It’ll have to get a lot worse before it can get better. At present, the shelves are not bare, the crime rates, while increasing, has not poured into the suburbs-yet. Once the comfort and trappings of Western Civilization begin to fail on a national scale is when people will be forced to wake up from the Amazon-Netflix-Doordash encapsulating bubbles they have been living in.
Suffering and yes, misery will have to be experienced before a return to a natural state of being returns. This doesn't mean we all go back to churning our own butter, or constructing a cabin in the woods by hand. But, changes will occur.
Yup. As long as people can continue to work, go home, smoke a joint/drink a beer, watch tv, go out with friends a couple times a week. The only sound you’ll hear is baaaaaaaahh!
Look at the commercials that big pharma puts out on the Covid vaccines, or the drugs for all of the degenerates. "Look, get an STD, you'll be fine, and look how happy you will be!".
Thank you for writing this timely column, John. Pain is hard, both coming and going. I'm averse to pain because I prefer comfort, so I avoid it when I can. That said, I do still put on my big boy pants and get 'er done even when it really sucks. However, my point is that it's hard to inflict pain on others when we are socialized into believing that this is bad to do. The Christian church is a strong force for this- turn the other cheek, avoid contention, give your cloak to someone else if they need it. So when we run into situations, and people, who should be forced to lie in the bed that they've made, we want to be charitable and forgiving and give them that new mattress. Within my family, there are people who need to live with the consequences of their choices, but it's hard not to forgive and pull out your wallet. The banking situation is a terrible mess, starting with the Fed, through the White House, and all the regional banks who have to deal with DoJ threats about DEI, ESG, and redlining. I believe a recession is the least-worse event, but that a depression is most likely, accompanied by lots of wiped out retirement investment accounts. Uf da.
While I frequently agree with you, your suggestion that we should let the banks fail is utterly wrong. Do you really think there is any good coming from bank failures and panics? Millions of people are inconvenienced and distraught and it also crashes the stock market. People have so much more to worry about than whether their money is safe in an FDIC insured bank. Businesses are damaged or even ruined. Why the need to punish people with money for the heinous crime of keeping their money in the bank?
There are so many more important issues than the minuscule benefits of bank failure. You usually address them. I will be looking forward to that.
Kevin O'Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, just did an interview where he says it was wrong to bail out these banks. He is a very wealthy man, had deposits way over the 250K FDIC coverage, in SVB, and he points out that very wealthy people like him should have the savvy to pick a bank, and that billionaires should not be bailed out by taxpayers when they make a bad investment choice. Do you agree with him? Maybe watch him explain that and see what you think afterwards.
Thank you for the very well-thought-out and polite response. I have watched what Mr. O'Leary had to say.
It's pretty easy for him to say that now that he knows he's getting 100% of his money back. He admitted that he would have received 95% without the intervention. I also heard what Roger Altman had to say and he essentially says the same thing. That this is a sea change and not necessarily a good one.
O'Leary also admits that he should have had his companies' money spread across more banks, and that going forward that is what they will do. So even though he thinks the deposits are completely protected by the US Government, he will still employ multiple banks. Interesting.
It's my understanding that the money being returned is just from deposit accounts. If that is accurate then I would not consider that an investment choice, just an account to park money. I also think that there is a wide area between insured depositors and billionaires and centi-million dollar companies. Lots of middle class people could have deposits over 250k and ranging up to several million. Should they be punished?
This was a very successful bank for several decades so whoever deposited their money or received a loan was not going out on a limb. It failed in days, heavily fueled by Twitter and the rumor mill. It's not hard to see how this could have spread to multiple other banks and had really started to. And let's not forget that the shareholders are completely wiped out.
Going forward, I don't think this gives bankers license to recklessly conduct business They will still be subject to much oversight, most likely more than before.
Thanks again for making me give this matter even more thought.
It’ll have to get a lot worse before it can get better. At present, the shelves are not bare, the crime rates, while increasing, has not poured into the suburbs-yet. Once the comfort and trappings of Western Civilization begin to fail on a national scale is when people will be forced to wake up from the Amazon-Netflix-Doordash encapsulating bubbles they have been living in.
Suffering and yes, misery will have to be experienced before a return to a natural state of being returns. This doesn't mean we all go back to churning our own butter, or constructing a cabin in the woods by hand. But, changes will occur.
Yup. As long as people can continue to work, go home, smoke a joint/drink a beer, watch tv, go out with friends a couple times a week. The only sound you’ll hear is baaaaaaaahh!
Look at the commercials that big pharma puts out on the Covid vaccines, or the drugs for all of the degenerates. "Look, get an STD, you'll be fine, and look how happy you will be!".
Advancing the acceptance of a shameless, libertine society.
Thank you for writing this timely column, John. Pain is hard, both coming and going. I'm averse to pain because I prefer comfort, so I avoid it when I can. That said, I do still put on my big boy pants and get 'er done even when it really sucks. However, my point is that it's hard to inflict pain on others when we are socialized into believing that this is bad to do. The Christian church is a strong force for this- turn the other cheek, avoid contention, give your cloak to someone else if they need it. So when we run into situations, and people, who should be forced to lie in the bed that they've made, we want to be charitable and forgiving and give them that new mattress. Within my family, there are people who need to live with the consequences of their choices, but it's hard not to forgive and pull out your wallet. The banking situation is a terrible mess, starting with the Fed, through the White House, and all the regional banks who have to deal with DoJ threats about DEI, ESG, and redlining. I believe a recession is the least-worse event, but that a depression is most likely, accompanied by lots of wiped out retirement investment accounts. Uf da.
While I frequently agree with you, your suggestion that we should let the banks fail is utterly wrong. Do you really think there is any good coming from bank failures and panics? Millions of people are inconvenienced and distraught and it also crashes the stock market. People have so much more to worry about than whether their money is safe in an FDIC insured bank. Businesses are damaged or even ruined. Why the need to punish people with money for the heinous crime of keeping their money in the bank?
There are so many more important issues than the minuscule benefits of bank failure. You usually address them. I will be looking forward to that.
Kevin O'Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, just did an interview where he says it was wrong to bail out these banks. He is a very wealthy man, had deposits way over the 250K FDIC coverage, in SVB, and he points out that very wealthy people like him should have the savvy to pick a bank, and that billionaires should not be bailed out by taxpayers when they make a bad investment choice. Do you agree with him? Maybe watch him explain that and see what you think afterwards.
Thank you for the very well-thought-out and polite response. I have watched what Mr. O'Leary had to say.
It's pretty easy for him to say that now that he knows he's getting 100% of his money back. He admitted that he would have received 95% without the intervention. I also heard what Roger Altman had to say and he essentially says the same thing. That this is a sea change and not necessarily a good one.
O'Leary also admits that he should have had his companies' money spread across more banks, and that going forward that is what they will do. So even though he thinks the deposits are completely protected by the US Government, he will still employ multiple banks. Interesting.
It's my understanding that the money being returned is just from deposit accounts. If that is accurate then I would not consider that an investment choice, just an account to park money. I also think that there is a wide area between insured depositors and billionaires and centi-million dollar companies. Lots of middle class people could have deposits over 250k and ranging up to several million. Should they be punished?
This was a very successful bank for several decades so whoever deposited their money or received a loan was not going out on a limb. It failed in days, heavily fueled by Twitter and the rumor mill. It's not hard to see how this could have spread to multiple other banks and had really started to. And let's not forget that the shareholders are completely wiped out.
Going forward, I don't think this gives bankers license to recklessly conduct business They will still be subject to much oversight, most likely more than before.
Thanks again for making me give this matter even more thought.