The Guardian published a story this morning about the huge collateral damage caused by the cack-handed response of the UK Government to the coronavirus crisis, although, typically, it attributes this damage to to the pandemic rather than the lockdowns. If you can overcome your irritation about this basic journalistic failure – why not look at how much less damage the “pandemic” has caused in Sweden, for Christ’s sake? – the story is helpful to the sceptics’ cause. It’s based on a new report by the Royal Academy.
Britain faces a “Covid decade” of social and cultural upheaval marked by growing inequality and deepening economic deprivation, a landmark review has concluded.
Major changes to the way society is run in the wake of the pandemic are needed to mitigate the impact of the “long shadow” cast by the virus, including declining public trust and an explosion in mental illness, the British Academy report found.
Published on the anniversary of the UK’s first lockdown, the report brings together more than 200 academic social science and humanities experts and hundreds of research projects. It was set up last year at the behest of the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance.
Ironic that Sir Patrick initiated an inquiry into the colossal harms that, in part at least, have been caused by his own mishandling of this crisis. If only he’d stuck to his guns and continued to follow the sensible course set out in the UK’s Pandemic Preparedness Strategy.
Given that the focus of the Royal Academy’s report – which you can read here – is the increase in inequality over the past year caused by the pandemic lockdowns, it will be interesting to see whether there’s a link between the rise in the Gini coefficient in different regions and the stringency of NPIs. Overwhelmingly likely I’d say, given that we already know there’s a link between the stringency of NPIs and economic damage – and the burden of that damage has already fallen on the least well off and will continue to do so over the next decade.
Worth reading in full.
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So essentially, she turned the bank into a vehicle for her own vanity, and to counter personal perceived grievances against society. Splendid work.
You would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
I do have a heart of stone, and I’m still laughing
It caused share prices to fall. So no, I’m not laughing.
Share prices go up and share prices go down.
Well, if you think the shares are now undervalued, then you should BUY BUY BUY, TonyRS!
Oh, wait, svb collapsed already.
Question is, was the share price fall cause or effect?
I think we can all agree it was an effect.
Except, once again, I expect “the little people” will have their pockets picked in order to bail out the Banksters and Regulators who failed to do their jobs.
Capitalise the profits; socialise the losses.
Point taken.
A useful reminder of the limit to compensation from the BoE if your bank folds; £85K, I think.
I believe that the FDIC will try to recover most if not all of depositors money
It is reported the losses on the fixed interest investments exceed the capital of the bank. The fact they have closed the doors suggests it has gone through their capital ratios. If that is so there is simply not enough there to pay off the depositors in full.
Besides, it will take months to unravel once the big law firms and accounting firms get involved and their fees will be eye watering.
Up to $250,000
Delusional. Completely detatched from reality.
Jay Ersapah…said I “feel privileged to help spread awareness of lived queer experiences, partner with charitable organizations, and above all create a sense of community for our LGBTQ+ employees and allies.”
A bit more attention to the job she was paid to do as opposed to her extracurricular activities might have paid dividends. Assuming of course that she was up to the job in the first place.
Sorry – but I would say rising interest rates and holding a lot of fixed income securities is what done it.
Failure to hedge for this risk shows poor financial accumen.
To paraphrase Warren Buffet.It’s only when the tide goes out that you see who’s not wearing a swimming costume.
Yes, and this “living queer” was more interested in the rainbow, signalling virtue and seeking attention.
So, maybe they should have picked someone who could run a large banking business sooner than someone whos best credential is just being gay!
Lefty idiots deserve all they get!
The FT has a sober analysis of what went wrong on the business side.
The age old banking nemesis: asset/liability mismatching.
Here by ‘Unnecessarily eating chicken but thereby risking to sh*t elephants’.
Should be accessible without Paywall through this link.
A bit of insider knowledge/trading on the large customers side also seems to be present. Plus ça change….
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2023/03/12/the_spectacular_unravelling_of_silicon_valley_bank_593578.html?utm_source=rcp-today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mailchimp-newsletter&mc_cid=673e4aec10
The FT article is not consistent with what has been reported. A temporary solvency problem would be supported by the authorities as that is one of their principal roles. Being a forced seller of that much government bonds would not have seriously upset the bond markets where daily traded volumes are enormous. Some commentators suggest that the losses realised on a sale are in some way different from losses booked when prices fall. That is not really true as bank solvency is a day to day hour to hour issue based on market values.
Management must have known they were bust quite a while ago.
Playing to the gallery of left wing friends is not what they are paid to do and their corporate and regulatory obligations make such activities secondary, to the extent their Directors permit it at all.
Their primary role is to run a compliant, financially secure business. They seem to have invested too much in fixed interest government bonds. I accept the rules do tend towards that but the over-riding obligation is to protect the depositors and the business.
It has been suggested elsewhere that the volume of deposits were so high they were unable to profitably lend (media wrongly calls this “investment”) so they stashed the funds in government securities. Any fool knows that excessive money causes inflation and the principal way of controlling that is for the central banks to raise interest rates. That they have done: too late and too little, I would say, but they did it.
Higher interest rates on all but short term bonds causes a fall in their value. Any bank employee should know that, especially the Risk Officer and whoever decides on investment and liquidity policy within the bank. To get caught out so badly and so suddenly is a disgrace for which heads should roll; disciplinary action should be taken and, I doubt not, litigation will ensue.
As central bank interest rates and guidance has been on a rising trend for so long, and inflation shows no sign of abatement (except in President Biden’s speaches), the falling value of bonds must have been apparent in the management reports at SVB for months. How come no one noticed and adjusted the book accordingly?
I expect that banks around the world will suffer share price drops tomorrow and the sorts of start-ups SVB lent to will also suffer. For most this ought to be short term but the mood of the market is to hammer any stock with any question marks and they generally do not recover quickly. Some VC investment funds and their invested businesses will not survive, no matter how good their underlying businesses. From interviews in California many of them apppear to have had all their surplus cash and all their credit lines with SVB which is unforgivable concentration of risk.
Maybe the FED and FDIC can induce commercial banks to take over SVB but with the likely litigation in prospect, I would be surprised if they thought it worthwhile. Maybe they will agree to take over the balances but not the buisiness; I doubt it.
No tears for Jay please. NHS Trusts will be queuing up to employ her/it/them/whatever
Halifax are you listening?. I withdrew my money because of insisting on pronouns for staff members. They’re the next domino. Get Woke, Go Broke.
It was an asset grab – nothing to do with wokery.