Silicon Valley Bank spent billions on green energy, millions on Black Lives Matter and other leftist causes, until it finally ran out of ‘other people’s money’.
That’s when the Biden administration decided to bail out its depositors.
At a dinner hosted by Peter Orszag, Obama’s former budget director, Wally Adeyemo, Obama’s Nigerian assistant treasury secretary and Biden’s deputy treasury secretary, chatted with Blair Effron, an influential Biden donor, serving on Biden’s Intelligence Advisory Board, who had been hired as an advisor by SVB to deal with its financial crisis. The outcome was inevitable.
“Because of the actions that our regulators have already taken, every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them,” Biden lied.
The deposits of ordinary Americans were already protected up to $250,000.
But unlike banks that serve ordinary customers, the vast majority of SVB’s clients held over $250,000 and were not protected by FDIC insurance. Rather than risk its political donors and allies having to take a 10% loss on their funds, the Biden administration illegally bailed them out while unilaterally transforming FDIC insurance into a protection plan for its political allies.
The Biden bailout was not there to protect Americans, but leftist and even Chinese interests.
SVB was the embodiment of Environmental, Social, and Governance or ESG investing which prioritizes leftist politics over profitability. The Biden administration recently announced that it would allow 401(k) pension plans to be put into ESG instead of reliable investments potentially endangering the retirements of tens of millions of Americans which might also get ‘SVB’d.’
While SVB focused on “climate change” and “diversity”, it ignored rising interest rates. The woke bank was too busy with its politics to deal with the math. SVB had no risk officer for 8 crucial months, but its risk officer for Europe, Africa and the Middle East focused on sharing her “experiences as a lesbian of color” and “moderating SVB’s EMEA Pride townhall.”
CEO Greg Becker led quarterly diversity, equity and inclusion town halls instead of figuring out that startups squeezed by rising interest rates would need money that the bank didn’t have.
Silicon Valley Bank directed over $73 million to Black Lives Matter and other causes. It put millions into, among others, the Accion Opportunity Fund which describes its mission as advancing “racial, gender and economic justice”. It focused on “building a culture of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and advancing the “transition to a low-carbon world.”
SVB’s mission was to force 100% of its employees to participate in DEI indoctrination.
Newsweek named SVB one of “America’s Most Responsible Companies”: not because the woke bank managed its money well, but because it had the right politics.
Now one of “America’s Most Responsible Companies” is responsible for economic devastation.
SVB mastered wokeness, but failed economics 101. And that was by design. Its real business was politics. By financing leftist causes, SVB had become politically too big to fail. While its own finances are wrecked, the Biden administration quickly stepped in to protect its woke depositors.
The SVB bailout was an announcement that the Biden administration would stand behind woke financial institutions and instruments, socializing the pain by spreading it to more stable financial systems, no matter how irresponsibly they put funds at risk in the pursuit of their politics.
SVB’s clients included California Gov. Newsom’s wine companies as well as assorted politically connected figures, and “1,550 climate tech and sustainability” companies and churned out billions in loans for the woke companies pitching government-subsidized ‘green’ tech.
The woke bank hoovered up subsidies and tax breaks to worthless wind and solar programs and its collapse will leave a “hole” in the green industry. The intersection between the Biden administration’s special interests and SVB was made clear in the Washington Post’s headline, “Biden Boosted Clean Tech. How Much Will SVB Set It Back?”
Last year, Pink Energy, a solar company, shut down after multiple complaints about lying to customers about how much money they would save by switching to worthless solar. The Ohio Attorney General finally issued an injunction against Pink. And Pink’s financing came through Sunlight Financial Holdings which kept the majority of its money in an SVB account.
That’s the sort of junk ‘green’ businesses that the Biden bailout was meant to reward.
SVB was a key element in a woke economy that moved money to political causes with no fiscal responsibility. Its board of directors was short on banking officials, but included major Democrat donors, including a Pelosi neighbor, as well as Janet Yellen’s protege: Mary J. Miller, who had implemented the Dodd-Frank reform package and also chaired the San Francisco Fed’s Diversity and Inclusion Council. Meanwhile, SVB CEO Greg Becker sat on the Fed’s board.
