08.25.2010 08:28 AM

A headline that will tick you off

…as much as it did for me:

CIBC PROFIT JUMPS 47 PER CENT

After a grinding, brutal recession – and with many, many families still grappling with hardship and uncertainty – you have to ask yourself: are monkeys running some of the bank P.R. shops?

Prominent bank V.P. Communications, official portrait.

18 Comments

  1. Paul R. Martin says:

    CIBC’s profits last year were depressed by large losses in their US operations. Loan losses are much lower this year which is good news. Are some Liberals secretly hoping for another recession and are unable to admit that the Canadian economy has been and will continue to be much better that the US economy? The mild recession in Canada was caused by the US recession. It was not caused by Canadian government policies. Voters are well aware that the unemployment rate in Canada is much lower than the US unemployment rate. In the polls, economic management is a Conservative strong point and a Liberal weakness. It makes little sense for Liberals to harp on one of their weaknesses.

    • Cam says:

      Paul –

      I don’t begrudge CIBC making a profit – for once. Those guys usually hit every pothole in the road but the relative health of the two economies is, well, relative.

      Whether you’re watching the US housing market implode again last month or following what economic pundits call the Hindenburg omen, I don’t see how we can say we’re out of the woods yet. Our two economies are inextricably linked and I’m praying for a return to something more normal in the U.S.

      http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKPTIP42198520100813

      Good thing Obama hasn’t turned off the fiscal stimulus taps like someone suggested…

      • Good reply,Scot.Shows you’re right in there.Same as your comment about listening to and believing the police chiefs rather than the policemen about how good the gun registry is for crime prevention.
        yep,you’re right in there.

      • Paul R. Martin says:

        The Hindenberg omen is a very new so called stock market indicator cooked up by a self promoter. It is bunk. If you want to really know what is happening, take a look at the transportation industry. The railways are quite busy as are truckers. The auto industry is also improving. The double dip alarmists will be proven wrong; however, they do have a roll to play as “the stock market climbs a wall of worry”. So called experts such as David Rosenberg serve as that “wall of worry”.
        You are right about the CIBC. Historically, they have been accident prone.

  2. Will M. says:

    I do not have the same outrage.

    Many pension plans hold these bank stocks and the gains go directly to beneficiaries of the plans.

    The banks are an easy target to demagogue.

    • Riley says:

      “Many pension plans hold these bank stocks and the gains go directly to beneficiaries of the plans.” ————————————————- Tell that to all the people who work for all the companies with unfunded pension liabilities — in other words, most of them. We just need a properly funded, guaranteed government pension. It would remove a lot of hassle from companies — as well as expense. The PEOPLE with all the money should be paying most of the taxes, like they used to. Now the lower middle class pays — and they’re going to vote for Rob Ford and Timmy Hudak — then look at the mess we’ll have. This is my frustration with the Liberals — they don’t understand the ultimate destination their short-view approaches have on the sorry long-term direction of the voters. Everything is connected, but nobody has all of the information available to them. If voters knew what they were really voting for, with the cons and libs, they’d probably vote NDP and Green a lot more.

  3. CQ says:

    It is yesterday’s headline that ticked me off. A reported 17% profit increase by BMO, Bank of Montreal, was roundly berated(!) by our press as disappointing while the TSX dropped 150 pts for the day.

  4. Riley says:

    The elites who run the banks really don’t care what you and I think, Warren. Surely you must know that. They care about their shareholders — more specifically, the relatively small number of shareholders who own the majority of the shares. Publicly traded companies aren’t like democracies — it’s one dollar, one vote — so all that matters is where most of the money is. (unlike credit unions where someone with a $10 balance has as much voting power as someone with a $10-million balance.) And if you and I ever get uppity and start pulling money out of the CIBC, they don’t care, either — they’ll just do more business on the commercial side or do more business off shore. It is ever thus. I’m just waiting for some politician to have the gonads to say he/she is going to make the people with most of the money pay most of the taxes, like they used to. People who should know better are going to vote for Rob Ford because he’s going to cut their taxes because of 20 years of shifting taxes to the lower middle class away from the guys to run the banks (not remembering that they’ll lose everything from wading pools to libraries to transit to garbage collection to homeless shelters.)

    • Paul R. Martin says:

      Utter nonsence Riley. The majority of bank shares are owned by pension plans and mutual funds including the CPP, public service pension plans and retired Canadians who need dividend income. On the other hand since ignorance is bliss, you are welcome to hold your nonsensical beliefs. By the way, the dividend paid on bank shares is higher than interest paid on GIC’s. Financially, it makes sense for retired people to own bank shares rather than to purchase GIC’s or to lend their money to credit unions.

  5. jp says:

    Hey, that’s an insult to monkeys everywhere.

  6. WesternGrit says:

    Thanks to Liberal (big L) financial rules set up during Paul Martin’s financial stewardship, our banks have sort of survived the neoConservative ideological idiocy to the South… But… no thanks to Harper and Flaherty, who have STILL left us in a worse position than we could have been, by dragging the “0 down, 40 year mortgage” schemes from the US up here. The real crisis is coming now that the fiscal stimulus is gone (even though the government seems not to have released most of those funds – likely for fear of what’s coming).

    The latest US numbers show how serious the situation is.

    Fact is, these “brilliant fiscal managers” took a $13 Billion (that’s with a “B”) Liberal surplus and turned it into a $25 Billion DEFICIT – BEFORE the economic downturn. There is no disputing that particular fact.

    Conservatives have been responsible for much of Canada’s debt/deficit problems in recent times. That fact is also confirmed. This NeoCon/Reform-a-tory brand of Conservatism isn’t even true conservatism. They believe in spending more than anyone else, and then too, on their “pet” ideological projects. It would take a truly blind partisan to believe they are anywhere close to being good fiscal managers…

  7. Andrew says:

    I would rather have the banks making profits than having to be bailed out with TARP money or having to be taking over as they are in the US.

    Having worked for US banks, Canadians do not know how fortunate they are to have a “national” banking system.

  8. Marc L says:

    Hey, much better to have a weak banking system that collapses and needs government bailouts like in the U.S. Heaven forbid that banks — and corporations in general — make profits. Losses are much better. We all know that losing companies create jobs.

  9. Iris Mclean says:

    Do you suppose that John Hunkin is is still sailing his boat off the East Coast? What a life that must be.

  10. Raymond says:

    Didn’t someone say (a couple of years ago) “The fundamentals of our economy remain strong…”
    Banks are (essentially) the foundation of our economy.

    Shucks. Guess he was right all along.

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