Book Notes: two books on Can-Am history
Joe Martin and Christopher Kobrak have recently published From Wall Street to Bay Street , a comparative history of banking systems in Canada and the United States. Starting from the observation that Canadian banks suffered nothing like the damage that hit American banks in the 2008 financial crisis, they offer a general reader's history of the banks back to the 18th century. They like what they see in Canada The authors trace the roots of each country�s financial systems back to Alexander Hamilton and insightfully argue that while Canada has preserved a Hamiltonian financial tradition, the United States has favoured the populist Jacksonian tradition since the 1830s. The sporadic and inconsistent fashion in which the American system have changed over time is at odds with the evolutionary path taken by the Canadian system. Think on that next time you consider the whopping fees and enormous profits of whichever megabank has you in his clutches. Public Affairs Publishing in the...