On August 27, RBC, TD and CIBC reported financial results. Given the prevailing atmosphere of uncertainty from the trade war, the perspectives put out by these banks seems surprising at first. The CEO of RBC said that the bank maintains “a cautiously optimistic outlook”. The CEO of TD added that the bank is “very well positioned to benefit” from government spending on infrastructure and defence. The CEO of CIBC has “measured confidence” in the future.
What explains this stark contrast with the anxiety and frustration of individual workers and small businesses up and down the country? It is because these three banks together now own 6 trillion dollars worth of assets, primarily in the form of debt, i.e., mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, business loans, etc. To put this into perspective, the combined annual GDP of all African countries, representing 1.59 billion people, is almost half this amount! Not only that, but the the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Canada’s top financial regulator, is looking to relax rules around lending so banks can lend even more to businesses which will inevitably struggle as a result of the trade war. This means that the banks are set to own even more in the form of loans to workers and businesses engaged in real production. Thus, the financial oligarchy is is set to tighten its already asphyxiating grip on the rest of the world economy and on the lives of Canadian workers weighed down with exorbitant mortgages and auto loans. No wonder that the stock valuations of the Canadian banks have gone up 53% in the past 12 months! Indeed, the banks are doing well precisely because the rest of us are not.
It is beyond time for workers in Canada and in the rest of the Americas to break the stranglehold of these parasites.
– Anonymous
