Juggling Dynamite

Just as the US AG announces a $7 billion dollar fine settlement with Citigroup for another round of illegal, “egregious misconduct”, Citi today announces a flashy earnings “beat”. Executive bonuses are now assured another quarter. Clearly still zero deterrent effect on tax-payer subsidized, illegal acts by the banking cartel.

Bloomberg’s Keri Geiger and Phil Mattingly examine Citigroup paying $7 billion in fines and consumer relief to end a U.S. government claim that it misled investors about the quality of mortgage-backed bonds and what the agreement may mean for other banks facing possible probes and penalties. Here is a direct video link.

Will Ferrell brings us a Monday smile in this parody of George Bush and the climate change deniers. Here is a direct video link.

Confirmation this morning that Canada lost more jobs in June. In fact without the unsustainable oil-sand madness jobs added in Alberta this year, the other provinces have experienced no job growth at all now for the past 12 months. The loonie is taking a deserved blow on the news. As shown in the chart below, the elephant in the room (the one that nearly all Canadian-centric investment firms try hard to ignore) is: if a US led recession and credit crunch clobbered the Canadian dollar and stock market in both 2000 and 2007, how low might the loonie (and Cdn stocks, led by the Canadian banks) fall this time with the true north strong and free today enslaved by record domestic debt levels? Maybe Mark Carney is a genius after all…he certainly timed his exit to England last summer beautifully.