High-flying risk-takers demand their bailout
Christopher Walken’s first movie role was in The Anderson Tapes, a 1971 Sidney Lumet caper film starring Sean Connery. Walken played “The Kid,” a junior safecracker. Connery’s team of thieves robs a high-end New York apartment building.
It’s Oscars weekend. But that’s not the reason for mentioning the film.
When Walken can’t break into a safe in one rich couple’s apartment. ‘Duke’ Anderson (Connery) demands the combination. The man refuses. Duke yanks up the man’s wife by the hair. (I can’t get the clip to load.)
“Darling, it’s all right,” the man tells her calmly. “Just hold on. It just hurts right now, but you’ll be all right.”
“You bastard!” she shouts. “Tell him!”
He doesn’t, so Duke calls in his hitter, “Socks,” points to the rich jerk, and says, “Him!”
Threatened with pain himself, the guy folds up like tissue paper.
Fiction? Watch how rich libertarians behaved when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on Friday. It was the second largest bank failure in history behind Washington Mutual. And many times larger. SVB was a niche operation serving primarily rich venture capitalists and their startups.
A friend formerly with the FDIC called to fill me in on what an extraordinary process was taking place. Secured depositors will get their money on Monday. The richest depositors (above $250k) might not get their rest of their money for some time. In the meantime, they’ll get, in essence, IOUs. Poor bastards.
Twitter users were quick to jump on tweets from one investor, David Sachs:
Overconfident, risk-taking venture capitalists’ startup loans with a niche bank were their high risk. Ought they to eat it?
Oh, no. Systemic risk that puts the richest at risk must be addressed, and swiftly, with a government bailout. Once again (as Summers again confirms), it’s socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest in this economy. (Yes, employees might not get paid.)
Meanwhile, the former president faces multiple indictments. It is easy to doubt that elites such as Donald Trump will ever face accountability in what seems plainly a system of justice as two-tiered as our economy.
Rick Persltein may not be an economist, but the historian is a keen observer. He offered a warning to the Executive branch about further reinforcing the widely held suspicion that government exists more to serve the rich than the rest.
The most famous Dem economic advisor says rich speculators who had the poor judgement to deposit in an untrustworthy bank have to be made whole. Nothing about the moral hazard this presents, nor the message to the proles who only get $250K in protection.
Only the little people should suffer when there’s a “risk to the financial system.”
Saving banks while the peasants get stuck with cliches about “moral hazard” was the ideological position Barack Obama CHOSE as the face of the party with his policies on the subprime crisis and financial collapse.
“Foaming the runway” over making foreclosure victims whole.
First Clinton, then Obama, elevating Summers, and over time it’s the image tha attaches itself to the party in voters’ minds. People aren’t idiots. Enough times, they get an inkling the Democrats aren’t on their side. They chose to vote their cutlural grievances instead…
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. In many ways we’re on the knife’s edge, Biden often governing for the people, but sometimes going back to old habits of buttering the fat cats’ bread.
I’d love to see the White House denounce Summers, while figuring out a way to absorb the blow to the economy that these idiots’ funny-money will cause. That’s how social democracy works. Consequences for their risks should be privatized, not socialized.
Pay wall sufferers: Summers things SVB deposits should be paid in full, meaning the government should bail our large depositers who had accounts in excess of the FDIC limit.
(But giving over 10k in debt relief to college grads who also got the shit end of a financial deal is unfair to everyone else. Waaaaa!!!)
To answer the irritating criticism: yes, voters don’t know to Summers is. Doesn’t matter if you know the name of the fucker responsible, just that under Obama you tried for mortgage relief the government said fill out this 800 page form then responded “sorry thanks for playing.”
No fantasies about The People being natural socialists, deep down. No need for labels. Just people knowing when they’ve been snowed. Not everyone, not close to most. Just enough on the margin to tip it to 50%+1.
When the little guy is hurting, the message from the top (and from libertarian tech billionaires) is, “Just hold on. It just hurts right now, but you’ll be all right.”
Until the pain starts hitting them.
UPDATE: Knew I’d fogotten something from last night.