This isn’t a surprise. The deposit holders will get reimbursed . I agree with Ro Khanna the insider compensation should be clawed back if there is any way to do so. In a bankruptcy case, if a corporation or individual debtor did this, it would be deemed a preferential transfer within 90 days and the trustee could claw back the cash. I am.not as familiar with bank regulation, so I am not aware if bank regulators have similar power. As for the 19th century and the modern gold bugs and Mises worshippers, we were on the gold standard up until the 1929 crash and in the 19th century there was an economic crash every 20 years or so. There was no one there to protect the ordinary person until the New Deal era.
And most of the deposits in SVB were over $250k; Come On! Like these people didn't know what they were doing all along? I was trying to close a $300 million dollar deal just days before the crash of 2008. Lehman Bros. was our lead bank. We were so highly leveraged, paying 14% interest rates on commercial debt. Well, we all know what happened. Funny thing; the bank that ended up smelling like a rose and taking over the company was Cerberus. Who names an investment bank after the three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hell? Oh, and Cerberus kept the most profitable subs - the gun parts and military components manufacturers. Cerberus went on to invest heavily in Colt and other gun companies. The markup on gun parts is like 400% by the finished product.
America is sacrificing its children in public spaces like schools, so that gun manufacturers and NRA executives can make millions. But kids need protection from drag queen story hour, really?
Times seem even more perilous now. Human greed remains the same, but now we are poised on the tipping point of climate collapse. And then, cowering in their luxury bunkers in Germany, what good will all that money do the morbidly wealthy? Money itself becomes meaningless at the end of the Earth’s ability to sustain us. Talk about killing the goose that lays golden eggs.
Excessive wealth seems to cause stupidity in most people. We need to save us from our own damn idiocy. Regulations are the best place to start.
Thanks for this Thom (and for that Link the other day about the luxury bunkers for doomsday billionaires.)
Such a great truth. Unfortunately, many have lost, or are in the process of losing their soul. If they would do the reverse of this proverb you've given, we wouldn't be in such a predicament.
It doesn't make any sense that finite beings squander precious moments of life by accumulating material things beyond what their basic needs require just to lose it all upon death. Think of what a wonderful world this could be if Homo sapiens would only realize that hard truth at the age of reasoning rather that at the moment of death. We can learn the wisdom of the proper balance from nature and the purity of creation.
I had a chuckle (good for a black Monday morning) seeing Pence right next to TFG when signing the deregulation. And a secondary ahha on your mention of Manchin also on the take with his pitch to deregulate.
Warren and Sanders come out as big winners and truth-tellers
Thanks Thom; once again, you two make a good team. I'd add Marianne Williamson to the list of big winners -- she's also, like Warren & Sanders, a truth-teller. In her run for President, I have to wonder if she's consulted Thom Hartmann's books -- his research and knowledge is an asset for all politicians.
Thom didn't answer my question about his support for Marianne. I'm with you, Maverick. She's not only a truth-teller but a consciousness-raiser, which we need more that anything. People who are awake to a bigger reality would create the world we'd like to be in.
Suzanne, I didn't see your question, but maybe he hasn't seen it yet? He's a busy man. I strongly agree that Marianne is a consciousness-raiser, and as such she may be just what America is needing to get them back on track. Making America great again isn't going to happen through a grifter like Trump; Biden has made some strides towards that end, but the Democratic party, and America as a whole, needs a new superstar, and Marianne may be just what's needed.
Great article Thom. The invisible hand of the free market has been investing in foreign countries the last 45 years instead of an American manufacturing. This makes the predators even more dangerous, globalism.
Your article was written as plainly and as simply as possible, but I can't imagine any of the Trump supporters being able to comprehend anything over two syllables. The right wing propaganda machine will blame Biden and not deregulation which has destroyed countries and will destroy America.
When Thom opened and closed this important essay by noting the Iroquois learned that “working on behalf of and protecting society from greedy predators should be the first job of every government,” I couldn’t help but wonder if Alexander Hamilton was thinking about that when he said, “We are attempting, by this Constitution, to abolish factions, and to unite all parties for the general welfare.” I think that Hamilton’s description of our government’s purpose and Thom Hartmann’s wisdom from the Iroquois are both accurate and contain the same requirements. At least they are the same if you use James Madison’s definition of “factions” and assume it is an exact equivalent to “greedy predators.” Which I do.
