The markets are not reassured—but close higher anyway

Banking

Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Credit Suisse, 2023


Fig. 1. “The monument sign in front of the parking lot of the Silicon Valley Bank headquarters at 3003 West Tasman Drive, Santa Clara, California.” Photograph by Minh Nguyen, March 13, 2023, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Swiss authorities wanted the deal for UBS to buy Credit Suisse very, very badly and very, very fast:[1]

“The worst was averted but as cooler heads prevail the question is whether UBS just got Credit Suisse very cheaply, or is the banking system as a whole very overvalued,” said Peter Tchir, global market strategist at Academy Securities.[2]

What I’m seeing in the newsletters is that markets are not reassured. But in the event, they closed higher anyway.[3]

Margot Patrick, Justin Baer, and Dana Cimilluca, “UBS Nears Deal to Take Over Credit Suisse,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-in-talks-to-take-over-credit-suisse-ed932b01

William D. Cohan, “The Last Days of SVB,” Puck, March 19, 2023, https://puck.news/the-last-days-of-svb/

David Goldman, “FDIC sells most of failed Signature Bank to Flagstar,” CNN, March 19, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/19/investing/fdic-signature-bank-assets-flagstar-hnk-intl/index.html

Margot Patrick et al., “UBS Agrees to Buy Credit Suisse for More Than $3 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-offers-1-billion-to-take-over-credit-suisse-bfac51fa

Joe Rennison, “Banks Remain Under Pressure as Investors Eye Fallout From Rescue Deals,” New York Times, March 20, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/business/markets-today.html


Imperialism

United States

Iraq

Ishaan Tharoor, “How the U.S. broke Iraq,” Washington Post, March 20, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/03/20/iraq-broken-united-states-invasion-20/


Gilead

Academic repression


Fig. 1. “The Evolution of Intellectual Freedom.” Comic by Jorge Cham, 2011, via Episyllogism[4] fair use.

There is a new blog post entitled, “The closing of the Florida mind.”

Megan Zahneis, “A Florida Professor Lost His Job After Complaints About His Lessons on Racial Justice,” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 17, 2023, https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-florida-professor-lost-his-job-after-complaints-about-his-lessons-on-racial-justice


Self-driving cars


Fig. 1. Photograph by Mark Doliner, August 1, 2012, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Elon Musk ordered this and refused his engineers’ advice against it:[5]

In May 2021 Tesla announced it was eliminating radar on new cars. Soon after, the company began disabling radar in cars already on the road. The result, according to interviews with nearly a dozen former employees and test drivers, safety officials and other experts, was an uptick in crashes, near misses and other embarrassing mistakes by Tesla vehicles suddenly deprived of a critical sensor.[6]

I have said before that Musk believes he’s the smartest person in any room he’s in, and, indeed, that he’s the only one with any intelligence whatsoever. Looks like I was right.

Faiz Siddiqui, “How Elon Musk knocked Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ off course,” Washington Post, March 19, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/19/elon-musk-tesla-driving/


Gilead

Donald Trump

Stormy Daniels


Fig. 1. Stormy Daniels at Ron Jeremy’s birthday party. Photograph by Luke Ford (Lukeisback.com), March 10, 2007, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.

Jonathan Dienst, “Law enforcement agencies are prepping for a possible Trump indictment as early as next week,” NBC News, March 17, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/law-enforcement-agencies-are-prepping-possible-trump-indictment-early-rcna75493

Maggie Haberman et al., “Trump Claims His Arrest Is Imminent and Calls for Protests, Echoing Jan. 6,” New York Times, March 18, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/trump-indictment-arrest-protests.html

Joe Palazzolo and Corinne Ramey, “Donald Trump Braces for Potential Charges in N.Y. Hush-Money Case, Calls for Protests,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-braces-for-potential-charges-calls-for-protests-dd879b1f

Tom Nichols, “Trump Did It Again,” Atlantic, March 18, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/trump-arrest-indictment-protesters-mob/673437/

Hugo Lowell, “Trump in panic mode as he braces for likely charges in Stormy Daniels case,” Guardian, March 19, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/19/trump-manhattan-criminal-charges-hush-money-stormy-daniels

Charlie Savage, “Dissecting Charges That Could Arise From the Trump Investigations,” New York Times, March 19, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/us/politics/trump-investigations.html

Coup attempt


Fig. 1. “Jake Angeli (Qanon Shaman), seen holding a Qanon sign at the intersection of Bell Rd and 75th Ave in Peoria, Arizona, on 2020 October 15.” Photography by TheUnseen011101 [pseud.], October 15, 2020, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Charlie Savage, “Dissecting Charges That Could Arise From the Trump Investigations,” New York Times, March 19, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/us/politics/trump-investigations.html


  1. [1]Margot Patrick, Justin Baer, and Dana Cimilluca, “UBS Nears Deal to Take Over Credit Suisse,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-in-talks-to-take-over-credit-suisse-ed932b01; Margot Patrick et al., “UBS Agrees to Buy Credit Suisse for More Than $3 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-offers-1-billion-to-take-over-credit-suisse-bfac51fa
  2. [2]Joe Rennison, “Banks Remain Under Pressure as Investors Eye Fallout From Rescue Deals,” New York Times, March 20, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/business/markets-today.html
  3. [3]Wall Street Journal, “https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/US/DJIA,” March 20, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/US/DJIA
  4. [4]Bob Lane, “Academic Freedom,” Episyllogism, November 3, 2016, https://boblane.com/2016/11/03/academic-freedom/
  5. [5]Faiz Siddiqui, “How Elon Musk knocked Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ off course,” Washington Post, March 19, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/19/elon-musk-tesla-driving/
  6. [6]Faiz Siddiqui, “How Elon Musk knocked Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ off course,” Washington Post, March 19, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/19/elon-musk-tesla-driving/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.