The San Francisco Fed should have monitored SVB’s books and spotted the trouble, but instead it focused instead on fighting “systemic racism” and making banking more “inclusive”.
Going out of business is inclusive.
Not satisfied with bailing out their own supporters, the Biden administration also set out to bail out our enemies.
One of SVB’s major client bases was in China. Chinese companies were able to open an account in a week while “mainstream traditional banks, such as Standard Chartered, HSBC, Citi have strict compliance and it takes a long time to start a bank account with them.”
It’s unclear how many of these Chinese businesses, some likely linked to the Communist Party, Biden has chosen to bail out at the expense of bank customers and while further feeding the inflation that is destroying American families and wiping out the remains of the middle class.
Silicon Valley Bank also maintained a joint venture with China’s Communist state owned
Shanghai Pudong Development Bank which has been under investigation for aiding North Korea’s nuclear program meant to kill millions of Americans. That venture however does not appear to be affected by SVB’s collapse or the illegal Biden bailout of woke capital.
Like SVB, Signature Bank, the second ESG bank that failed, had social impact reports and provided climate disclosures. Its boss led a seminar on gender neutral pronouns and former Rep. Barney Frank (half of Dodd-Frank’s regulatory regime) served on its board. Meanwhile, the DOJ was conducting a criminal investigation involving money laundering by its clients.
ESG is a disaster causing the third largest bank failure in America in just two days.
But ESG is too big to fail because it is at the heart of the leftist scheme to divert money into its causes and to fund its activism. The SVB disaster revealed how fiscally unsound these economic schemes are and how the Democrats will abuse their power to protect them anyway.
Even as the Fed pushes interest rates higher to slow down the economy and inflation, the Democrats have plenty of money on tap for their political allies. American families may not be able to afford to buy eggs, but the cash keeps on flowing for woke capital.
Go woke, go broke and if you support him, Biden will still bail you out.
I read somewhere–or maybe I heard it on NEWSMAX–in the last week or so, that Oprah, for example, has approximately $500 Million Dollars on deposit in SVB (THIS is the kind of wealth that we are talking about concerning this bank’s depositors). This explains why the Biden Administration ‘back-stopped’ (the word ‘bailout’ is forbidden–just like certain pronouns are forbidden nowadays) SVB, because Biden and the D’rats had to fully protect THESE donors in that these donors furnish millions of dollars of political contributions to them, and they had to be FULLY protected (i.e., do so using the assets of the Federal Government, like Biden and crowd always do, to protect their own interests). This also probably explains why the FDIC rejected the purchase offer made by another bank to buy SVB’s assets so that the assets of the Federal Government would not be involved in this bank failure. Biden just could not allow THAT to happen–Biden had to fully protect all of these D’rat donors’ deposits. See, life is really simple after all!
so transparent.
Ok, everybody. CPA here. Nothing is more nauseating to me than woke, ESG and everything California. I keep hoping Kim Jong Un will lob a nuclear bomb on the place.
But the primary reason SVB failed is due to what is known in the banking industry as duration risk. Two years ago or so, the bank began buying 10 year Treasury Bonds which were yielding next to nothing. Then the Federal Reserve started to raise interest rates to combat REAL inflation resulting in SVB’s bond portfolio to significantly decline in value, called unrealized losses. On top of that, depositors were also buying up CD’s at rates we haven’t seen for years. What happened is SVB didn’t have enough cash on hand to cover deposit withdrawals. The Federal Reserve bank examiners should have seen this coming.
All the crap coming out about their wacky Board of Directors and general bank management is sickening. So my question is this? After a marxist coup that took place in the 2020 election, why aren’t we sh o o t ing?
As a foreigner I’m still wondering why Americans aren’t shooting. You obviously are lacking a leader like George Washington or England’s Oliver Cromwell , someone who is willing to say that destruction of the United States has got to end and then with a well-devised plan takes up arms, shoots and takes down the domestic enemy. I keep hearing and reading that for many decades communists and others have been taking action in schools and universities to undermine the country. In that case why did patriotic Americans who were aware of this not organize – as the internal enemies had done – and fight back to save the country? How did it happen that so many rotten DAs and rotten judges got into office? How did it happen that the likes of James Clapper, John Brennan, James Comey could lie to Congress and escape retribution? A lot of gutless Americans like weak-mouthed Mitch McConnell have allowed things to go to the dogs, but McConnell still leads the Republicans in the Senate, telling me that the rot goes far deeper than McConnell. If you are going to effectively fight back you need a plan and a brave leader. I truly think it’s now past a stage when this fight can be won through the democratic elections process, yet I gather that most Americans think it can – while Democrats cheat and rig elections,
Bad ideas should suffer bad consequences. Not sure but I think this is why the youngsters think capitalism doesn’t work.