Consider law that President has to be born in this country was passed to prevent Hamilton from ever holding the office! His call to unite all parties would never have been uttered by most if not all of the other so called founding fathers!!
"Moneyed interests" are the most dangerous of all factions. In essence, money is power, which is the whole point. There is no degree where enough is enough.
It is disturbing , to put it mildly, that these “ sociopaths” who believe they are entitled to whatever amount of money that they can accumulate, and screw anyone that might be in their way.
“Not their problem “ if others are ruined.
And over and over again , others are ruined.
Its a testament to our un just justices, that is of course the agreement between the Heritage Foundation and the Koch brothers who are also destroyers of Democracy.
The greed heads, the oligarchs, the plutocrats can't stop what they are doing, they are like shaarks.
If a shark stops swimming it suffocates. These people are trapped, by their own greed and need, in an entropic cycle, If they stop they suffocate for lack of money, if they don't stop, they bring everyone down with them, eventually.
The oil barons, the CEO's, the Boards of the carbon industry, have no choice, if they are going to survive tomorrow,but to keep doing what they are doing, to lie, to exploit, and they know what they are doing is destructive,, a 1972 Report by ESSO admitted that what they are doing will lead to an anthropegene annihilation, but they are banking that it won't affect them, here and now, and here and now the only thing they care about is their own social standing, their power, their toys.
If they won't stop of their own accord, then they must be stopped from without.
The Rethuglicons are anti-regulation and their stalwarts beginning with Reagan enabled the mega-rich to get richer yet; DJT was the final apotheosis. Now they will attack and blame Democrats.
Just like the SN rail disaster; DJT rolls back the regulations that Obama brought in, the inevitable happens and then the GOP attack Biden for a weak response, even though the Governor is Republican and should have led the response.
Plus ca change…….few can resist the lure of big, big money
The corporate owned and controlled media has failed to mention that banks keep very little of their customers deposits in cash and that a run will take down any bank unless the government chooses to intervene. The Federal Reserve's unconscionable repeated increases in the interest rate paid by banks is what spooked people at Silicon Valley Bank and led to a run by depositors and the collapse of the bank.
Most of the depositors were small startups with millions on deposit to pay their workforce. These businesses with 40 or more employees on average will not recover with the FDIC paying them $250,000. Our skilled engineers will be filing for unemployment and the entire region will suffer thanks to the Federal Reserve - not that they give a damn.
The Federal Reserve is one more tool of the elites to loot the wealth of workers in addition to the regressive taxes already being levied by federal, state, and local authorities. This is the same Keynsian strategy that Churchill used to loot the people of India during World War II to pay for Britains war costs and which led to the Bengal famine of 1943, during which several million men, women, and children starved to death. But they were not white people so it was not a concern according to Churchill. Much the same attitude prevails with the elites of the United States.
Psychopaths are not racist, they hate everyone equally. The Federal reserve is destroying the American economy in my opinion, in order to get a right wing regressive in office.
The greed-heads can never be "stopped." The best we can hope is to delay, impede, and deter. Their attitude toward money is no different from this guy's.
Maybe they can't be stopped, but they can be out-voted and marginalized if enough people wake the fck up! The majority of voters understanding the crux of the problem at a deep psychological level -- that greed is bad, very, very bad! -- is the only way out of the swamp. We have a long, hard trek ahead of us to become truly "woke."
Alan Greenspan (bless his 97 year old heart) is the first "educated idiot" I heard say out loud that he thought the banks would do the right thing, because it was in their own interests. He was under oath in front of Congress. I believe he believes it. He likes Friedman, Rand and Hayek, so there you go.
You know these people slept through their psychology classes. Since greed goes back to the first family of Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, you would think they could figure out that nothing is off the table when it comes to humans.
It's so so simple. We had common-sense regulations and the bankers paid to have them removed---FOR A REASON. Thom could testify and so could we. Congress should listen to our common sense, not the Greenspans of the world.
Once again we find ourselves staring over the abyss of what may grow into the next recession.
The banksters will find any and all means to cheat, lie and grift. I'd like to say with the hard earned money of working class people, but that would be wrong. Because 80% of the depositors were well over $250,000.
