Okay, I gotta hit publish. My system wants to update itself.
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.
Three of the four largest-ever U.S. bank failures have occurred in the past two months. First Republic, with some $233 billion in assets at the end of the first quarter, ranks just behind the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual Inc. Rounding out the top four are Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, a New York-based lender that also failed in March.[1]
In addition to this, the long-term debt problems that beset Silicon Valley and Signature Banks are flatly not uncommon throughout the industry. But somehow, from a lot of the coverage I’m seeing, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and now First Republic Bank are mere rotten apples, not as Nouriel Roubini argues, examples of a general or at least common enough rule.[2]
It is institutionally necessary, however, to downplay that (I’m presuming) truth, for if folks sniffing around more banks keep sounding alarms, then those banks too become vulnerable to loss of confidence and bank runs. And we certainly wouldn’t want this spiraling out to ever more institutions, now, would we?
It’s almost as if the banks are of a shrinking pool of virgins to be sacrificed, how many will be left when the mob bays for ever more sacrifice?
And no, I’m pretty damned near absolutely sure that isn’t how “they,” them, of course, not us, of course, selected victims for sacrifice. And if we’re howling for ever more sacrifice, I’m pretty damned near absolutely sure it isn’t the rich men’s daughters we would toss into the nearest closest approximation to hell—always wise to keep an erupting volcano or two around for just this purpose—but, well, do I really need to spell it out?
Lauren Hirsch, Maureen Farrell, and Jeanna Smialek, “Regulators Prepare to Seize and Sell First Republic,” New York Times, April 30, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/business/first-republic-seizure-fdic.html
Telis Demos and Aaron Back, “With First Republic, JPMorgan’s Dimon Gets Over Financial Crisis Laments,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/with-first-republic-jpmorgans-dimon-gets-over-financial-crisis-laments-6d19041f
Rachel Louise Ensign and Ben Eisen, “First Republic Bank Is Seized, Sold to JPMorgan in Second-Largest U.S. Bank Failure,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-republic-bank-is-seized-sold-to-jpmorgan-in-second-largest-u-s-bank-failure-5cec723
Rachel Louise Ensign et al., “Why First Republic Bank Collapsed,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-republic-bank-collapse-why-banking-crisis-61660d96
Commercial real estate
Fig. 2. “The iconic Crescent stands as recognizable landmark in the upscale neighborhood of Uptown, Dallas.” Photograph by Dallasedits [pseud.], July 5, 2016, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Eric Platt and Harriet Agnew, “Charlie Munger: US banks are ‘full of’ bad commercial property loans,” Financial Times, April 30, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/da9f8230-2eb1-49c5-b63a-f1507936d01b
Imperialism
United States
Fig. 3. “American Progress,” painting by John Gast, 1872, digital version 2006, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
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Ishaan Tharoor, “Eyeing China, Biden official floats a new ‘Washington consensus,’” Washington Post, May 1, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2023/05/01/washington-consensus-china-trade-sullivan-protectionism/
- [1]Rachel Louise Ensign and Ben Eisen, “First Republic Bank Is Seized, Sold to JPMorgan in Second-Largest U.S. Bank Failure,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-republic-bank-is-seized-sold-to-jpmorgan-in-second-largest-u-s-bank-failure-5cec723↩
- [2]Izabella Kaminska, “Bad bonds risk bringing down banks, warns ‘Dr Doom,’” Politico, March 16, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/bad-bonds-risk-bringing-down-banks-warns-dr-doom-nouriel-roubini-svb/; Nouriel Roubini, “‘Most U.S. banks are technically near insolvency, and hundreds are already fully insolvent,’ Roubini says,” MarketWatch, April 1, 2023, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-u-s-banks-are-technically-near-insolvency-and-hundreds-are-already-fully-insolvent-roubini-says-18b89f92↩