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'That's How Capitalism Works,' Biden Says of SVB, Signature Bank Investors Who Lost Money in Failed Banks 256

President Joe Biden sought to assure customers of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank on Monday that their money was safe -- insured by the Deposit Insurance Fund -- but said investors in the failed banks' securities aren't going to get the same guarantee. From a report: "Investors in the banks will not be protected," Biden said in a White House speech. "They knowingly took a risk and when the risk didn't pay off, the investors lose their money. That's how capitalism works." The nation's top bank regulators on Sunday announced the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and Federal Reserve would fully cover deposits at both failed banks and rely on Wall Street and large financial institutions -- not taxpayers -- to foot the bill. Signature Bank in New York, which was shuttered Sunday over similar systemic contagion fears as SVB, had been a popular funding source for cryptocurrency companies.

"The FDIC on Friday took control of SVB's assets and over the weekend Signature's," Biden said. "All customers who had deposits in these banks can rest assured they will be protected and they'll have access to the money as of today." The Treasury Department designated both SVB and Signature as systemic risks, giving it authority to unwind both institutions. The FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund, not taxpayer money, will be used to cover depositors, many of whom had significantly more than the $250,000 deposited at the banks that is normally covered by the FDIC. "No losses will be borne by the taxpayers," Biden stressed Monday. "I'm going to repeat that -- no losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Instead the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the Deposit Insurance Fund."/i?
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'That's How Capitalism Works,' Biden Says of SVB, Signature Bank Investors Who Lost Money in Failed Banks

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13, 2023 @10:30AM (#63366401)

    Trolling with the best.

  • Why the exception? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @10:31AM (#63366407)

    FDIC already covered up to $250k... blowing our FDIC fund to reimburse wealthy people who would have merely gotten back more wealth from their account than most ever see hardly seems like a move to help the little guy and if this really is a 'systemic' problem that is exactly who is going to be screwed when the fund runs dry.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      EXACTLY - The FDIC should only make good on 250k as the law dictates. Larger deposits should simply be treated as most senior obligations. That is the depositors should be made whole before holders of other types of notes. Once all the depositors are paid, than the banks lenders can get in line and if there is still anything left after that shareholders.

      That is how it should work. As far but but what about business that might fail.. Look those business had shit for treasury management if they had all thei

      • When a bank fails, the FDIC estimates what percentage uninsured depositors will get back based on the financial condition of the bank. That amount of money is paid as an 'advance dividend.' If SVB has enough assets (and very well might), a 100% advance dividend might be appropriate.
    • by Tx ( 96709 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @10:55AM (#63366479) Journal

      These banks actually have enough assets to cover its liabilities *if* not forced to sell long-term bond holdings at fire-sale prices. So the FDIC will actually not have to stump up much net capital, it's about providing immediately-needed liquidity. Of course, the Fed should have foreseen this effect of the rate rises, and put into place something like the new Bank Term Funding Program *before* three banks had failed, instead of *after*. But the Fed doesn't seem to be very good at foresight. Remember when inflation was "transitory"?

      • by satsuke ( 263225 )

        You can't have it both ways .. you can't have the government keeping hands off financial institutions to let them do their thing, but at the same time preemptively fund bailouts for funds that are explicitly at risk due to amount of funds or the type.

      • SVB likely has enough assets even at current market prices (which is not a fire-sale price). 10-year US treasuries trade at a minimum over over $0.80/$1.00 even those that pay essentially no interest. It's very unlikely that SVB held only 10-year notes bought in 2020 at maximum prices. Especially since many of their notes were mark-to-market back when they had the full 5% tier one capital. This isn't the same as banks that owned subprime mortgage debt and no money could be recovered.
    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @11:05AM (#63366513)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Nobody's proposing the FDIC funds be used to bail out depositors.

        Say what? That is exactly what is happening [go.com].

        "After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, and consulting with the President, Secretary [Janet] Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, in a manner that fully protects all depositors," the said in a joint statement. "Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer."

    • by Freedom Bug ( 86180 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @11:08AM (#63366535) Homepage

      Any small business with a couple of dozen employees will have more than $250K in whichever bank account it is doing payroll out of.

      I would classify a company with a couple dozen employees as a "little guy".

