WHAT RIPPLE EFFECTS WILL SVB’S COLLAPSE GENERATE? Silicon Valley Bank Collapses: The Ghosts of 2008 Stir.

An additional worry is that the run on Silicon Valley Bank may spread. Bank runs are a mix of the rational and the rational. At their core is the mismatch at the heart of banking. Banks tend to borrow short-term (your deposit is a loan to the bank) and lend long. This creates a mismatch, which is generally fine—it’s how the banking system works. But it means that banks will only have a limited amount of funds to hand back to their depositors at any given moment. If enough of a bank’s depositors decide to ask for their money back at once, then the bank can face a liquidity crunch that could bring it down. Under the circumstances, depositors with more than $250,000 with the bank who hear of other depositors pulling out their money out, might decide (even if they believe that the bank is fundamentally sound) that they should get their excess money out—better safe than sorry—and so a bank run spreads.

Related: Silicon Valley Bank imploded in a single day. It could be just the tip of the iceberg.

Funny how these things tend to happen, now that “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.”

GOT WOKE, WENT BROKE: Woke head of ‘risk assessment’ at Silicon Valley Bank ‘prioritized’ LGBT initiatives — including organizing a month-long Pride campaign — before bank lost BILLIONS and collapsed.

A head of risk assessment at the beleaguered Silicon Valley Bank has been accused of prioritizing pro-diversity initiatives over her actual role after the firm imploded on Friday.

Jay Ersapah – who describes herself as a ‘queer person of color from a working-class background’ – organized a host of LGBTQ initiatives including a month-long Pride campaign and implemented ‘safe space’ catch-ups for staff.

In a corporate video published just nine months ago, she said she ‘could not be prouder’ to work for SVB serving ‘underrepresented entrepreneurs.’

It comes after the firm became the largest bank to collapse since the 2008 financial crisis – disclosing a $1.8 billion loss in its finances.

Who the hell was in charge of risk management at SVB and what the hell were they focused on???

Oh pic.twitter.com/xdkzjqRPmc

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) March 11, 2023

To be fair, there was a even more spectacular collapse preceded by a Pride celebration in 2021: Democrats lecture Americans on wokeness, then abandon our values abroad.

NEWSWEEK: There Is No Firm, Sustained Support for Gun Control.

If there were, Bloomberg wouldn’t have to astroturf it.

DEAL OF THE DAY: GTHUNDER Digital Night Vision Goggles Binoculars for Total Darkness. #CommissionEarned

RIP: Bud Grant, who led Minnesota Vikings to Four Super Bowls in HOF career, dies at age 95.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Opponents, Anti-Gunners Horrified as Constitutional Carry Looks Inevitable in Florida.

YEP:

DEAL OF THE DAY: Niceday Under Desk Elliptical. #CommissionEarned

BACK TO THE FUTURE: Sales of vinyl albums overtake CDs for the first time since the late ’80s.

I’VE SEEN THE SMARPHONES AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Excessive Screen Time in Preteens Linked to Suicidal Behavior.

WELL, GOOD: FDA approves Pfizer’s new nasal spray treatment for migraines. Ibuprofen works fine for mine, which are much less common than when I was younger, but not everyone is as fortunate.

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Biden-Harris Want You to Know About the Great Job They’re Doing Lowering Your Energy Bills.

And they want to help even more! Did Biden kill the oil boom for good?

ICYMI: FROM NAOMI WOLF, A FORTHRIGHT JANUARY 6 APOLOGY:

There is no way to avoid this moment. The formal letter of apology. From me. To Conservatives and to those who “put America first” everywhere.

It’s tempting to sweep this confrontation with my own gullibility under the rug — to “move on” without ever acknowledging that I was duped, and that as a result I made mistakes in judgement, and that these mistakes, multiplied by the tens of thousands and millions on the part of people just like me, hurt millions of other people like you all, in existential ways.

But that erasure of personal and public history would be wrong.

I owe you a full-throated apology.

I believed a farrago of lies. And, as a result of these lies, and my credulity — and the credulity of people similarly situated to me – many conservatives’ reputations are being tarnished, on false bases.

