Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation CEO Evan Siddall is talking a big game when it comes to making over the organization he's been tasked with leading.

New Name: Siddall says the current name overemphasizes the financing of homes and doesn't do enough to highlight the agencies mandate of housing affordability. "Housing Canada" is being suggested as a replacement.

Big Goals: CMHC set the ambitious goal of providing all Canadians a home they can afford and that meets their needs by 2030.

Innovation: The agency has reduced turnaround times in funding new projects by 1/3, but more innovation is necessary to improve on this and other projects says the housing boss. He's floated the idea of an app to connect people without adequate housing with people who have excess capacity. Sounds like an egalitarian AirBnb.

Rapid Housing: Also suggested is a fund which would allow municipalities to buy up distressed assets when owners are forced to sell because of the pandemic, and turn them into housing.

Future Focus: Canada's housing agency has high aims, but first they'll need to help Canadians out of a hole, with $1 billion of mortgage payments having been deferred each month of the pandemic.

A massive data dump, being referred to as the "FinCEN Files," has exposed how the world's largest brand name banks knowingly profit from criminal money laundering, while authorities do nothing.

What are the FinCEN Files?

FinCEN is the US Financial Crimes Investigation Network, part of the US Treasury responsible for combating financial crimes. The files, known as suspicious activities reports (SARs) are thousands of documents sent from banks to flag suspicious behavior of clients.

What Does FinCEN do with SARs?

As it turns out mostly nothing. By sending the SARs to FinCEN the banks protect themselves from being complicit in the crime of laundering, FinCEN makes the files available to law enforcement agencies who rarely act on them. Bank execs and regulators know what's happening but don't take action, money is being made.

What Makes a Transaction Suspicious?

The suspicion is usually concerning where the money comes from. It's illegal for banks to accept proceeds of crimes, but for criminals to spend and store cash, a bank account is helpful.

Some suspicious transactions revealed include:

Why Does It Matter?

The laundering of money enables criminals around the world and the money ends up funding business we know and trust. The FinCEN Files are the biggest banking leak ever, they make clear that little effort is put in to stopping the global flow of criminal proceeds.

US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on Friday night after a battle with cancer. Her death has sparked an outpouring of grief for the judge who became a pop-culture icon later in life. No time was wasted before heated political debate over her replacement process took over.

RBG's Legacy

Early Retirement...Liberals and the left had been arguing for years now over whether aging democrat appointed Justices Ginsburg and Breyer should have resigned when Obama was in office and controlled congress. Too late to debate now.

2016 Flashback...When Republican appointed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in the final year of Obama's presidency, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused to hold a hearing for The President's nominee, reasoning the American people should decide via election. Now under similar circumstances, McConnell is using specious reasoning to justify voting on a Trump selection.

Amy Coney Barrett...is rumored to be the front runner for Trump's nominee, other contenders include Amul Thapar, Barbara Lagoa and Allison Jones Rushing, all of the candidates are judges for federal appeals courts.

43 Days...until the US elections, in this time Democrats will do everything in their power to avoid a vote on a Supreme Court appointee, while Republicans will stop at nothing to get Trump's pick on the bench.

Political Punditry...We're not going to try to predict how a fight over a Supreme Court seat will change the course of an already wild and unprecedented election, but traditionally conservatives are better organized and more motivated when it comes to the courts.

Post-Election-Pile-Up...If the election is close and the courts get involved (think Bush v. Gore in 2000), the Supremes are now split evenly between the left and right. In the event Trump is a clear loser, look for an attempt to push through a nominee in the period post election, before inauguration on January 20th, 2021.

The Road Ahead..BUMPY.

First we had a winner, now we have a blessing. President Trump told reporters Saturday that the deal between TikTok, Oracle and Walmart, has his "blessing," in that it satisfies the President's demands to not ban the popular app from the United States. TikTok confirmed this in a statement.

Deal Details:
The fine print is yet to be printed, the following is what's been reported to date:

Political Winners and Losers: The big winners of this deal are Oracle and Walmart. Top executives from both companies have been in direct contact with Trump throughout this process, with reports of multiple calls on Friday. Oracle is one of the biggest boosters of the Trump administration in corporate America. China hardliners from both parties appear to be unsatisfied with the deal, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has called the arrangement "insufficient," while Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) warns it leaves American companies vulnerable to Chinese retaliation.

Path Ahead: The president's "blessing" isn't enough, the deal requires official approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which will review a finalized documented deal. On the other side of the divide, China's regulators could kibosh the arrangement citing their own national security concerns.

A $5 Billion Hole...Oh ya, if this deal wasn't confusing enough, there seems to be a miscommunication of about $5 billion in free money. President Trump told reporters the deal would involve "a $5 billion contribution toward education.” ByteDance told Chinese media they were unaware of this commitment.

On this topic: U.S. judge halts Commerce Department order to remove WeChat from app stores.

Montreal payments startup Nuvei set records when it began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange last week, becoming the biggest tech IPO ever on Canada's major exchange. The listing minted CEO Philip Fayer as Canada's newest billionaire.

Nuvei is a leader in global payment processing, founded in 2003 it now has 765 employees.

By The Numbers:

Market Pop: Nuvei's success on the markets can in part be attributed to the momentum behind e-commerce, driven by Covid-19 stay at home orders. The company y-o-y growth spiked 28.4% in June compared to 15% growth early in the year.

The S&P/TSX information technology index is up 33% this year, propelling Shopify to be Canada's most valuable company.
 
Zoom Out...Nuvei is the fourth successful tech IPO on the TSX since March 2019, down south 2020 has been the best year for go-publics in six years, with a number of big names still slated for trading this year.