It is exactly why they think it doesn’t work, because it puts profit before the environment.
But what they fail spectacularly to understand is it takes profit to protect the environment.
Take a look at a Goolag maps of Haiti and its border with the Dominican Republic. The satellite image shows the border clearly. Communist corrupt degraded land to the left and green areas to the right.
The FDIC deposit insurance of up to $250 K was or should have been known – especially by depositors making deposits in excess of the FDIC insured limit! Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
They could have split up their deposits into different accounts, all $250K or less.
Knowing this makes their preferential treatment all the more obvious and treasonous.
WELL SAID, but I regret to inform you that you’re using mature logic . . . and that doesn’t apply to the pampered class of lazy fools who know they’ll get special treatment.
And to be fair to those cosseted democrats, they wallow in ignorance, so it’s not their excuse per se, it’s their lifestyle. (Just ask any of “em which century our 1st Civil War was fought in.)
They could have, but in many cases it wasn’t even their money, it was a way to move investor money and financial gimmicks around. There’s a reason that SVB existed and it wasn’t because millionaires were keeping too much of their savings in those accounts.
I suggested that the government bail out the customers not the bankers, it seems I need to be careful what I wish for.
Bankers are people deserving the same protections as customers. We must not allow the government to create classes of person having different rights and duties.
That is a foundational American principle that is being lost to our great detriment.
Well, lots to be said. First, anyone with mega deposits who didn’t know the limit of how much was insured is an idiot. One of the first principles is to diversify risk, as in “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. There is a perfectly fine mathematical theory on risk of ruin and how to avoid it. But most people have no clue.
Second, they really had the Biden administration over a barrel, there could easily have been a run on the banks that collapsed the world financial system if the government didn’t step in. It isn’t really about bailing out SVC, it was about stopping global collapse, which a lot of people don’t understand, judging from comments I’ve seen in other places.
if everything is so interconnected that the whole system would collapse because of this, THEN IT DESERVES TO FN COLLAPSE.
Do you think that global collapse could have been avoided by simply emphasizing the $250K FDIC insurance limit?
Or are we really that stupid?
Thanks KH. Bank runs are contagious and quickly get out of control. I wasn’t trying to give SVB bank a pass but to prevent a financial panic. So I get downvoted. Who wants to see the world financial system collapse and return to a world of barter?
They weren’t dumb. These were businesses taking advantages of specific financial arrangements that SVB offered to startups and solar companies among others involving investors, tax benefits, etc
These weren’t ordinary customers or businesses moving deposits into a bank account.
They didn’t think that SVB would collapse and in the event it did, well the feds protected them anyway.
The 2008 bank crisis and government response trained banks to expect protection.
Thanks Daniel One local twist is that a lot of wineries here (Northern California Wine Country) had their accounts at SVB. Reading some of their comments in local news makes me think they have been sampling too much of their product 🙂
One of the dumbest comments was something like “Big banks like that aren’t supposed to fail.” to justify why she put all her assets in the bank. Shows the lack of historical knowledge around here 🙂
I don’t believe that will be the case in the future. Based on all the articles I have read over many years, including numerous articles regarding the economic and financial situation in America, I suspect the country will suffer a severe financial collapse within the next 36 months. Without going into a lot of details, with all the problems with banks, poor balance sheet for many companies, the two Qual trillion dollar of derivatives on a global scale, high credit card debt, high mortgage payments, subprime auto loans, high inflation, high interest rates, and more issues as well, America is not going to make it. This is just my opinion.
When the real financial collapse occurs, the Fed, the U.S government, and any other government agency will not be able to stop it.
