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Urgent: Sign the petition now

ycombinator.com

531–540 of 864 posts

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#531

We have a simple ask: Regulators need to step in and implement a backstop for depositors. This is not a bank bailout. What kind of double-speak is this? How is "implement a backstop for depositors" anything other a "bank bailout?"

A bailout protects the equity and debt holders of a bank. This has nothing to do with that--it's about making sure the depositors of a bank get the cash they were holding there.

Yeah that is not what it means. I'm sorry to inform you of that.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#532

Why on earth would this be flagged? The SVB fiasco has been all over the front page for days, with an unprecedented number of stories allowed simultaneously. This particular link is especially relevant, since it's from YC itself. The strangest part is there's no 'vouch' button, which is typically/always available on flagged submissions.

Because it looks bad to the powers that be

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#533
post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much anyone on the internet can make an account here. Surely you don’t expect everyone to agree with what everyone else has said just because it’s on the same site!

In the same way, surely you don't expect taxpayers to agree with what SVB's account holders want, just because they are on this site!

[deleted]

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#534

No bailout. Where's the sense of responsibility here? YC told their funded companies to use Silicon Valley Bank. It's YC's responsibility to find a market for SVB's assets. It's YC's responsibility to create a secondary market for SVB's receivership certificates.

There is ZERO contrition in any of their communications. Their messages are "we are special because we are the job creators" and "it will end up hurting small guys more" and other forms of self-gratification and bullying.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#535
"Small business depositors at Silicon Valley Bank should be made whole. Regulators need to conduct a backstop of depositors. We are not asking for a bank bailout. "

Man, talk about cognitive dissonance.

Depositors should get back what is available from sale of bank assets. No more

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#536

I love how they’re using language like “small business” because they know how little sympathy AI powered dog washing apps will get among the rest of the country. Sorry, a small business is a machine shop or hair studio. They don’t bank with SVB. These are startups that get millions in funding for often very dubious purposes. There are a few gems among them - but let them stand on their own. Or course, the real culpri…

The wording "small business" draws more favor than "Silicon Valley tech startup"

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#537
post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify, these depositors specifically exceeded the FDIC deposit insurance limit (250K), right? That isn't a new or unknown rule; either through ignorance or calculated risk, those depositors that exceeded the limit took a chance. I don't disagree that something should be done in the future to prevent this, but when you gamble, sometime you lose.

Chose to exceed that and also not diversify at the same time. In my mind they have only themselves to blame. They could have gotten one or two more accounts if they are legitimate businesses.

What if you have 3 billions to deposit, like Circle ? Open 1200 accounts in 1200 different banks ?

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#538
post #483

Flagged!? Come on this is extremely topical, I cannot think of a more on-topic thing for HN. It brings together: - Silicon Valley - Startups - Y Combinator - Current Events Any one of those is an appropriate submission for Hacker News but altogether, it’s just … there is nothing more appropriate for HN. This belongs at the top of the front page where I encountered it.

Hey man, they own the place so it is their rules. Do you think the speech is free here? Newspeak only.

Right but the link itself isn’t critical of HN or anything, just some of the comments turned out not to be super on board with the petition.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#539
post #367
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if there are small companies I don't think they are in some honest business of producing useful physical goods and charging fair money for that. Most likely they are half-assed scammy SAAS crap. Absolutely not sure why these world beaters hacking everything under Sun need to be bailed out by some stodgy old institution anyway.

Why are SaaSs scammy?

SaaSs are scammy especially when they involve:

- Repackaging an existing codebase or business model

- ... as a black box

- ... attempting to rent it out

- ... with worse data privacy

- ... exploiting systemic economic excesses

- ... ... inflicting societal harm

- ... ... often with minimal upside to the consumer short-term

- ... ... or long-term

- ... colluding with large existing players

- ... ... to create a treadmill of declining product quality

- ... ... to facilitate government surveillance and information operations

- ... ... to "play defense" against competitors

It's kind of like how OOP was intended to stratify and contain developers, except instead of abstracting commodity PCs there's a whole different calculus which basically implies that the ultimate consumer of computing equipment is like, 2 or 3 big companies, because financing. You know how the old democratic saying goes, "none of us is as strong as the 2-3 permanent CEOs of reality."

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#540

Unpopular opinion: the government should try to make depositors of banks whole when their banks fail.

I have no idea why this idea is suddenly so unpopular. People see putting money in banks as a de-facto safe decision. $250k might be a reasonable cutoff for individuals, but it's clearly way too low for businesses. If that threshold had been more like $10M, SVB might have even survived since depositors would have had faith they could access enough of their funds within a day of a bank failure. Instead, there was a bank run.
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