A climate change for banks: Feds explain rescue plan for woke Silicon Valley Bank, Signature of New York

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Three USA-based banks have failed in four days.

All of the banks appeared to have been hiring managers for their “identity,” rather than for skill, and were investing heavily in the environmental, social, and governance priorities known as ESG and in the diversity, equity, inclusion priorities known as DEI.

They are now being rescued by a federal government that, if regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, would be shut down itself for being too strung out financially. After all, the U.S. Treasury is also taking extraordinary steps just to keep the United States from defaulting on its own debts.

According to FDIC, there will be no actual bailout of Silicon Valley Bank or Signature Bank of New York, and taxpayers will not bear any of the costs of the rescue. Regulators said depositors at both SVB and Signature Bank, which was also closed by New York regulators on Sunday, will have access to their money.

“Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system,” said the joint statement from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg on Sunday afternoon.

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday has some banking customers on edge. It is the 18th largest bank in the nation, with tens of billions on its books as liabilities. It was one of the banks that had been subpoenaed by the Attorney General of the Virgin Islands, looking for where American sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein’s funds were located.

The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation has limited exposure to the SVB institution; Executive Director Deven Mitchell said more would be known on Monday by APFC.

Signature had $88.59 billion in deposits as of Dec. 31. The New York Department of Financial Services took possession of the bank on Sunday.

A third bank, Silvergate, which was heavily involved with crypto currency, collapsed on March 8. At one point, it had $10 billion in deposits, but by December, it was down to $6.3 billion, having lost half its value in just three months.

SVB, Silvergate, and Signature Bank of New York are financial institutions that bought into the climate change narrative, woke investing policies, and LGBTQ-equity politics.

While all banking institutions appear to be buying into climate change theology and diversity-equity ideology, SVB, Signature Bank, Silvergate, and First Republic Bank are some of worst for focusing on social and environmental issues instead of banking basics.

Read Signature Bank’s woke priority accomplishment statement at this link.

The head of risk management for SVB identifies “As a queer person of color and a first-generation immigrant from a working-class background.”

Jay Ersapah, head of Financial Risk Management for the United Kingdom branch the bank,spent time building up the LGBTQ programs for the work place, including creating a “safe space” for people to tell their stories about coming out as LGBTQ+.

Read about how the bank prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion over generally accepted banking procedures at this link.

The bank also held month-long Pride celebrations and a website for LGBTQ+ youth.

Ersapah, a poster child for quota-not-merit promotions, has since taken down her LinkedIn profile that showed her to be the recipient of the company’s LBGTQ award, “outstanding LGBT+ Role Model Lists 2022.”

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramswamy told Breitbart News this weekend that SVP is “one of the biggest evangelists of DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)” and that he would not bail the bank out if it were up to him.

SVP was taken over by FDIC on Friday and regulators spent the weekend coming up with plans for Monday’s bank opening. The financial experts on the Sunday news shows were all over the map about what will happen next.

The bank collapses come at a time when the Biden Administration is putting into place rules that allow retirement fund investors to follow the “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) investment strategies, rather than invest on behalf of American workers and try to ensure they have enough money to retire on.

The joint statement from FDIC and the Federal Reserve in full

The following statement was released by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg:

Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system. This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth.

After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, and consulting with the President, Secretary 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. 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.

We are also announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank, New York, New York, which was closed today by its state chartering authority. All depositors of this institution will be made whole.  As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer.

Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed. Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.

Finally, the Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors. 

The U.S. banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation, in large part due to reforms that were made after the financial crisis that ensured better safeguards for the banking industry. Those reforms combined with today’s actions demonstrate our commitment to take the necessary steps to ensure that depositors’ savings remain safe.

29 COMMENTS

  1. So I guess if only straight white middle-aged guys ran these banks, none of this would have happened, right? Hmmm…pretty sure they were the ones running the system in 2008 and during every other crash in the past.

    Pinning the blame on the woke, the LGBTQ, the liberal, is laughable. It almost reminds me of how Hitler hung the blame for all of Germany’s woes on the Jews in the ’30s and ’40s, just before he started rounding them all up.

    My, my, how MRAK will pander to its Readers…

    • Dog, you seem to have misread the article. The writer did not “pin the blame on the woke, the LGBTQ, the liberal.” Rather she pinned the causation on the lending parameters and underwriting philosophy described with those adjectives. She made no direct attribution to those described by said adjectives. You have read into the text more than it says; and it appears you did so to be inflammatory.

