent excellent and hard-hitting PBS documentary, The Untouchables, which looked at the problem of high-ranking Wall Street crooks going unpunished in the wake of the financial crisis. The PBS piece certainly rattled some cages, particularly in Washington, in a way that few media efforts succeed in doing.

Now, two very interesting and upsetting footnotes to that groundbreaking documentary have emerged in the last weeks. The first involves one of the people interviewed for the story, a former high-ranking executive from Countrywide financial who turned whistleblower named Michael Winston.

Eric Reguly – January 26, 2013

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world's oldest bank, was making loans when Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were young men and before Columbus sailed to the New World. The bank survived the Italian War, which saw Siena's surrender to Spain in 1555, the Napoleonic campaign, the Second World War and assorted bouts of plague and poverty.

But MPS may not survive the twin threats of a gruesomely expensive takeover gone bad and a derivatives scandal that may result in legal action against the bank's former executives. After five centuries of independence, MPS may have to be nationalized as its losses soar and its value sinks.

Barry Critchley – Oct 23, 2012

Huston Loke, the former president of rating agency, DBRS Inc., is set to become the director of corporate finance at the Ontario Securities Commission.

Loke, who left DBRS in mid-May after a long career at DBRS, starts on Nov. 5. At DBRS, Loke, who started at DBRS in 1995, was replaced by Dan Curry,who at the time was head of the firm’s U.S. operations. At the time, DBRS said that the “reorganization is intended to more fully integrate DBRS senior management and staff to assist in ensuring global regulatory, business and market alignment.”

Peter Henderson – April 30, 2012

Canadians were never told the true cost of a $114-billion "secret bailout" for the country's biggest banks during the financial crisis, says a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "We've had a false sense of security," said study author and CCPA economist David MacDonald.

"Ever since the global financial crisis struck in 2008, Canadians have been subjected to a constant refrain: Canada has the 'most sound banking system in the world,'" MacDonald writes in the report. "During the worst of the crisis - 2008 to 2010 - the official line was that Canada's banks did not require the extraordinary bailout measures that were being offered in other countries, particularly in the U.S.