Moral collapse is progressing at a brisk clip; and it seems that everything is moving along nicely towards economic collapse. Like clockwork.
What’s next – mandatory implantation of brainchips at birth, or better yet, in utero (that is, for those fetuses “selected” to live). Then free will won’t be a problem anymore.
We are in the Twilight Zone.
The question is, “When will we reach our “Outer Limits?”
In the meantime, I suggest buying State of Israel bonds.
I love those old Twilight Zone episodes! They seem really campy now – and they are, but there were some really fantastic episodes.
Thanks KH. My Mom wouldn’t let me watch Twilight Zone when I was a kid, so I would sneak a look when I could. It was the coolest show on TV at that time 🙂
Once again the American taxpayer takes it in the shorts!!!
Taxpayers are being numbed down by these assaults on their rights. In fact, we’ve come to expect them and feel helpless to do anything to prevent them. Decay has taken hold and nothing surprises anymore. One shrugs and tries to survive.
You and Alabaster are both right on point. After we are numbed down and decayed, we will beg for bread to add to our circuses, which we will buy IF our social credit score activates our digital money.
Hate to be a flaw in the ointment but federal law insures deposits up to $250,000. So where do five people (with conflicts of interest) get the legal authority to insure accounts to an unlimited amount? If I go to Last Vegas and put my entire life savings on red eight will the federal government give me my money back when it comes up black three? There are $8 trillion in uninsured accounts out there. Is the government now insuring all of that? If not, how will it be able to decide which ones to insure and which ones not to without violating equal protection? Not only are we now living in a post-modern world, we are living in a post law world.
Thanks Kasandra. Essentially everything you said is correct. We are living in a post-law world. Essentially they are insuring “all of that”. The joker in the deck is the macro-economic consequences. One thing I enjoy reading about when studying history is financial panics and such. It is analogous to Lincoln breaking all kinds of laws in the Civil War. He had no choice other than losing the war. The macro-economics go back to Keynes and how to get out of the Great Depression. They are putting a patch on the banking problems to try and prevent the financial panic and bank runs from getting out of control Of course it is a huge moral hazard and just a short-term fix for our hopelessly corrupt systems, but as Keynes said, in the long run we are all dead anyway 🙂
It is true that the bankers involved deserve to be “neutralized”, I just don’t want to see the macro-economic system collapse on my head. Ditto for the “investors” who put billions into accounts that were underinsured.
There have been a lot of stories the last few days anyway about bank runs going on under the radar, like investors pulling out of smaller banks and putting their stuff into the biggest banks that are “too big to fail”. So there are a few percent who realize how serious the situation is. Like poker where 95% or more of the players are long-run losers, only a few percent beat the game.
The government has once again effectively nationalized the financial sector, since nothing comes free of charge. If the government is going to insure all deposits, it has the right to them. And then it becomes too late to complain.
Yes that’s what has happened in the UK the banks were effectively nationalised after 2008. It is easy to nationalise something and hard work to denationalise the same thing.
Guess what the government won’t do?
I wish the UK could have another Margaret Thatcher.
If Donald Trump had “saved” banks without limiting the policy to leftist banks, he would have been impeached.
Liberals like to whine about spending on National Defense while kids go to bed Hungry while they look the other way with this Its just so typical of two faced liberal wanks
we can’t end bankster plundering of america until we end the democrat party’s bankster bribes sucking, i.e.., bankster speech fee bribes,
Maxine Waters Unfit to Chair House Financial Services Committee
Considering her record and documented history of poor ethical and moral fitness, it’s outrageous that Maxine Waters is up for chair of the ultra-powerful House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over the country’s banking system, economy, housing, and insurance.
Judicial Watch investigated the scandal and obtained documents from the U.S. Treasury related to the controversial bailout. The famously remiss House Ethics Committee, which is charged with investigating and punishing corrupt lawmakers like Waters, found that she committed no wrongdoing. The panel bought Waters’ absurd story that she allocated the money as part of her longtime work to promote opportunity for minority-owned businesses and lending in underserved communities even though her husband’s bank was located thousands of miles away from the south Los Angeles neighborhoods she represents in Congress.