    • Just when I thought that the nonsense of Whidbey the Rabid Dog had sunk to the very limit of its absurdity …. he manages to find a whole new sub-basement to fill.

    • BTW: ever heard of Bernie Marcus? Co-founder of Home Depot? One of the richest men in America?

      He specifically laid this at the feet of woke fools investing in ESG instead of doing what was fiscally responsible for the bank and it’s shareholders.

      • You can’t blame people for wanting to invest in a way that attempts to improve the World, and its societies. After all, one doesn’t need to look far to see that, while doing a lot of good, unbridled Capitalism, also does a lot of damage.

        Oh, and BTW, walk into any Home Depot and you will find that 90% of everything they sell is made in China. Maybe a little more ESG on Marcus’ behalf would keep more Americans employed in good jobs.

        • Nice dodge, except it fails. Badly.

          The issue isn’t what a woke company stocks (90%? In what universe), the issue is simple. Even you should be able to follow.

          It is the job of a company to make money for itself and its shareholders. Nothing else. Not provide jobs, not change the world, not make you feel better about yourself. Certainly not to go insolvent trying to do so.

          Unbridled capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than all the “workers/people’s” paradises which ever existed. Until we began stupidly flirting with socialism we had a standard of living unrivaled in history.

          ESG investments are putting people out of work, putting people’s savings and retirements at risk, and potentially could cause another 2008 style banking collapse.

          And since you didn’t bother to do any basic homework, neither Bernie or Arthur Blank (a wildly woke left of center progressive) have any real day to day input in Home Depot. Both are wildly rich off of good old fashioned capitalism.

          And along the way created more jobs, both meaningful and starting, than ESG could ever dream of.

          I’m not sure why you decided to troll so hard in an area you either have no knowledge of or simply ignore reality in, but…

          You have managed to achieve Frank and Bill levels of pointlessness for no apparent reason. It’s not an achievement to be proud of.

        • I can blame people for wanting to invest in a way that attempts to improve the world, when they are investing my money without my knowledge or consent.

      • When someone has nothing worth saying but demands to be heard….

        nazi, racist, and cries of insensitivity towards children are all old favorites.

    • Dog:
      Can you name a single company that placed ESG/Woke/DIE ideals before maintaining market share, increasing revenue that is still in business?
      Every company that I know if that ignored the fundamental business model of building the business and increasing revenue in favor of “doing the right thing” has either failed, or dropped the virtue signaling.
      .
      But, in your world, the failure of SVB and Signature is because of… what racism?
      .
      when I see bad business decisions being made solely for virtue signaling reasons, I blame the failure on that. but, you do you.

      • SVB failed because they got upside down on interest rate bets, by not properly reacting to signaled rate changes by the Fed. The fact that the bank employed gay, liberal, woke, DEI-types had nothing to do with it, yet MRAK’s tone tries to implicate them.

    • We know because an honest man is not fit for public office! Oh yeah,,,,, his lips are moving. It’s called Damage control.

  2. “All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer.”
    .
    That sounds like double-talk if ever there was. If the uninsured losses are to be replaced by the government, how will “no losses be borne by the taxpayer?” They believe you are so stupid that such statements will go right over your head?

  3. The German Jews in the 30s and 40s were never at the head of failing banks, institutions or businesses. On the contrary they were the MOST SUCCESSFUL ethnic group due to their uncanny financial savvy!! One of the reasons Hitler wanted to take them down was because compared to the average Aryan businessman the Jews were far superior in every practical way and thus an embarrassment to the super race !! But, they were vulnerable!!

  4. Yep… it’s a simple case of “let’s do what we feel is the right thing” instead of “let’s do what we’re supposed to do and be good stewards of the funds entrusted to us.” There’s nothing wrong with investing in woke crap or green energy crap as long as you do your due diligence and can reasonably anticipate a return on investment. There are already a number of niche funds that willfully avoid “sinful” businesses like alcohol, gambling, and defense industries, but their managed by people who evaluate the investments they do make to ensure they make some modest profit if not gangbusters.

  5. They say there are no atheists in a foxhole, but there are more of them than there are Libertarians in a bank run.

    • What do you base that on John?
      All these banks have had a year to get their acts together and even SVB was still solvent (they only had a liquidity issue). Still a blunder on their management’s part but an easy one to fix. That’s not to say some more banks may not fail but unlikely they’ll make the same mistakes as CEO of SVB.

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