“Privatize the profits”? What are you talking about? The owners of SVB are wiped out, they will not see any profits, they lost their entire equity in SVB.
> “Privatize the profits”? What are you talking about? The owners of SVB are wiped out
The depositors took risks by lending their money to such a risky bank for better returns in lieu of the risk. It doesnt matter whether SVB gave 0% interest. It provided other amenities, services and opportunities instead - things which other banks could not take the risk to do. Now these banks who played by the rules and the rest of the people and businesses who played it safe, will have to foot the bill for the risk that those depositors took. This literally says "If you are big enough you can take any risk to win big and have the public pay for it if you screw it up". That's something not afforded to a small business owner. So people who say that there is one rule for the ultra rich and another rule for the majority, they are right.
Additionally removing the burden of the deposits from SVB will allow it to recover some of its lost asset value. The state took over its liabilities now.
The depositors “took risks” by literally keeping their cash in a bank? This is ridiculous. What was the safe, responsible thing to do? Put it in one of the “too big to fail” banks instead, given that those are guaranteed to be bailed out should they encounter difficulties? Assume that the entire banking regulatory system is a sham, that the whole Dodd Frank system of regulators overseeing the books and running stress test is not worth shit, and then what? Pay their employees in crypto? Stuff their cash into a mattress? Please. Let’s not pretend that literally keeping cash in a savings account is irresponsible risk taking.
> The depositors “took risks” by literally keeping their cash in a bank? This is ridiculous
Its not ridiculous. Its how the free market works. Its a choice. There were other banks that were compliant with the regulation that !protects! the bank and its depositors. This bank wasn't one of them. People put their money in this bank anyway. It makes little difference if many startups were forced by their VCs to put their money in that bank - they chose to go with those VCs.
> What was the safe, responsible thing to do? Put it in one of the “too big to fail” banks instead, given that those are guaranteed to be bailed out should they encounter difficulties?
The first thing to do was to put their money in banks that have not lobbied for exemption from the regulations that protect the bank and its depositors' money from exactly what is happening right now.
The second thing would be to put it in multiple banks that are not exempt from that regulation to spread around the risk.
The third thing would be to spread the risk around many investment tools and banks.
It turns out that there ARE startups that did precisely that, and they were not affected by the SVB thing in the slightest manner.
> Let’s not pretend that literally keeping cash in a savings account is irresponsible risk taking.
It is unless it is a state run bank, period. This is the free market, and if the organization that you are putting your money into is a private organization, you are simply taking a risk. If that does not sound good, then it means that all the rhetoric about free market vs government should be revised.
And how much stock he has left that he didn’t sell, and lost entirely a few days later? Is this really the best argument for the “privatize the profits” narrative, that someone picked up a few pennies from in front of $6B steamroller?
Aren't lots of us owners of SVB? I really don't get this "it's ok to wipe out the shareholders", i.e. all of us, "but it's not ok to wipe out the depositors" (e.g. Mark Cuban's 10M or so). Why should I lose money because of a run on this bank? If you're already bailing the bank out, oust the management, claw back what you can, but don't wipe out share holders or bond holders.
No, this is not how the deal works. We do not reimburse investors for wrong, or just plain unlucky investment decisions. Our financial-regulatory system treats banking and speculative investment differently, and this is by design.
> If you're already bailing the bank out, oust the management, claw back what you can, but don't wipe out share holders or bond holders.
You don’t get it: the bank is bailed out using funds of shareholders and bondholders. Taxpayers aren’t bailing out SVB, you are. If you don’t like it, well, I recommend selling your investments and keeping your money in regular savings accounts: the deal is, at the basic, very simple: if the company you own screwed up, your entire equity may be used to made those whom it screwed up whole, and you should be happy that your liability is limited to your equity only.
It's not clear whether the assets are enough to make the depositors whole. It sounds like the FDIC is making up the difference. Which it normally would not.
That's the bailout part. If the government is stepping in to bail people out via making up for any difference of uninsured deposits from FDIC funds then it's no longer a question of risk/being wrong/luck. The depositors were taking risk just as the shareholders were taking risk. If they didn't like it, well they could have kept the money in their mattresses.
I'm totally with you that everyone has to accept the risks they're taking. This is creating a distortion field here for certain types of risk taking.
Even if we ignore the bailout, I don't think the story is as simple as you put it. There was a run on the bank with VCs telling companies to withdraw their funds. From a stock market perspective this could be considered manipulation.
When I invest in a bank I'm also relying on the government's role as a regulator. If they failed in their role, or the government actions contributed to the failure of the bank, or they had other courses of action, why should I be on the hook for the consequences?
Maybe this course of action was necessary to stabilize the situation and protect against more bank runs. It still doesn't feel right. It feels like something we'll pay for in the future.
