Silicon Valley Bank joined the BLM virtue-signalling…
…to the tune of 73,450,000 dollars.
Small change, comparatively speaking:
The figure comes from an extensive report dropped by the Claremont Institute on Tuesday. The report details $82 billion dollars in social justice/BLM investments by major American companies. SVB stands out as one of the larger donors, next to big donors like Apple ($100 million) and Comcast ($165 million). While at the top of the donation pool, those contributors do pale in comparison to donors like Blackrock ($810 million) and Citigroup ($1.1 billion). However, the group did pledge on their website to provide in total up to $11 billion dollars by 2026 for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs and racial justice causes.
SVB executives explained on their website the turbulent racial atmosphere following the George Floyd killing and protests prompted them to expand “opportunities for dialogue,” a calling that doesn’t seem too have much concrete investment return, but ended up taking $74 million dollars out of bank coffers anyway.
The George Floyd “narrative” that was pushed by the left and the MSM bore tremendous fruit – for BLM itself. Corporations almost immediately, way before any trial or many facts had come out, scrambled to outdo each other in demonstrating their solidarity with the idea that Floyd’s death was a terrible act of murder by a racist cop and was typical of the sort of thing that happens all the time in America. A fiction, but a useful one, and one that persists to this day among a huge percentage of the voting population.
And then we have this report:
Kevin Hassett reveals "there were buyers who were willing to step in & buy [SVB, but] the radicals at the @FDICgov basically weren’t going to allow that to happen … the Biden Admin had a whitelist of companies that were allowed to buy the failed bank & companies that weren’t." pic.twitter.com/Tsp2zPK70t
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 13, 2023
The FDIC was the adult in the room during 2008-09. Has the Democratic Party now ruined yet another once-reliable institution?
Most likely.
And we all KNOW who’ll be left holding the bag for this, um, generous “donation” to “the cause”—and ALL THOSE OTHER “DONATIONS”…
…as that glorious Obama/”Biden” sense of humor kicks in once again…
Yep, this could have been solved without federal money, and yep, the Democratic Party has ruined another once-reliable institution.
We are in deep door doo. If the FDIC is covering deposits regardless of the amount in this instance we are on the hook for all banks that fail.
yes that is the point of the exercise, there is only a limited capacity for rescue of institutions, as tucker points out, institutions like svb and signature didn’t have to do much banking didn’t do any do diligence, because they spoke the magic words, diversity inclusion and equity, but the laws of economics still eventually apply, hsbc another malefactor, picked up the london branch, for the price of a small coke,
I’m absolutely flabbergasted to see that BLM has harvested $82 billion dollars from this grifting race-hustle. Where is the money? What are the controls? Isn’t this a non-profit, subject to annual audit?
Art Deco said: “The FDIC was the adult in the room during 2008-09. Has the Democratic Party now ruined yet another once-reliable institution?”
Yes, Art, they have. I spent a career watching from the inside of the USG beast how these folks think and work.
I’m absolutely flabbergasted to see that BLM has harvested $82 billion dollars from this grifting race-hustle.
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I think someone misplaced a decimal point or two.
Whatever it takes to achieve compulsory adoption of a Central Bank Digital Currency System. Which will of course require a Universal Digital ID System. Both prerequisites to a mandatory American Social Credit System. Comply or else suffer ‘cancellation’. Cash of course both possession and acceptance of which will be a felony.
Gloomy outlooks here. I wish I could inject some good cheer.
Unfortunately, Joey is living up to his reputation. He’s been wrong on every foreign policy issue of the last 40 years. Now he’s demonstrating how to be wrong about domestic and economic issues as well.
As Bar ck optioned, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability y to f things up.”
There don’t seem to be many wise men among the Dems anymore.
I do see a possible solution.
1. Cut government spending back to pre-Covid levels.
2. Hold interest rates where they are for a while.
3. Unleash the domestic oil and gas industry.
4. Bring in civilian and military logistics experts to work the supply chain problem.
5. Don’t raise taxes.
Execute those ideas quickly and keep the public informed of the progress. As the economy and inflation begin cooling, cut interest rates slowly to encourage investment. Then begin cutting regulations.
I have sent my ideas to my Democrat Senators and Representative. They will not read them. They don’t care because they are part of the elite left who don’t really like this country.
I think someone misplaced a decimal point or two. –Art Deco
No. It’s an aggregate total which includes “related causes.”
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Today the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life published the most comprehensive database to date tracking corporate contributions and pledges to the Black Lives Matter movement and related causes from 2020 to the present. Companies and corporations pledged or contributed an astonishing $82.9 billion to the BLM movement and related causes. This includes more than $123 million to the BLM parent organizations directly. These figures, while shocking, likely underrepresent the true magnitude of the shakedown as some companies failed to make known their contributions, and many BLM organizations remain unknown.
https://www.newsweek.com/americans-deserve-know-who-funded-blm-riots-opinion-1787460
Peter Zeihan’s thumbnail sketch of the bank failures is that interest rates went up, bond values went down, and banks holding a lot of long-term bonds were in trouble.
The age of borrowing money for very low interest is ending. Banks and companies which depend on low interest must make adjustments.
Hence, the big tech layoffs and now these bank failures.
