Give it until noon and GW will have his Treasury czar out once more to drum up some more fear in the markets. The big three JP Morgan Chase, City Group, and Goldman need to control the entire investment banking sector over the entire globe and the US tax payer will stop at no limits now to see this happens. The market reactions are a realization that the pre-planned fix is in with the $700 billion bailout and everyone is scrambling to protect their own investment banking interests. The big three have derivative bombed the European institutions in the hope of sinking them and their governments if they try to bail out their own.

My opinion was that their should have been no bailout and the markets should have prevailed with small banks and credit unions picking up the new opportunities created when the corrupt investments houses went down for their crimes.

The United States is finished as an economic power IMO and Canada will need to adjust to the new realities.

How can we have a NAFTA deal when the American financial commerce is so obviously corrupt where the corruption and manipulation of the markets is now institutionalized?

Now the USA will simply become the biggest military power and take what they need. Oil.

The following link will take you to the 2007/2008 Annual Report of the Financial Institutions Commission (British Columbia)

http://www.fic.gov.bc.ca/pdf/annualreport2008.pdf

On page 8 it states
"As

of March 31, 2008, there were 48 credit unions

operating in British Columbia with deposits of

$42.7 billion".

On page 46 of this report it states

"The Credit Union Deposit Insurance Corporation (CUDIC)

of British Columbia is a government corporation that

maintains and invests a fund in support of a guarantee of

members’ deposits with provincial credit unions. All credit

unions in the province have deposit insurance coverage

with CUDIC.

Our mandate is to guarantee that money on deposit and

in non-equity shares is repaid, up to limits prescribed by

the Financial Institutions Act. If a credit union fails and is

unable to pay the money it has either on deposit or in nonequity

shares, CUDIC repays that amount, to a maximum

of $100,000 for each separate deposit.

Although FICOM and CUDIC are separate entities, FICOM

staff administer CUDIC’s day-to-day operations.

As of March 31, 2008, the BC deposit insurance fund

was worth $281 million, including $20 million held by

Stabilization Central Credit Union".

I have a question for our three local MLA's, Mr. Pat Bell, Mr. John Rustad, and Ms. Shirley Bond, According to the above statements, I am led to believe B.C.'s 48 Credit Unions have deposits of $42.7 Billion in them, and the B.C. deposit insurance fund has $281 Million in it.

If our economy goes into an major downturn (as a result of this unprecedented credit crunch which is all over the news lately), and house prices in B.C. suffer a meltdown which is similar to what is happening in the United States, and several Credit Unions in B.C. become insolvent and are forced to close their doors, is there some kind of a law on the books which states that the B.C. Government will backstop the B.C. deposit insurance fund if it goes broke and is unable to meet its obligations?

I forgot to put the following in my above post.

To Ben and Elaine. Could you please ask our MLA's the question I have posed in the last paragraph of my post the next time you have any of them on your radio show?

charles You answered your own question. Your deposits are covered up to $100,000.

Charles, Credit Unions are much like Banks, they do NOT loan their customer's deposits.

Customer deposits are their 'Liabilities' on their Balance Sheet. And you can't loan a 'liability', the borrower is already incurring one when he takes out a loan!

On their Balance Sheets, the same as the Banks, the Credit Union's 'loans' are its corresponding 'Assets'. Loans create deposits, initially, and the repayment of those loans, if they can be repaid, cancels them. The system is entirely creditary ~ i.e, based on promises to pay 'on demand', or at specified times in the future.

Deposits of 'cash' made by the Credit Union's customers are that institution's "reserves". Aside from the necessary 'till money' they require for day to day cash withdrawals, surplus reserves will be deposited with the BC Central Credit Union to be used for cheque clearings between the depositing credit union and other financial institutions.

These reserves will likely be held in an account at one, or possibly more, of the Chartered Banks, and through them, the Bank of Canada. They are generally always available, or could be covered by a loan from the next layer of the financial pyramid, right up to the Bank of Canada, and beyond.

The Bank of Canada has an unlimited overdraft facility with itself, since its 'reserves' are the 'credit' of Canada itself ~ ultimately the actual ability of the country as a whole to produce and deliver goods and services, as, when and where required.

As long as we have that actual ability, which would take some sort of physical disaster to remove, the Bank of Canada has 'backing' for the currency notes it issues, though the 'value' of that currency (what it will actually 'buy' in goods and services IN CANADA) will currently rise or fall depending on whether there is less or more 'money' made available. This itself entirely depends on the 'policy' of the banking system as a whole, and ultimate control over it extends internationally.

That 'policy' is determined right now primarily by what is deemed best for Banks, by Banks, and the whole financial sector. Something which may NOT, (and all too often isn't), best for other sectors of the economy, i.e., Firms or "producers", (including Government, to the extent it provides services), and Consumers, all of us.

In short, your money on deposit is 'safe'. You'll get back every dollar of it. But what it'll 'buy' is far from 'safe', and that's really what we should be concerned about.

The Credit Union coulda sent me twenty bucks to ease my fears. A lottery ticket in my pocket could take my mind off the world fer a few days.