Archive - Nov 20, 2009 - Blog entry

Diane Urquhart's research has wider implications for employees and pensioners of other companies teetering on bankruptcy. If the explosion of CDS and leveraged buyouts is inducing a wave of bankruptcies, then why should taxpayers borne the cost? I say we tax the funds that are wreaking havoc on the real economy with their sophisticated financial "leveraging and hedging".

Reading through the Qs for this quarter, a picture starts to emerge of utter chaos when it comes to how banks are implementing -- or not -- the changes by the FASB to how organizations account for off balance sheet ("OBS") exposures. Let us take two examples:  Wells Fargo and PNC Financial.

Far from having good governance, most of these large funds are governed in an ad hoc fashion which provides the illusion of good governance. The claim that "Canada leads the world" on pension governance is an outright lie which ignores serious governance gaps that still remain in our pension system.