Canadian Banks have no sense of common good...

The Common Good

I believe that in Canada we are doing a commendable job in “flattening the curve.”  Services we once took for granted such as low wage earners who serve as cashiers, couriers, truck drivers and so many more who have kept the supply chains open are now more honoured.  Nurses, doctors, paramedics and other front line workers in this war are viewed as super heroes.  Jokes and memes are written about how the apparent slothfulness of staying at home is now serving to save the nation, another necessary ingredient to defeat the virus.

Every level of government, practically every citizen has a sense of the common good and what it takes to come out the other end of this crisis with our health and our economy…everyone in fact with the glaring exceptions of banks and bankers.  Although not fully the bad guy in this situation they are deferring mortgage loans which offers some form of short term relief. Thank you.

Keep in mind though that banks do not defer the interest on a mortgage that simply gets tacked on to the original principal  such that interest will be paid on that sum a second time and extend the amortization of the mortgage by another half year or so.  In this way banks can actually profit on our crisis while everyone else who understands sacrifice and common good actually sacrifices.  Not Canadian Banks.

Their excuse seems to be that, “We are in uncharted water.”  Join the club aren’t we all, the only time they have a sense of common good leads them to social inaction.

If this is a war-like situation and banks are profiteering what does that make them?