More than likely we will soon have to confront the "laundry money wash cycle" that is in fact our current economy. What I mean by this is a process of fleecing working people and then investing the money in monetary scams like crypto, offshoring and bizarre, Real Estate swamplands, and "investment instruments"; all of which are not funding anything other than the wash, rinse repeat cycle of making money from nothing.
It's about to get really, really bad. And once again Republicans set the stage for a disaster they can blame on Democratic Presidencies.
Oh, well I don't have too many years left for endless suffering.
...unless reincarnation is a thing. And if given the option of all the zillions of planets to choose from, don't be fooled by the beauty of planet Earth. It's overrun by monkey-people flinging shit at each other.
Your comment reminds me of something that I read recently in a tract regarding environmental matters. The author pointed out that we do not live in a “Spaceship Earth” in a perfectly harmonious Garden of Eden that just requires tender care. The reality is that for all living things there is a constant fight to survive. I often think about what two months with no electricity in this state would mean. Probably monkey people firing AR15s at each other as well as the shit they already do.
Great article. I only hear the news headlines, but can count on you Thom to give me the backstory, and the real backstory unbiased by special interests. I've learned from you that corporations are behind many of the woes you Americans face; the way in which they've rigged the system with the help of SCOTUS. Their board members can excuse their bad behavior by saying they were only trying to bring maximum return for their investors, which I suppose they feel assuaged by. As for DJT, he's a unique case in that he's so narcissistic; while he has a corporation named after him, he's mostly all about promoting himself and his name.
This isn’t a surprise. The deposit holders will get reimbursed . I agree with Ro Khanna the insider compensation should be clawed back if there is any way to do so. In a bankruptcy case, if a corporation or individual debtor did this, it would be deemed a preferential transfer within 90 days and the trustee could claw back the cash. I am.not as familiar with bank regulation, so I am not aware if bank regulators have similar power. As for the 19th century and the modern gold bugs and Mises worshippers, we were on the gold standard up until the 1929 crash and in the 19th century there was an economic crash every 20 years or so. There was no one there to protect the ordinary person until the New Deal era.
Use this chart https://thedemlabs.org/2023/03/13/billionaires-rigg-system-to-dodge-taxes-but-get-federal-bailouts-first-silicon-valley-bank-collapses-follow-the-money/ to follow the money from Silicon Valley Bank and VCs to lobbyists and Republicans who blocked reforms that would have strengthened the banking system.
And most of the deposits in SVB were over $250k; Come On! Like these people didn't know what they were doing all along? I was trying to close a $300 million dollar deal just days before the crash of 2008. Lehman Bros. was our lead bank. We were so highly leveraged, paying 14% interest rates on commercial debt. Well, we all know what happened. Funny thing; the bank that ended up smelling like a rose and taking over the company was Cerberus. Who names an investment bank after the three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hell? Oh, and Cerberus kept the most profitable subs - the gun parts and military components manufacturers. Cerberus went on to invest heavily in Colt and other gun companies. The markup on gun parts is like 400% by the finished product.
Ah the makers of children killing weapons continue to rule! And so many claim this is the best country in the world!! Best for what? For Whom??
America is sacrificing its children in public spaces like schools, so that gun manufacturers and NRA executives can make millions. But kids need protection from drag queen story hour, really?
Times seem even more perilous now. Human greed remains the same, but now we are poised on the tipping point of climate collapse. And then, cowering in their luxury bunkers in Germany, what good will all that money do the morbidly wealthy? Money itself becomes meaningless at the end of the Earth’s ability to sustain us. Talk about killing the goose that lays golden eggs.
Excessive wealth seems to cause stupidity in most people. We need to save us from our own damn idiocy. Regulations are the best place to start.
Thanks for this Thom (and for that Link the other day about the luxury bunkers for doomsday billionaires.)
Humans. Sigh.
Gain the world; lose your soul.
Such a great truth. Unfortunately, many have lost, or are in the process of losing their soul. If they would do the reverse of this proverb you've given, we wouldn't be in such a predicament.
It doesn't make any sense that finite beings squander precious moments of life by accumulating material things beyond what their basic needs require just to lose it all upon death. Think of what a wonderful world this could be if Homo sapiens would only realize that hard truth at the age of reasoning rather that at the moment of death. We can learn the wisdom of the proper balance from nature and the purity of creation.
Agreed DeeDee D -- regulations are the best place to start. Otherwise, it's up to calamity to smarten humans up, and none of us want calamity.
