OCC oversteps its authority in trying to force banks to take on controversial customers

A US banking regulator that glories in the splendidly anachronistic name the of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has ruled that nine banks, including two Canadian banks, are guilty of practices and policies that denied or limited access to financial services because of political or religious beliefs. 

Canada's Toronto Dominion Bank and the Bank of Montreal were among the nine, which also included many of the heavy hitters in American banking like JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, US Bancorp and Capital One.

The review was demanded, predictably enough, by Donald Trump, and, predictably enough, he received the answer he wanted. No penalties were announced for the perceived transgressions, but the OCC say they are "assessing further regulatory and supervisory changes" to prevent these issues from happening again.

So, what kind of thing are we talking about here? Who is being discriminated against and denied access to their rights? 

Well, as you might imagine, they are almost all on the right fringes of the Republican Party. Examples include a non-profit espousing extreme anti-abortion views, a company producing MAGA merchandise, that kind of thing. In some cases, particular industry sectors are involved, like oil and gas exploration, coal mining and coal-powered plants, firearms and ammunition manufacturing, digital asset activities, etc, which contravene the banks' own ethical policies. It apparently amounts to a tiny number of individuals and companies ("a limited number of historical interactions") out of the many millions of accounts the banks maintain.

From the banks' point of view, though, in distancing themselves from some of the more controversial loan applicants, they are just trying to manage their legal, financial and reputational risk, which they are well within their rights to do.

The OCC's "irrefutable evidence" that the banks have "denied, debanked and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses", then, seems to tar the banks with a very broad brush, and ignores their own right to pick their customers and protect their own corporate brands. If anything, you could argue that the report merely reflects the political stance of the OCC (or maybe Mr. Trump).

The OCC contends that banks are using the concept of reputational risk as a shield to deny services to customers based on subjective, non-financial criteria. The banks, on the other hand, argue that managing reputational risk is a critical part of safe and sound operations. A potential client's public persona or controversial industry ties can lead to concrete legal, compliance and financial liabilities. Banks should not be forced to take on relationships with risky or controversial customers they do not trust.

Increase in Ontario electricity costs driven by nuclear power

Ontario's electricity rates are going up again after the latest agreement with ratepayer and industry groups. This time there is no hiding the fact that it is expensive nuclear power that is driving the increases.

For years, the Ontario government has maintained the convenient fiction that it has been renewable energy that has driven costs up. As renewables - whether hydro, wind or solar - are now among the cheapest electricity generation options, that is no longer going to fly.

Refurbishment of outdated nuclear plants and additional maintenance costs on others are the main drivers for this latest increase. Nuclear costs from 2027 to 2031 are projected to be almost double those from 2022 to 2026. A much smaller increase will result from refurbishment to some hydro dams. The report notes, however, that hydro costs are less than a quarter of nuclear costs per megawatt of power produced.

The nuclear lobby is still very powerful [sic] in Ontario, exemplified by all those full-page ads in major newspapers. But it is, and has always been, an expensive option. I doubt many people will be paying attention to news reports like this one, but if they were, they would have a better understanding of just how expensive.

Did America withold missile warnings from Ukraine?

As Russia's illegal war in Ukraine approaches the five year mark, it continues to hit hapless Ukraine with a nightly barrage of drone and missile attacks. It also continues to hit Ukrainian energy and infrastructure targets, despite President Trump's claims of the existence of an "energy ceasefire", which no-one else seems to know anything about.

Even more worrying, the latest strikes arrived before any early warning alarms were enabled, as it appears that no early warning was received by Ukraine from its "partners", which essentially means the USA in this context. Ukraine has various partnerships with European countries for weapons production and missile defence, but for ballistic missile warnings and defence it is apparently almost entirely dependent on the USA.

This is not a situation I was aware of - I naively assumed that Ukraine had its own early warning system - and it immediately raises a bunch of questions: Did Trump order warnings to be deliberately withheld (consistent with his recent diatribes against Ukraine and Zelenskyy, and his renewed support of the aggressor, Russia)? Why does Ukraine not have its own early warning system? Is this not something that the "coalition of the willing" could help fund? Why are British and European warnings not available to Ukraine? Surely they have the technical know-how?

This comes hard on the heels of unexplained restrictions on Ukraine's battlefield use of Elon Musk-owned and US-made Starlink communication terminals, which are essential to Ukraine's drone missions. And, of course, hard on the heels of Trump's recent controversial phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Coincidence?

Trump insists that the US did not withold any warnings, and the official Ukrainian response is that it was just a "failure", suggesting it was due to weather conditions or some sort of miscommunication, rather than a deliberate decision not to share an alert. 

Am I guilty of conspiracy theories to suggest deliberate American actions? I know I'm not the only one, and I know that Trump is definitely capable of much worse.

How much of the world's problems are attributable to Trump?

It occurred to me to wonder just how much of the current global economic malaise affecting the world can be attributed directly to just one man. 

That man, of course, is Donald Trump. His misguided ideas and policies have clearly had a negative effect, not just on the USA, but, because the US is such a big player in the global economy (nothing to do with Trump - he inherited the globe's strongest economy) on the whole world. In order to squeeze a little bit more wealth for what is already by far the wealthiest country in the world, Trump has been willing to bazooka the economies of almost every other country, not realizing that the hit to globalized trade will come around to bite the US too.

