Ted Rall for March 20, 2023

…and then the depositors tore Jimmy limb from limb.

Easier money trail to follow than Trump’s income.

That IS what banks do, right? Invest the deposits (carefully) to pay for overhead and provide interest to depositors. And the “carefully” part is, if not paramount, then at least very important. SVB failed that one badly. Dunno about the other one (two??) in the USA. I did see that UBS bought Credit Suisse, but that’s only sort of “in” the USA.

Saturday Night Live once made a good alternate skit for the ending of Its a Wonderful Life; the crowd goes postal when George tells then that his uncle Billy foolishly misplaced their money and instead of taking a colllection, they rush over to the savings and loan and literally beat the stuffing out of a dummy who was supposed to be Mr Potter. I think that would actually be a good ending for a reboot of the classic but of course then the cops would either shoot and kill George Bailey or throw him in jail for the rest of his life.

The thing about banks are that most are willing to take on charity and handouts to stay afloat but when it comes to their dealings with the typical citizen they are keen to foreclose, repossess and destroy credit depite any extenuating circumstances. They are a powerful conglomerate and have all the repubbas and corporate-establishment democrats in their pocket so the rules are maade to break their way as Biden’s Bankruptcy reform bill helped them keep creditors from using bankruptcy for protection and that the banks got their money back from bankrupted entities before any small “contractors” receive coin. This is why the financial institutions and Wall Street are despised by many citizens as much as the health care, anti-labor/pro-big business, gun and fossil fuels conglomerates. As John Cougar Mellancamp once sang: “Rain on the Scarecrow, Blood on the Plow…..”

Republicans want to turn the world into “Pottersville”.

It’s NOT a Wonderful Life

Ypu think they learn from 2008

I understand it was the “safe” investments that doomed SVB.

I’ll bet the execs of SVB got bonuses before the failure. Democrats want to make bank officers responsible for failures. Republicans will shoot that down because their top guy is a crook and they support him.

can’t help but wonder if this all isn’t just a round-about way to make investment bankers whole for bad investments.

any bank facing a big enough run won’t be able to meet demands. This bank seemed to have been deliberately jawboned into a run.

how many of the so-called business depositors were un-viable, dot-com style, speculations, who really had just deposited investment money. Their ’payroll" going to over-compensated tech-bros and to pay back investors.

seems the management quit doing normal due-diligence, took money out, and waited for the inevitable bailout.

Gosh.. does that mean my deposit is not stored in some vault.. but is given out willy nilly. Wish someone would have told me how banks work.. sheesh. /S

More like; Your money is in my personal hedgefund, and the COO’s Cayman Island Account. Mrs. Smith, how much do you really need to get through the day? A buck fifty will get you a hot dog and soda at Costco.

It’s A Wonderful Life, 2023.

Plus investments in U.S. Treasury Notes. Usually considered “bullet proof” for investing as the U.S. never defaults but a fixed interest rate which was outpaced by inflation.

What about my investment in “ZuZu’s Petals”?

Hey, I made this same joke the day SVB collapsed! Great minds, something something

Of course the money isn’t there. Money is imaginary. It’s nowhere but in the mind.

Ah it’s a wonderful life.

I don’t really believe that it was “wokeness” that killed the SVB, but it’s interesting to speculate:

https://www.alexcartoon.com/index.cfm?cartoon_num=8298

Or, for another view: https://www.alexcartoon.com/index.cfm?cartoon_num=8301