Great report. Thank you.
I had a chuckle (good for a black Monday morning) seeing Pence right next to TFG when signing the deregulation. And a secondary ahha on your mention of Manchin also on the take with his pitch to deregulate.
Warren and Sanders come out as big winners and truth-tellers
Thanks Thom; once again, you two make a good team. I'd add Marianne Williamson to the list of big winners -- she's also, like Warren & Sanders, a truth-teller. In her run for President, I have to wonder if she's consulted Thom Hartmann's books -- his research and knowledge is an asset for all politicians.
Thom didn't answer my question about his support for Marianne. I'm with you, Maverick. She's not only a truth-teller but a consciousness-raiser, which we need more that anything. People who are awake to a bigger reality would create the world we'd like to be in.
Suzanne, I didn't see your question, but maybe he hasn't seen it yet? He's a busy man. I strongly agree that Marianne is a consciousness-raiser, and as such she may be just what America is needing to get them back on track. Making America great again isn't going to happen through a grifter like Trump; Biden has made some strides towards that end, but the Democratic party, and America as a whole, needs a new superstar, and Marianne may be just what's needed.
Great again for whom? For all too many it has been far less than great! Think of homeless Veterans!
He didn't mean it like Trump does. -- Maverick should have put it in quotes. Marianne totally agrees with you as I do and I'm sure Maverick does.
Great article Thom. The invisible hand of the free market has been investing in foreign countries the last 45 years instead of an American manufacturing. This makes the predators even more dangerous, globalism.
Your article was written as plainly and as simply as possible, but I can't imagine any of the Trump supporters being able to comprehend anything over two syllables. The right wing propaganda machine will blame Biden and not deregulation which has destroyed countries and will destroy America.
I suspect Trump supporters don't read anything outside their own bubble. Comprehending the truth of things is not their forte.
When Thom opened and closed this important essay by noting the Iroquois learned that “working on behalf of and protecting society from greedy predators should be the first job of every government,” I couldn’t help but wonder if Alexander Hamilton was thinking about that when he said, “We are attempting, by this Constitution, to abolish factions, and to unite all parties for the general welfare.” I think that Hamilton’s description of our government’s purpose and Thom Hartmann’s wisdom from the Iroquois are both accurate and contain the same requirements. At least they are the same if you use James Madison’s definition of “factions” and assume it is an exact equivalent to “greedy predators.” Which I do.
Consider law that President has to be born in this country was passed to prevent Hamilton from ever holding the office! His call to unite all parties would never have been uttered by most if not all of the other so called founding fathers!!
"Moneyed interests" are the most dangerous of all factions. In essence, money is power, which is the whole point. There is no degree where enough is enough.
It is disturbing , to put it mildly, that these “ sociopaths” who believe they are entitled to whatever amount of money that they can accumulate, and screw anyone that might be in their way.
“Not their problem “ if others are ruined.
And over and over again , others are ruined.
Its a testament to our un just justices, that is of course the agreement between the Heritage Foundation and the Koch brothers who are also destroyers of Democracy.
The greed heads, the oligarchs, the plutocrats can't stop what they are doing, they are like shaarks.
If a shark stops swimming it suffocates. These people are trapped, by their own greed and need, in an entropic cycle, If they stop they suffocate for lack of money, if they don't stop, they bring everyone down with them, eventually.
The oil barons, the CEO's, the Boards of the carbon industry, have no choice, if they are going to survive tomorrow,but to keep doing what they are doing, to lie, to exploit, and they know what they are doing is destructive,, a 1972 Report by ESSO admitted that what they are doing will lead to an anthropegene annihilation, but they are banking that it won't affect them, here and now, and here and now the only thing they care about is their own social standing, their power, their toys.
If they won't stop of their own accord, then they must be stopped from without.
Entirely predictable, for sure.
The Rethuglicons are anti-regulation and their stalwarts beginning with Reagan enabled the mega-rich to get richer yet; DJT was the final apotheosis. Now they will attack and blame Democrats.
Just like the SN rail disaster; DJT rolls back the regulations that Obama brought in, the inevitable happens and then the GOP attack Biden for a weak response, even though the Governor is Republican and should have led the response.