Now that the U.S. government is guaranteeing all depositors savings accounts. I can’t wait to see what happens when we have a financial crisis involving banks going under involving trillions of dollars in losses. I foresee 50% inflation per year. I see $100,000 a year salary for janitors with benefits. I see small homes around 1,200 square selling for at least 1.5 million dollars. Engineers will probably be earning at least $600, 000 a year. Gas will be at 25 dollars a galleon, no discount for paying cash. The value of a dollar will be dropping like a rock from a roof.
Don’t worry, the WEF promise that you will own nothing, but be happy, whatever that means.
If means if you aren’t happy you’ll keep quiet about it if you know what’s good for you.
Thanks Una 🙂
We’ll own nothing, that part of the promise the Globalists will keep 🙂
I agree with you because every day the Democrats and Republicans are taking away our freedom. We have a government of the politicians, by the lobbyists, and for the special interest groups. They are getting so nicky and picky that they want to tell you what type of stove and washing machine you should have. What else will they regulate?
America will collapse. Here is the latest example of stupidity in Washington D.C. Biden’s budget for 2024 will result, if fully approved, in a 1.6 to 1.8 trillion-dollar deficit.
It means you’ll be free to jabber on about happiness all day while feeling as miserable as Klaus Schwab looks.
It’s a mistake to think that this is only a sales pitch. Rather it’s an accurate summary of their vision for the future with only subjective terms like happiness being murky.
If you own nothing, you don’t own yourself. Maybe klaus will own you. I think that was what he was talking about.
Thanks Cowboy, that’s the idea 🙂
Everything gets nationalized, currency gets devalued, price controls create massive shortages, etc
Sounds familiar.
Thanks Mo. That leads to one of my favorite rants: governments have been debasing the currency since the beginning. Like Rome shaving their coins to get more precious metal.
I have heard objections that the BLM donations from SVB are unproven.
If you trace back from various articles, you get here:
https://dc.claremont.org/blm-funding-database/
But none of those links seem to prove any BLM donations, only general wokeness.
Bankman-Fried payed himself over $2 billion, and his team another $1 billion, before he filed for bankruptcy. Unbelievable how dems are looting America, and getting away with it.
Do you miss Him yet?
Too many elites had money invested. Oprah, for instance, has around $600 million in SVP. The bailout using the good old taxpayer parachute will avoid damaging publicity. But it’s still money laundering on a grand theft scale.
The new business plan for liberal extremists – – – >
1 get woke
2 go broke
3 get bailout
4 make contributions to the right known politicians with bailout money
a don’t forget Hunter Biden’s consulting contract
I would like an investigation into when these super rich people. that were too stupid to understand that their dollars were only insured bup to $250K. I think this is another thing to take down the banks and yet bail our their buddies, like Oprah.
Meanwhile, people like me have to put our monies into several difference bank accounts to get our dollars fully insured by FDIC.
I think this was another planned attacked against America to take down our country and the ones the government is bailing our with our taxdollars, were told to make these deposits.
Time to Start a Bank…then make Bad Deals covered by Uncle Sam…Declare yourself a Multi-Million payout as Salary or a Bonus and still stay in town (Palo Alto).
Not really Folks. A gander at the sec filings show the Bank opted to use Goldman Sachs to issue new stock on March 8th. Instead of using Notes at 20 million a week they went Old School with GS for a New Capital Issue. 1.2 Billion. That brings out Billionaires to the Cocktail Parties in Sand Hill. They look at the prospectus and DON”T LIKE IT.
Just a Retail investor here with prospectuses all over the place…My Bank .Never took the bail out twenty years ago and it is 30 miles from the problem area. Time to Red-line the beautiful elite people?
UBS just bought Credit Suisse (one story I’ve been following).
As one higher up said “I have never seen such measures taken; it shows how bad the situation is.”
Hmm has a familiar ring like the solar energy company that Obama was so happy to give, what was it half a billion, and they donated millions to Democrat campaigns and when broke in less than 3 years. It’s a heck of a way to get the tax payers to fund Democrat campaigns. And all those Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae penalties that ended up routed into Democrat consumer protection charitable organizations that of course support Democrat candidates with donations. Amazing how all that works out. Instead of the money going back into the general fund to pay back the tax payers just have the banks pay the penalties directly to these organizations.