The proximate cause of this letter of apology is the airing, two nights ago, of excepts from tens of thousands of hours of security camera footage from the United States Capitol taken on Jan 6, 2021. The footage was released by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson. . . .

There is no way for anyone thoughtful, even if he or she is a lifelong Democrat, not to notice that Sen Chuck Schumer did not say to the world that the footage that Mr Carlson aired was not real. Rather, he warned that it was “shameful” for Fox to allow us to see it. The Guardian characterized Mr Carlson’s and Fox News’ sin, weirdly, as “Over-Use” of Jan 6 footage. Isn’t the press supposed to want full transparency for all public interest events?

Well, it’s supposed to.

MATT TAIBII: The Democrats Have Lost the Plot.

A longtime editor once cracked that the Democrats have been stuck since the mid-sixties trying to run Kennedy clones in elections, cranking out one toothy, tallish facsimile after another, from Gary Hart to John Kerry to Beto O’Rourke. Goldman is one of the latest, a literal handsome Dan who’s an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, worth over $250 million, and who opposed Medicare for All and the Green New Deal while marketing himself as “tough on crime.” All of these qualities make him the kind of quintessential born-on-third-base triangulator the party loves.

* * * * * * * *

This made the end of Goldman’s foray in this direction all the more confusing:

GOLDMAN: Because you said earlier, I believe that you did not see Russia— you could not confirm that Russia interfered in our election in 2016, that you don’t believe that. Is that your testimony here today? You don’t believe that they did?

TAIBBI: I think it’s possible that they may have on a small scale, but certainly not to what’s been reported.

GOLDMAN: What’s been reported or what’s been included in the indictments?

TAIBBI: Well, again, indictments are allegations. They’re not proof.

GOLDMAN: I understand. It’s pretty detailed allegations…

TAIBBI: And the Mueller indictment, by the way —

GOLDMAN: You should go back and read the indictments, and tell us if you think there’s no proof of it.

Here I was going to point out that the second of the cases Goldman cited had been dropped by prosecutors because Concord showed up in court, but Goldman stepped on that quickly:

TAIBBI: Some of those defendants, by the way…

GOLDMAN: Let me move on. Please, let me move on. That’s how this works. You should know this by now.

The irony is that what Goldman was doing, confusing accusations with proof — as Thomas Jefferson said, the phenomenon of people whose “suspicions may be evidence” — was the entire reason for the hearing. Michael and I were trying to describe a system that wants to bypass proof and proceed to punishment, a radical idea that this new breed of Democrat embraces. I think they justify this using the Sam Harris argument, that in pursuit of suppressing Trump, anything is justified. But by removing or disrespecting the rights to which Americans are accustomed, you make opposition movements like Trump’s, you don’t stop them.

Yesterday was memorable for other reasons, but a depressing eye-opener as well, forcing me to see up close the intellectual desert that’s spread all the way to the edges within the party I once supported. There are no more pockets of Wellstones and Kuciniches who were once tolerated and whose job it is to uphold a constitutionalist position within the larger whole. That crucial little pocket of principle is gone, and I don’t think it’s coming back.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: And speaking of losing the plot:

Congresswoman, how does badgering a non-MAGA, non-Republican journalist to give up a source constitute fighting “Extreme MAGA Republican lies”?

Can you please identify something @ShellenbergerMD or I said that is extreme, a lie, or a conspiracy theory? https://t.co/xLolSBFIsp

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 11, 2023

Related: Twitter hearing uncovers Democrats’ chilling message to journalists.

(Updated and bumped.)

LAWS ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Treasury IG: 42,000 federal employees “repeatedly” failed to file taxes.

JUST NBC THE BRILLIANT STOCK PICKS! CNBC’s Jim Cramer eviscerated for touting Silicon Valley Bank weeks before disastrous collapse.

CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer is being shredded across social media after footage resurfaced of him urging viewers in February to invest in Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which collapsed on Friday.

SVB had been the 16th largest bank in the United States and was connected to a number of Silicon Valley industries and startups. The closure of the bank was announced by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), making it the worst U.S. financial institution failure in nearly 15 years.

Upon the news of SVB’s collapse, a clip went viral of Cramer in February speaking positively about the bank in a list of “The Biggest Winners of 2023… So Far.”