Plus ca change…….few can resist the lure of big, big money
The corporate owned and controlled media has failed to mention that banks keep very little of their customers deposits in cash and that a run will take down any bank unless the government chooses to intervene. The Federal Reserve's unconscionable repeated increases in the interest rate paid by banks is what spooked people at Silicon Valley Bank and led to a run by depositors and the collapse of the bank.
Most of the depositors were small startups with millions on deposit to pay their workforce. These businesses with 40 or more employees on average will not recover with the FDIC paying them $250,000. Our skilled engineers will be filing for unemployment and the entire region will suffer thanks to the Federal Reserve - not that they give a damn.
The Federal Reserve is one more tool of the elites to loot the wealth of workers in addition to the regressive taxes already being levied by federal, state, and local authorities. This is the same Keynsian strategy that Churchill used to loot the people of India during World War II to pay for Britains war costs and which led to the Bengal famine of 1943, during which several million men, women, and children starved to death. But they were not white people so it was not a concern according to Churchill. Much the same attitude prevails with the elites of the United States.
Psychopaths are not racist, they hate everyone equally. The Federal reserve is destroying the American economy in my opinion, in order to get a right wing regressive in office.
The greed-heads can never be "stopped." The best we can hope is to delay, impede, and deter. Their attitude toward money is no different from this guy's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YhCMQneyA4
Unlimited greed, (capitalism), and Jesus have never mixed. When the Trump supporters call America a Christian Nation it just shows how crazy they are.
Maybe they can't be stopped, but they can be out-voted and marginalized if enough people wake the fck up! The majority of voters understanding the crux of the problem at a deep psychological level -- that greed is bad, very, very bad! -- is the only way out of the swamp. We have a long, hard trek ahead of us to become truly "woke."
Alan Greenspan (bless his 97 year old heart) is the first "educated idiot" I heard say out loud that he thought the banks would do the right thing, because it was in their own interests. He was under oath in front of Congress. I believe he believes it. He likes Friedman, Rand and Hayek, so there you go.
You know these people slept through their psychology classes. Since greed goes back to the first family of Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, you would think they could figure out that nothing is off the table when it comes to humans.
It's so so simple. We had common-sense regulations and the bankers paid to have them removed---FOR A REASON. Thom could testify and so could we. Congress should listen to our common sense, not the Greenspans of the world.
Unfortunately , as in so many other instances, listening to ‘ money talking’ is far more sought after than regular people who have no equivalent in
Greed IS self-regulating -- working on behalf of and protecting greedy predators from society.
Once again we find ourselves staring over the abyss of what may grow into the next recession.
The banksters will find any and all means to cheat, lie and grift. I'd like to say with the hard earned money of working class people, but that would be wrong. Because 80% of the depositors were well over $250,000.
More than likely we will soon have to confront the "laundry money wash cycle" that is in fact our current economy. What I mean by this is a process of fleecing working people and then investing the money in monetary scams like crypto, offshoring and bizarre, Real Estate swamplands, and "investment instruments"; all of which are not funding anything other than the wash, rinse repeat cycle of making money from nothing.
It's about to get really, really bad. And once again Republicans set the stage for a disaster they can blame on Democratic Presidencies.
Oh, well I don't have too many years left for endless suffering.
Ah, Ol Cracker…each day is precious….rage on, it’s good for your health!
...unless reincarnation is a thing. And if given the option of all the zillions of planets to choose from, don't be fooled by the beauty of planet Earth. It's overrun by monkey-people flinging shit at each other.
Your comment reminds me of something that I read recently in a tract regarding environmental matters. The author pointed out that we do not live in a “Spaceship Earth” in a perfectly harmonious Garden of Eden that just requires tender care. The reality is that for all living things there is a constant fight to survive. I often think about what two months with no electricity in this state would mean. Probably monkey people firing AR15s at each other as well as the shit they already do.
Humans are great problem solvers; now, they must solve the monumental problems of their own making. Or go extinct. Such is the way of the world.
Great article. I only hear the news headlines, but can count on you Thom to give me the backstory, and the real backstory unbiased by special interests. I've learned from you that corporations are behind many of the woes you Americans face; the way in which they've rigged the system with the help of SCOTUS. Their board members can excuse their bad behavior by saying they were only trying to bring maximum return for their investors, which I suppose they feel assuaged by. As for DJT, he's a unique case in that he's so narcissistic; while he has a corporation named after him, he's mostly all about promoting himself and his name.