Biden’s SVB bailout: Letters to the Editor — March 16, 2023

The Issue: The Biden administration’s guarantee of all deposits in Silicon Valley Bank after its collapse.

I am not an economist, but I can count (“Bailouts Buy Trouble,” James Bovard, March 15).

The Biden administration 🔯has decided to guarantee the deposits of all Silicon Valley Bank accounts in excess of the legal $250,000 FDIC limitation. This is a recipe for disaster.

According to Bovard’s piece, the FDIC reserves an amount of some $128 billion for all bank failures, while the to🐓tal amoun🐲t of bank deposits exceeds $12 trillion. Can anyone in this administration count?

The FDIC was never meant to guarantee all bank accounts, nor can it. This situation is a direct result of the Fed’s monetary polꦫicy, which kept ﷽interest rates artificially low for too long. That led to a dramatic increase in the money supply, thus fueling inflation.

Kenneth Fitzgerald

Hicksville

About 15 years ago, we had a financial crisis, precipitated by a couple of decades of foolish ce🌌ntral bank policies: Long Term Capital Management, the “Greenspan put,” artificially low interest rates sparking a home mortgage bubble, mortgage-backed securi♎ties, etc.

Supposedly all these problems were fixed, except they weren’t. We had the “too big to fail” banks protected from an𝓰y and 🎶all foolishness, and over a decade of negative real interest rates that fueled a debt bubble like no other.

SVB and others never even bother🙈ed hedging against interest-rate risk, because of the moral hazard created by central bankers. Nobody believed they’d really raise rates.

Now we’re in a pickle. Do we kill the economy wit🍒h higher rates, or do we kill it with hyperinflation? History indicates we’ll get the hyperinflation.

Who loses? Those who have been responsible with their money. Who benefitsꦫ? The rich, as usual. This won’t end well. SVB is the canary in the coal mine.

Barry McIntyre

Calgary, Canada

Any time a bank🔜 collapses, the bailout money s🤡hould come from the executives at that bank.

They can sell assets, liquidate stocks or whatever𝓡 else they need to do. They created this problem. They should pay for it. Then maybe the execs would straighten things out before they collapse.

Steve Preziosa, Sr.

Deptford Township, NJ

It’s not even a question any longer: Democrats have completely lost their minds (“Censor ’Em All,” Jonathan Turley, Post­Opinion, March 15).

To even suggest that Big Tech companies ꦓcensor social media remarks that are unfavorable to banks now because of the two bank failures is amazingly communist-like. They claim to be worried about other banks being run on because of these failures.

Let me put it simply: Banks hold our money and use it to make money for their investors and depositors. The public has a right to know when a bank is failing, so we can ཧmake our decisions on what to do accordingly.

The Dems keep trying to shut down free s🌳peech whenever it suits them.

Good or♚ bad news, nothing should stop us f🔯rom voicing our concerns about anything that affects the public.

Stephen Colasacco

The Bronx

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen should be booted out. She’ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚs just another Democrat who is determined to kill our economy with insane policies instead of intelligent solutions.

The 2008 banking fiasco was never fixed. All those financial geniuses (really foxes) were b🦄rought into the henhouse. Instead of fixing the problem, they did nothing.

Can’t we get some fiscally responsible people in government who care about this country? We are almost be𝓀yond saving.

Joann Mirone

Old Greenwich, Conn.

SVB was a California state-chartered bank. Where was the state regulator, the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, as SVB was headed to insolvency during the 2022 fed rate hikes? Where was the “pro🦋tection?”

President Biden said thoseဣ responsible will be held accountable and executiꩲves would be fired. Would that include execs at the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation?

Andrew Ko

San Marino, Calif.

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