> It's not clear whether the assets are enough to make the depositors whole. It sounds like the FDIC is making up the difference. Which it normally would not.
Sure, which is why I’m not opposed to depositors taking some haircut. But that’s only more reason to wipe the shareholders to the last penny.
> The depositors were taking risk just as the shareholders were taking risk.
No, they were not, that’s the whole point. They took completely different kinds of risks. Irrespective to what degree the taxpayers are encumbered with extending the bail out loans, shareholders are the ones who are expected to foot any bill first and foremost.
Yes, every part of the economy is indirectly connected. Profits are also democratised via income and capital gains tax, even if it's not at a high enough level that people feel good about.
The important part here is that SVBs assets are basically guaranteed to pay out, you just have to wait it out. It’s fairly likely that there are basically no costs (excepting costs to service the insured 250k in the first place, so no marginal costs)
A dollar in ten years is not the same currency as a dollar today. It’s absurd to say that there is “no cost” to holding bonds that pay 1% interest for years when you can now buy bonds that pay multiple times that.
People would have been paying much more through their bank deposits and mortgages if this contagion had been allowed to spread unchecked. Banks benefit from stability in the financial system. They'll happily pay a small special assessment to stem loss of confidence in the banking system.
What you don't pay for in tax, you will pay for in inflation, basically.
> The additional funding will be made available through the creation of a new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), offering loans of up to one year in length to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and other eligible depository institutions pledging U.S. Treasuries, agency debt and mortgage-backed securities, and other qualifying assets as collateral. These assets will be valued at par. The BTFP will be an additional source of liquidity against high-quality securities, eliminating an institution's need to quickly sell those securities in times of stress.
They're basically going to allow banks to post treasuries as collateral in exchange for cash. Making this effectively a form of QE.
To understand better, banks don't hold the cash you give them. They take it and invest it in "safe" assets like treasuries and mortgage backed securities. But because rates have sky rocketed US banks are currently sitting on hundreds of billions in loses on these investments.
That's generally not a huge problem though because so long as the banks can hold these assets to maturity they'll eventually get their money back. Problems only occur when a large number of customers start demanding their deposits back ASAP. If enough customers want their deposits in a short enough window then the bank will be force sell those investments at a loss so they can return cash to customers.
To avoid this scenario the Fed are basically saying, if a bank is ever forced to realise loses, then the Fed will take those loses and "print cash" to make them whole again.
It's probably the right thing to do given the systemic risk, but this is inflationary.
The bank uses the $100 to purchase a treasury bill.
The treasury bill falls in value and is now worth $80 on the open market.
The Fed says, it's cool, just pretend it's worth $100 because it will look bad otherwise.
Customer says, I want my $100 back.
The bank is now forced to sell the treasury bill and admit that it's actually worth $80.
Fed says, it's cool, just give us your $80 treasury and we'll print $100 and give it to you.
There now exist, a $80 treasury (held by the Fed) and $100 in cash which is given to the customer.
Where is this $180 of value coming from?
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Its inflationary in two ways.
Firstly, money in the economy is created via debt, and Fed in this case is creating a debt which increases money supply. Secondly, the Fed is exchanging the bank's assets at an above market price and taking the loss onto its balance sheet.
Edit:
I see. I think you’re missing the full accounting picture. When somebody moves $100 of petty cash into a bank, they don’t have $0. They have $100 of cash. The bank has an asset and a liability. Rinse and repeat with the bank and Fed transactions. There’s not an $80 treasury note anywhere because those aren’t MTM.
idk if the numbers exactly add up here or if there are other sources of funding but the I in FDIC is Insurance, which is already paid for - the FDIC has money from insurance premiums to cover expected cost of losses
It's coming out of the insurance fund, which is paid into by banks. So the cost is still ultimately borne across a wider sphere, but not the government per se. (This is what's meant by "Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.")
The costs aren't borne by "the taxpayer", but an awful lot of taxpayers who had nothing to do with this or even purposely avoided it may be paying higher banking fees as a result.
Aren't they (at least some large portion of the assets) mortgage backed securities, i.e the same sort of stuff like 2008? If the economy collapses and the housing market collapses then they can become worthless. Very different than lessay US government bonds. Right now they're worth their market value which right now isn't worthless but also isn't enough...
Because SVB lacks the liquidity to pay out the bank run but doesn't lack the assets, at least as long as you only pay out deposits (which is what they are doing i.e. "Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected.").
The thing is that without this decision there would be two problems:
1. deposits would only re-accessable much later, too late for most small Companies to survive
2. depending on law/regulation aspects I don't know much about it also may have been a possibility that Stockholder get payed out first and similar
i'm out of touch with how much of this works, can someone explain how this is paid without burden to the taxpayer?