Finally, Some Good Press

Thanks to daughter Tammy, I had my attention drawn to this fascinating Newsweek article by Fareed Zakaria. In it, Mr Zakaria writes:

"Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it's Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada's banking system the healthiest in the world. America's ranked 40th, Britain's 44th."

He goes on to list several of the reasons for our banking systems being in the healthy state that they're in. As I read over that list, I finally realized why the whole financial disaster to the south of us has never made that much sense to me: after all, I was under the impression that there were still tight restrictions in place on getting loans, even in 2006 through 2008. Now it's apparent to me that those limitations were maintained here at home but not elsewhere. And that's made all the difference in the world.

It's not often that someone with an American viewpoint (and no Canadian ties, that I know of) would opine in writing that Americans have something to learn from their neighbours to the north... and yet, that's exactly how Mr Zakaria concludes his piece. Maybe we'll finally get some respect! (Or maybe not, as he does manage to work the word "boring" into his finale as well!)

And just as aside: I'd like to point out that both Vicki and I spent considerable portions of our careers working within that healthiest of all the world's banking systems (over 40 years between us)... I'm not saying that it was all our doing, but y'know!