It's hard to pin down figures, although many organizations have tried. These figures are quite old now, but Bloomberg is projecting a $2 trillion hit to the global economy by 2027 as a result of Trump's tariffs: the OECD has pared its initial projections for 2026 global growth by 0.2% (which might not sound like much, but over a $100 trillion worldwide economy, it is quite substantial); the WTO has cut its growth projections by as much a 0.6%.

It's not just about GDP, though. Massive job losses are underway; major supply chains have been disrupted; the stock markets are only being kept aloft by (probably ill-advised) AI fever; inflation is creeping up in many countries (including the US); business confidence has been shaken, with a direct effect on investment; and on it goes. 

And it's not just about tariffs, either. Trump's unnecessary and ill-advised war against  has done more to increase the price of oil than Putin's war in Ukraine ever did, bringing with it negative effects on global trade, inflation, etc, to say nothing of the increased instability in energy markets caused by Trump's invasion of Venezuela, his apparently personal vendetta against Canada, his shot in the arm for Russia's oil industry (against his own official US policy and all international efforts), etc, etc.

And it doesn't even end there. Global climate change initiatives have foundered, partly because of the economic pressure countries are feeling, and partly because of America's pull-back from climate action of any kind, and its boosting of the environmentally-damaging oil and gas industries. Democracy has also taken a hit worldwide, as right-wing populists across the globe see the "success" of Trump's anti-democratic push in the USA, which has fueled and emboldened their own dictatorial aspirations.

There's much more and NONE of it is good. All of this will take many years, probably decades, to fix.

USA goes out on a limb over ICC

The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been won, not by Donald Trump (shock! horror!), but by the South African judge Navi Pillay, for her indefatigable work with the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, and as a staunch defender of the international rule of law.

The Trump administration is, of course, apopeplectic, not just for the snub to their Glorious Leader, but also because of Ms. Pillay's and the ICC's votes against best American buddy Israel, and its characterization the Israeli war in Gaza as genocide and accusing it of multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

Just hours after the Nobel announcement, Marco Rubio announced sanctions on the ICC, preventing American companies from providing services to it (a largely symbolic gesture), calling it a "rogue court". He says, "we will dismantle the ICC - brick by brick, if necessary", and went further to threaten other countries (i.e. most of the world) that continue to support the organization: "Nations that refuse to reject the ICC's false authority while relying on US assistance are likely to come under increased scrutiny".

A fiesty Ms. Pillay clapped back in no uncertain terms: "Clearly, the fact that he [Trump] never got the Nobel Prize, and never will, is an indictment agaist him ... He doesn't like someone or their ideas, then he goes out to sanction, punish, forcibly deport, wrongfully invade, and arrest leaders of other countries. These are threats to international law." Ouch.

Ms. Pillay has the wholehearted backing of most of the civilized world, with the notable exception of the United States, Israel and a few other maverick states that have been the victims of the ICC and ICJ's decisions over the years, and which have therefore never been official member of the international courts (the US signed the Rome Statute establishing the court, but has never ratified it). 

But then, of course, it depends on your definition of "civilized". The USA is now so far from civilized norms, and has lost so much respect in international circles, that it's hard to see a way back. They are so far out on a limb there's no limb there any more.

The second Chow - is he a plant?

There's a second Chow on the ballot form for the upcoming Toronto mayoralty election.

Braeden is an unknown guy off the street, with no real platform or campaign, one of 53 names on the busy ballot. Because Toronto lists the candidates in alphabetical order (unlike many jurisductions, which list the names in random order or include thumbnail pictures to avoid any confusion), he actually appears just above incumbent Mayor Olivia Chow, who is in a tight race for re-election.

My theory is that the guy is a plant or a decoy installed by Ms. Chow's main rival, Brad Bradford, in the hopes of syphoning off a few of Chow's votes by inattentive voters. (The race is close enough that it could make the difference.) I figure that Bradford, who was our local councillor for four years, would not be above that kind of stunt: I would not trust the guy even if I could throw him. 

It will be interesting to know if my theory is correct, or if we ever find out.

The Myth of the Deal

President Trump has struck a deal! Yay. And it's the "best deal ever". Again. If Americans are not thoroughly over this stuff by now, then I despair of them.

This time he has stuck a "deal" with Russia to import large quantities of embargoed Russian diesel, despite his signing into law just last month new sanctions on Russian oil and gas. Quite where President Putin is going to find all this diesel to export to the US is another mystery: Russia is already suffering from severe fuel shortages internally after an extended barrage of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil depots and processing facilities.

Details of the "deal" are predictably sparse. It was after all a more or less random suggestion during a phone call on a completely unrelated subject. Trump doesn't involve himself in the tedious details of making his "deals" somehow work. 

Reactions from both the right and the left of the political divide have been almost universally condemnatory, particularly as the sanctions bill was passed so recently and with such fanfare. Analysts say that the amounts involved are not likely to have a significant effect on diesel prices, so Trump may not even get the cost-of-living boost he so desperately needs before the US mid-terms

I put the word "deal" in quotes throughout because these are not really deals at all, just Trump expressing his aspirations and flexing his (or rather America's) muscles. How many times has he announced a deal with Iran, or Ukraine, or Canada for that matter, only to have it changed/scrapped/reversed. 

I truly believe that he just likes hearing himself say "I made a deal"; the content and the wisdom of the agreement is entirely secondary or even moot. This is not the Art of the Deal, it's the Myth of the Deal.

New White House Press Secretary looks familiar

That Mr. Trump has just appointed a new White House Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia.

She looks kind of familiar. You don't think he has a type, do you?