Guess which country comes out of the financial crisis looking like the smartest place on earth? It’s Canada, eh! Newsweek‘s Fareed Zakaria wrote this insightful column on Canada’s savvy financial regulation vs. the not-so-savvy (to put it mildly) regulation coming out of the United States and Britain.
Zakaria points out that Canada is the only industrialized nation to not face a single bank failure, not to mention government intervention and bailouts, in the financial or mortgage sectors. Also, he mentions that the World Economic Forum ranked Canada’s banking system the healthiest in the world, miles ahead of the U.S. (40th) and Britain (44th). Canada’s common-sense approach to regulation has helped its banks grow instead of flounder in the midst of the financial crisis. Another difference in French and Canadian banks is leverage. The U.S. Federal Reserve has allowed much higher leverage than French and Canadian banks, and the differences in leverage could have been another factor in the Kanuck bank safety net. Anyone else up for a game of hockey? Maybe some Canadian bacon?
Tags: bailout, Canada, economy, regulation