    • by crow ( 16139 )

      Because there are lots of businesses that would fail this week if they didn't have access to their cash to pay their employees and other bills. The impact of that would cause increased unemployment payouts and decreased tax revenue far in excess of what the FDIC is likely to ultimately pay out, especially considering that the bank did have assets to cover at least most of the deposits.

      The plan is to eliminate most of the hit to the economy while not protecting those who created the problem (the bank manage

      • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        "This is exactly how the bailouts in the previous financial crisis should have worked."

        No, the way they should have worked is not at all.

    • You are completely ignorant of how this works. Small Etsy makers are not getting payed because of this failure. Talk about little guys being screwed. https://www.techradar.com/news... [techradar.com]

      • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        Yes, sometimes innocent people have to wait longer for their breakfast when a carton of eggs gets dropped in the kitchen. It is less than 0.5% and their payment is merely delayed. Also not all etsy sellers are 'little guys.' In any case that is all on Etsy and nobody else, Etsy owes them money and Etsy should make them whole even if it means issuing some bonds.

    • by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

      The answer is really simple: one of the major groups hit with a lot of money left in SVB was (drumroll): the Democratic National Committee, aka the Democrat Party.

      Clearly they weren't going to allow themselves to lose money, not if they could recover it at taxpayer expense.

  • by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @10:35AM (#63366417) Homepage

    What's the point of having an FDIC cap if it's not enforced?

    If depositors don't do their own due diligence about the places where they park millions of dollars, then that's their problem.

    • by Ed Tice ( 3732157 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @10:38AM (#63366423)
      It's not yet clear that there is even a bailout here. Remember, there is zero evidence that SVB had liabilities greater than market-value of assets. The bank was seized because they were short on capital but still had enough assets to pay back all depositors. If some evidence comes out to the contrary that would change the discussion. The way SVB would (under normal circumstances) we would down is that the insured deposits get paid immediately and the uninsured get paid after assets are sold. If the market-value of the assets more than covers the uninsured deposits and the FDIC is willing to advance the money for a short-period of time as part of it's mandate to avoid systemic bank failures (which would cost the tax payers money), I don't see a reason to be upset about it. Again there are a lot of facts not yet known which would change the calculation significantly.
      • Make no mistake, there is a bailout. SVB did have liabilities greater than market-value of assets - as opposed to face value of the assets. They were sitting on 20% unrealized loss in long term bonds. Had their tried to unload it via firesale, it would have caused a massive panic. Regulators stepped in and stopped them. Now we have another round of quantitative easing. The government will advance money to cover losses in bank bond portfolios. Who will foot the bill? Taxpayers, obviously.
        • What treasury bonds are selling at 20% discount to face value? The only treasury bonds selling nearly that cheaply are the ones that were issued ten years ago and pay 5/8% interest. However, those have been dropping for quite some time. The bank was only trying to raise $2B in capital (for which they failed) but had $10B in tier 1 capital prior to selling bonds at a loss. Now it *might* be that they do hold some of the lower-interest notes and that the notes sold so far were higher-interest (hence the u
      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        Sure, if they liquidate SVB's assets and those cover depositor's, then everything's cool. But they seem to be saying that depositors will be covered regardless, and that's irresponsible.

        • What they *seem* to be saying is that there are enough assets to liquidate and cover everybody and they are sure enough of it that they will take a risk and just go ahead and cover everybody now since the benefit is well worth the small risk to the FDIC. Whether this is a good decision or not, I am not qualified to say. But it's at least reasonable.
    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @10:47AM (#63366447)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        The $250K is a hard limit on what the FDIC insures. Of course, if a bank has assets that can be sold to cover deposits, then that should be done. But a blanket guarantee regardless of whether the bank has sufficient assets is irresponsible.

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @11:05AM (#63366519)

      Because it's no cap.

      The 250k is a guarantee. 250k is what you'll get if the bank is liquidated, no matter what. Even if the bank doesn't even have enough assets anymore to pay that to every creditor. Think of it as some kind of insurance.

      If the liquidation ends up with more than the guaranteed amount, whatever is left will be used to pay the rest. If you have 300k in the bank, you may get 250k, you may get 280k, you may even get 300k if enough liquid assets are left after liquidation. But you will not get back less than 250k (provided you had that much in the first place, you won't get 250k if you only have 100 bucks in your account).

