What if one puts their money in a Canadian bank?

[AX10]

Would that be enough to diversify one's assets. The Canadian economy is sound and their dollar is strong.

What do you think?

[TomInTib]

1. I know one thing...

My ex-GF put a pile of my money in Canadian banks and I cannot retrieve any of it.

[Zynx]

2. If you are worried about your deposits, don't. The Fed will not allow major bank failures

and they do have the means to prevent them.

[mac2]

6. The Federal Reserve doesn't have enough insurance to

cover the huge loses of these huge international financial institutions. Many banks did not pay into it.

That's why people opposed the big bank mergers a few years back. Democratic banking committee Congressmen spoke out against it. "Too big to fail banks." Remember?

[Zynx]

9. Don't confuse the Federal Reserve with the FDIC.

The FDIC does not have enough to cover losses, but the Fed can ensure they don't happen in the first place by lending banks as much as they need to stay solvent.

[mac2]

11. Our treasury is broke. Where will the Federal Reserve

get their bailout money but from insurance of foreign countries?

[Zynx]

17. Do you know how the Fed works?

They don't lend from the Treasury. The Bear Stearns deal was an anomaly. They have their own sources of funding and have virtually unlimited resources if they so choose. They don't have to borrow from anyone. Furthermore, foreigners are injecting capital into our banking system to prevent failures and can be counted on to do more. They can not survive a U.S. meltdown either. Look at who their biggest trade partner is. When 25% of your exports go to one country, they own you as much as you own them.

[flvegan]

18. Well said.

Thank you.

[rockymountaindem]

20. NO!!! PANIC!!!111!1

:sarcasm:

Apparently, we've all got to admit that this is the end of the USA and our economy so as to demonstrate the utter failure of the Bush administration. Because, you know, all the harm they actually *have* done isn't enough to prove anything.

[bean fidhleir]

3. Probably get you thrown into G-mo.

Our rulers want ready access to our money

[mac2]

4. Forget Cheney exchanged his money to the Euro.

He and Bush seem to be working for them.

[Selatius]

5. I usually just tell folks to go into the Eurozone. The Euro is killing the US Dollar now.

Last I heard, 1.57 Dollars trades for 1 Euro. If you open up an interest-bearing account, it simply makes more sense to have it in European bonds if you are a conservative play-it-safe investor simply looking to shield his money from the deleterious effects of inflation.

[mac2]

8. And buying up all our Common Wealth to profit off us.

Corporations moved there such as Ford, drug companies, etc. They love that we are failing as do our other "friends"...the Canadians, Mexico, Britain, France, Spain, China, India, etc.

No one looks after our best interest (that means our Congress and President, VP, trade representative). I love Senator Dorgan for speaking out on it.

Our government business has been sent off-shore to ruin us and our way of life. Who needs Bin Laden to do that?

Everyday we are robbed of billions.

[mac2]

10. RE: your quote Selatius

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged." - Noam Chomsky

Read: Lying for Empire.

And now they should be held accountable that we know the story. If we don't they will continue to lie us into illegal wars. We die and suffer while they profit and get more executive power. It is not what our democracy should be about. Our founding fathers left that in old Europe.

The least punishment should be removal of their public funding for pensions, health care, and security protection. Once they lose that they won't be in such a hurry to do it again. We the people rule.

[Bruce McAuley]

7. I did that late last year

Put $150 into a Canadian Credit union just across the border to see how it stacks up against the money I have in my American Credit Union which is 40 miles away.
So far it's a wash. For a while the Canadian dollar was doing better, but now it's just below the American dollar. I'm going to continue the experiment at least for a full year to see which does better.
It's a good backup and I thinkl the Canadian dollar will eventually become the stronger currency, if it's not already.
Good luck!

Bruce

[TZ]

12. Losing investment

Because the Canadian dollar is stronger. You will LOSE money on the deal. FDIC insures all accounts up to 100,000.
I have a friend at the FDIC who works on bank closings. It is NOT bad enough to do that. Plus that WILL hurt the US economy as well as you personally.
Sheesh. I can't believe how paranoid people are.Poeple need to think things through

[The Straight Story]

13. then you will start talking funny and have cravings for labatt blue

eh. :)

[applegrove]

14. I know that Toronto Dominion - Canada Trust isn't vulnerable to the

sub-prime mess. Other Canadian banks are still vulnerable.

[ThomWV]

15. Depositing money in a Canadian bank is hardly international investing, or any kind of investing

Its just a deposit, its not any sort of investment other than the paultry interest it will pay and any gain you might see as a result of currency valuation changed will evaporate the moment you try to bring your money home, unless you plan to move to Canada that is.

[selador]

16. there are several issues with that

if you fear erosions of the US dollar vs. another currency, then simply take a position in the currencies market to offset.

for example.

if you want to be long the canadian dollar vs. the us dollar, then you would need to go short the notional value of currency you wish to hedge in the currency pair USDCAD

that would effectively mean that any losses in the USD vs. the canadaian dollar in USD that you hold would be offset by the gain in the USDCAD currency pair hedge you hold.

you can do this with ANY currency pair

of course, i find it ironic that AFTER the huge drop in the dollar and run in the CAD and EURO is when you want to jump in. iow, it could continue but yer a bit late to the party. much like somebody who wanted to jump into tech stocks in 1999-2000.

of course, if this is a pure hedge and not a trade, you will be net flat as long as the notional values are equal.

essentially

[El Pinko]

19. The Canadian economy is about 1 year behind the US economy - their bubble has just peaked.

The US had a 74% increase in home prices from 2000 to 2006, a period in which incomes only rose 15%.

Canada had a 70% increase during a similar period when their median income only rose by 14%.

Despite the supposed lack of subprime loans there, I believe that Canadian homedebtors are probably just and strained and that there was as much speculation there as here, so I think in a year's time you will see major economic problems in Canada and a weaker loonie.

If you want to put money in a Canadian bank, that's fine, but 2006 would have been a better time to do so.

My hunch tells me loonie strength will peak between now and the end of this year, then drop close to what it was over the last several years.

[rockymountaindem]

21. Well said, Bubbles

Too late for me though, having lived in Canada during the both the end of the good ol' days of a 1.3 CAD/USD rate and the bad new days of the weak greenback. Man... 2003 was some good times to be spending US money in Toronto.