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The problem for Silicon Valley Bank and the smaller Silvergate and Signature Bank is that they all took on a questionable amount of exposure to illiquid assets. For SVB, it was a variety of long-term bonds and securities with long durations. Then interest rates started to go up–way up. And SVB was not left with many tools to manage interest rate risk it had not hedged for. When its primary customers–the tech industry–found out, they sounded the alarm. Being the tech world, they’re all relatively well-connected and active on social media, triggering a stampede of customers wanting to pull their cash out more or less simultaneously, or what we’d call a good old-fashioned bank run.
The real thread connecting all of these banking mishaps, however, is one that’s not going to go away anytime soon. Rising capital costs. Many of these banks and their customers have been operating in a world where money has been as close to free as it has ever been in human history. Over the past year, we’ve seen interest rates rise–sharply–and there’s little reason to believe that we’re anywhere near done yet. The fundamental operating paradigm for banks and the financial paradigm of the past decade and a half is shifting, and we’re going to see which financial institutions are able to deal with the change and which ones won’t be able to keep up.
–Peter Zeihan, “The Financial Crisis of 2023?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKE_QisvmdY
Huxley – I do not buy Peter Zeihan’s completely uncharacteristic cold water toss on the New S& L crisis (TM). He claims it is not systemic. But data proves otherwise, and now Credit Suisse – the isolated problem unique to one bank (Ha!) has gone international, with the
Swiss National Bank bulling out a check for $52billion.
Furthermore, we have GDP downgrades if the US from the bank bust. These amount to up to an additional one-half percent to inflation. The net knock on effect means recession sooner.
Reading ZH, we see that banks are going to stiffen lending requirements, which will also further the depth of the coming downturn.
This purgation has been long in coming. Let flowers bloom from the hyperinflated trash wreckage.
And a bit more corruption…for good measure.
California style…
“Gavin Newsom Kept SVB Ties Secret While Lobbying For Bailout”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/gavin-newsom-kept-svb-ties-secret-while-lobbying-bailout
Typically unwholesome…
No. It’s an aggregate total which includes “related causes.”
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No, they gotta show their work. In 2019, the gross revenue of nonprofit institutions was $1,646 bn of which $1,207 was accounted for by sales of goods and services and $439 bn by donations, bequests, and endowment income. It increased to $503 bn in 2020 and fell back to $465 bn in 2021. So, you’re telling me that one dollar in twelve donated in 2020 and 2021 went to some sketchy political cause?
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Corporate retained income amounted to $570 bn in 2020 and $1,090 bn in 2021, so you’re telling me they devoted 5% of that to donations to BLM.
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In 2019, the sum of personal income and the retained earnings of corporations amounted to about $19 tn. The revenue of non-profits from sources other than sales amounted to $439 bn, or 2.3% of that. Some of that $439 bn came from endowment income, so donations and bequests are less than $439 bn. That’s donations to every kind of institution and cause.
In perspective, in a nutshell:
“Biden’s bank bailout just the latest in decades of DC disasters”—
https://nypost.com/2023/03/14/bidens-bank-bailout-just-the-latest-in-decades-of-dc-disasters/
And now with Credite Suisse in trouble, along with the potential domino effect coming down the pike, Klaus must be rubbing his hands in glee…
An even smaller nutshell (pine nut?) that lays it out plain ‘n simple …
“[“Biden”‘s SVB bailout] is not unrelated to why their depositors got government bailouts. It’s a sort of protection racket. And it works.” [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]—
https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1635760065578782725
H/T Lee Smith Twitter feed.
Oh BTW, has Krugman chimed in yet with some golden words of shining wisdom on this particular “issue”? Just wondering….
https://www.wsj.com/articles/stress-testing-wouldnt-have-saved-silicon-valley-bank-fomc-federal-reserve-treasury-bank-run-signature-bank-1573ab77?st=fc6wrz8yprmpas5&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
From the WSJ article linked to just above:
“…In fact, stress testing itself is failing and should be the focus of the Biden administration’s review of federal bank regulation….”
The fact that the authors of this—albeit most informative—piece assume that “Biden” wishes to fix anything is, at this stage of the debacle, gobsmacking.
(But at least they put to rest the bogus charges against Trump…trotted out by the Democrats in an effort to distract from the role “Biden”-induced inflation played, AND IS PLAYING, in the—one can ONLY conclude intentionally caused—financial mayhem.
… the Biden Admin had a whitelist of companies that were allowed to buy the failed bank & companies that weren’t.” ………………..the basic giveaway that there’s a substantial kick back to the Dems, the “Big Guy”, or both
As I understand, the FDIC initially would not accept bids from the big four banks. Misguided perhaps (or perhaps not), but not particularly sinister. Later, after no one was interested–PNC said after some due diligence “no thanks”–the bigger banks were solicited, but they weren’t interested either. At this point, it’s unlikely that anyone will step up, as deposits and bankers are walking out the door daily.
More connections – once the sweater stops unraveling where will it end?
https://twitter.com/thereidout/status/1636473938082693120
Story from MSNBC.
Of course, Democrats hate her, so …
No links provided by Phares, so no way to look at what he’s talking about.
If there is any there there, it should show up on other outlets.
https://twitter.com/WalidPhares/status/1636139092126715913
If true, that certainly wouldn’t be good.
But then, maybe the Iranians and Chinese can start a fight over who owns which politicians and institutions.
Sometimes it pays to virtue signal.
…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.