  • Correction (Score:5, Informative)

    by wdr1 ( 31310 ) * <wdr1 @ p obox.com> on Monday March 13, 2023 @10:42AM (#63366431) Homepage Journal

    > President Joe Biden sought to assure customers of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank on Monday that their money was safe -- insured by the Deposit Insurance Fund

    There's a fundamental misunderstanding here on what happened with SVB.

    The Federal Deposit Insurance Fund insures up to $250k. There was never a question on if that money was safe. Everyone knew it was the entire time.

    The question was what would to accounts & funds over $250k? Those *aren't* insured by the FDIC. A lot of companies had balances far in excess of $250k to pay bills & make payroll. Would *those* uninsured funds be protected?

    The news on Friday was the FDIC said, yes, it would make sure those funds are covered too. (They also made clear it won't be covered via taxpayer dollars, but that's a different topic.)

    What Biden is trying to make clear is that:

    - If you were a bank *customer*, your money -- insured or not -- is fine
    - If you were a bank *investor*, you lost your money

    • Right, but that is not how capitalism 'works.' It's supposed to destroy depositors above 250k too. That way they have to do their homework. They get paid interest on those deposits, because they can lose it.
      • No, it's not supposed to destroy depositors above $250k too. Uninsured depositors are immediately after insured depositors when the assets are dissolved. Maybe they're destroyed, maybe the aren't, but they're pretty close to the front of the line. General creditors and stockholders are the most screwed.

        This bank didn't collapse with "nothing" left.

    • News this morning is that HSBC UK bought them and all investments and deposits are whole. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03... [techcrunch.com]
      • News this morning is that HSBC UK bought them and all investments and deposits are whole.

        https://techcrunch.com/2023/03... [techcrunch.com]

        No. HSBC bought the UK branch and the UK dealings alone. They did not buy the entire bank. Incidentally SVB UK wasn't even covered by the FDIC, it was covered by the Bank of England which guarantees only 85,000 pounds, far less than the FDIC.

        If you're not a UK based business then this HSBC announcement is completely irrelevant to you.

  • Because capitalism would have let the entire thing burn to the ground.
    • Very unlikely. Capitalism still tries to protect itself. Instead of the FDIC bailing out customers, a similar mutual insurance fund would exist. For a very simple reason: Why would I put my money in a bank if it could be gone tomorrow? To have people agree to that kind of deal, you'd have to pay insane interest. Or people would have to be able to compare banks and know which ones are reliable. Large investors may know that. Small bank customers, which is the bulk of the money a bank usually holds, would sim

    • They are letting it burn to the ground. This is the standard order of precedence for the dissolution of assets. Insured depositors, uninsured depositors, general creditors, stockholders. The only nuance is that if it becomes needed (and it probably won't be), uninsured depositors will be treated slightly better than normal. But after that, anybody left can fight over the scraps.

  • by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @11:20AM (#63366593)
    Never tell the entitled class that the whims of capitalism apply to them too. The agreement of capitalism between the rich and everyone else is: "Heads I win, tails you lose." The moment you tell them they might have to pay for something out of their own pocket, they start plotting behind gritted teeth.
  • by satsuke ( 263225 ) on Monday March 13, 2023 @11:24AM (#63366605)

    For the longest time its been socialize the risks, capitalize the profits.

    From what I've read, this bank lobbied successfully to ensure they were not held to the same stress test and capitalization requirements as other banks.

    So, they reap what they sewn.

    As far as Biden commenting on it, largely irrelevant in the scheme of things.

  • By law, after insured depositors are paid, uninsured depositors are paid next, followed by general creditors and then stockholders. In most cases, general creditors and stockholders realize little or no recovery.. - https://www.fdic.gov/consumers... [fdic.gov]

    So the only thing new here is the guarantee that the all depositors can expect to be made whole. Otherwise, this is business as usual, and by the book.

    Naturally stockholders are last. That's completely normal.

  • ...if Republicans applauded this as a sound approach. Maybe even a gesture to show that when responsible governance is displayed, we can even reach across the political gulf to affirm it.

    This is how capitalism should work - no taxpayer safety net for investors.

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