“The ninth-best performer here today is SVB financial. Don’t yawn,” he told his viewers on Feb. 8. “This company is a merchant bank with a deposit base that Wall Street has been mistakenly concerned about!”

Flash-forward to yesterday: ‘Shellshocked:’ Silicon Valley Bank Shut Down by Regulators, Marking Stunning Downfall. “Silicon Valley Bank’s sudden meltdown ranks as the second biggest collapse in banking history and the largest since the Great Financial Crisis.”

UPDATE: Get woke, go…:

Who the hell was in charge of risk management at SVB and what the hell were they focused on???

Oh pic.twitter.com/xdkzjqRPmc

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) March 11, 2023

Related: Bank of London weighs rescue bid for UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank. The Bank of London is exploring the possibility of assembling an offer for SVB UK as start-up founders warn Jeremy Hunt that its collapse will “cripple” the British tech sector, Sky News learns.

But their pronouns were perfect.

(Updated and bumped.)

I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Emergency department visits for attempted suicides rose globally among youth during pandemic, shows meta-analysis.

THREE YEARS AGO TODAY:

Three years ago [today], the World Health Organization declared the spread of what was then called the novel coronavirus to be a pandemic. Some 4,200 Covid-19 deaths had been confirmed at that point. Almost 7 million would follow, though the true number of lives lost is believed to be much higher. In March of 2020, the pathogen had already spread to more than 100 countries. Horrific waves would sweep across Europe and the US, which for much of the pandemic suffered the worst death toll of all. No part of the planet would be untouched, as India later suffered a crushing surge and, more recently, China after the sudden lifting of precautions. The constant wail of sirens that punctured the night in cities like New York—an initial epicenter of the global disaster—has receded. But with close to 1,000 confirmed Covid-19 deaths every day all over the world, the pandemic isn’t over.

Bloomberg continues to track the global coronavirus pandemic. Click here for daily updates.

How odd. Joe Biden told me that he was going to shut down the virus:

It’s not all that surprising that some quarters of the authoritarian left wants the pandemic to continue indefinitely: The sinister cruelty of lockdown has been laid bare. We now know just how drunk on tyranny the political class was during the pandemic.

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Colorado school district hires “genderqueer shapeshifter witch” to train staff on transgenderism.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Dem-Olition Derby Edition.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY: “Success cannot be administrated.” Arleigh Burke.

BE PREPARED FOR WARMER WEATHER: Neutrogena Triple Protect Men’s Daily Face Lotion with Broad Spectrum SPF 20 Sunscreen. #CommissionEarned

HEY, ISN’T THE LEFT ALL FOR FOLLOWING WHAT THE EUROPEANS ARE DOING? Norway puts brakes on pediatric sex change experiment, places severe restrictions on hormone therapies and surgeries for minors.

UPDATE: Swedish schools stayed open because we followed science. It was a clear assessment: children were at little risk from Covid but faced a very serious threat from missing out on critical education.

WELL, THAT’S STUPID: Transgender Stanford grad student wants hormones ‘handed out like Skittles.’

WHY FEED THE BEAST? Glenn Youngkin’s rookie CNN error.

Youngkin is a talented politician but that is completely beside the point. The Virginia governor had to stand on a stage for up to an hour and accept Jake Tapper and CNN’s framing of the issues. That’s what has to change with Republicans ahead of the next national election. There is nothing to be accomplished by walking into this kind of environment — both CNN and Jake Tapper know this, even in the new, “more centrist,” less well viewed Chris Licht era. Youngkin ultimately only boosts CNN’s faulty ratings as they try to generate controversy around a fairly popular governor and possible future presidential candidate.

CNN’s agenda is not to have an honest debate. Not on gender, race, guns or schools. Under Jeff Zucker, CNN was interested in the show trial. It appears that under Licht, nothing has changed. Eventually, maybe Youngkin and Republicans will learn this lesson.

I know one Republican who has — but how does he avoid the DNC-MSM entirely during a White House run? Not Good Enough, Andrea: ‘Was a Blatant Lie:’ DeSantis Team Rejects Andrea Mitchell Saying She Was ‘Imprecise’ on Gov’s Education Views, Vow to Freeze Out NBC.