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Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout

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Re: Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout

#331
post #170

I see a lot of unexpected saltiness and clear misconceptions in any thread about SVB. “Depositors shouldn’t get anything beyond the insured $250,000”. Then what do we do with the billions in remaining assets? Appropriate them, and leave small and mid businesses hanged to dry? “This is a bailout”. It would be if shareholders were to get their money back, which doesn’t seem likely. The government will use the bank asse…

can’t people buy private insurance for their deposits above the $250k threshold? if you buy an expensive house or car you generally pay a lot more to insure that asset. not sure why people don’t think of buying insurance on their bank deposits in the same way if you find yourself in a situation where you need to hold much more than $250k in one account for whatever reason. But even if you’re an individual holding mil…

Since bank run can be contagious, private insurance may fail to pay out in those cases.

Re: Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also lobbied to become more vulnerable. Greg Becker the CEO worked to get regulations removed that helped them get in this position by removing public liquidity stress test reports and reduce the frequency of liquidity stress tests.

That's fine, punish the bank and change the regulations. Depositors had nothing to do with that.

Depositors failed to do their due diligence, the bank offered 'sweet heart' deals to get customers. Depositors should lose their pants and have to wait for the FDIC to liquidate before getting any funds.

No one deserves free, unlimited, zero risk access to depositors. If you want to do that, you should buy bonds, short eurodollars as hedge, and get loans against the bonds. None of this is free.

Re: Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout

#333
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is because there are countless scenarios in the US economic system, where people/businesses fail cause of no fault of their own, but they are told tough luck that's the free market at work cause these people are simply unconnected or their failure is deemed unimportant. It's why the finanical bailouts left a bitter taste for anyone paying attention, and why gov't action here is immediately scoffed at.

I don’t understand this debate. The article says nothing about whether or not depositors will be bailed out.

What it says though, is that bailing it out is off the table.

Which has an effect on the investors outcome, hence help depositor better, or at lower cost.

It's an investors, depositors, and tax payers dilema.

The brightest and only fair outcome would be that a private funds/bank aquires SVB. That way everyone is made whole at the expense of nobody. A very unlikely scenario given nobody would touch a beyond help entity with, potentially, liabilities turning out greater than the overall assets left. Intengible assets may save the day, still a bit of hope there.

Re: Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law is clear on the priority of claims. You can get a quick overview at the bottom of this page: https://www.fdic.gov/resources/resolutions/bank-failures/fai... It makes sense that they’ll make depositors whole before even thinking about the rest. From the top of that page: “ All depositors will have full access to their insured deposits no later than Monday morning, March 13, 2023. The FDIC will pay uninsured de…

More than 85% of Silicon Valley's Bank's Deposits Were Not Insured. https://time.com/6262009/silicon-valley-bank-deposit-insuran...

So? That doesn't change anything.

Re: Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout

#335
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bailing out the owners is obviously completely out of the question, but why bail out the depositors beyond the guarantees they knew they were getting at the time? Funny how language is being used to frame all this. For depositors it's made whole , not bailed out , when of course it's no less a bail out.

It's a matter of differing expectations. When you purchase stock in a bank, there is a reasonable expectation that your investment could lose value. When you deposit money with a bank (in the United States in 2023), you basically never consider the possibility that you might not get it all back. You can certainly argue that the expectation isn't fair, but I'm pretty confident it's nearly universal.

In Britain the protected amount is £85k per person per banking group, and it's universal that anyone with more than that splits it over accounts with multiple banks, taking care to make sure the banks aren't part of the same banking group.

Is it any different over there, albeit for the rather higher limit, in America?

Re: Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout

#336
post #148

Eh, the depositors aren’t totally blameless here. On Thursday they conspired to perform a huge bank run on SVB, on Friday they succeeded, and on Saturday they were demanding the government and taxpayers make them whole by Monday. They deserve to get their money back and they eventually will once SVB’s assets are liquidated. But that’s not good enough, they want it now , and they won’t hesitate to make you pay for the…

> they conspired to perform a huge bank run

Individual depositors don't need to conspire to reach the conclusion that in a bank run scenario, it is virtually always in each depositor's own best interest to withdraw their money.

Re: Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout

#337
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is because there are countless scenarios in the US economic system, where people/businesses fail cause of no fault of their own, but they are told tough luck that's the free market at work cause these people are simply unconnected or their failure is deemed unimportant. It's why the finanical bailouts left a bitter taste for anyone paying attention, and why gov't action here is immediately scoffed at.

Except this is the opposite of what happened in 2008 with bailing out the banks. Then, the banks got public money to remain solvent. Here, the bank is taking the hit and the government is ensuring the depositors get their funds back. In 08 people were kicked out of their homes and banks were propped up with public funds. Here, the depositors are being made whole and the bank is going out of business. The salt is your…

Tangent: In decades of socializing in NYC and the Bay Area, I've only ever seen the term 'flyover country' used by people complaining that the coastal elites look down on them. Never once heard the term from an actual coastal elite.

Re: Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout

#339

I see a lot of unexpected saltiness and clear misconceptions in any thread about SVB. “Depositors shouldn’t get anything beyond the insured $250,000”. Then what do we do with the billions in remaining assets? Appropriate them, and leave small and mid businesses hanged to dry? “This is a bailout”. It would be if shareholders were to get their money back, which doesn’t seem likely. The government will use the bank asse…

I'm pretty baffled to see so much of this on HN. Like a whole lot of people here, I've worked at startups for my whole career. People here are effectively suggesting that I shouldn't get my paycheck and that the company I work for should lose most of its money because our CEO used a well-reputed bank?

Absolutely wipe out the equityholders of SVB. They deserve nothing, because that's what you should end up with if you own stock in a company that goes bankrupt. Claw back executive pay if that's something you can do. But kill a bunch of startups because of their choice of financial institution? I just don't get where that comes from.

Re: Yellen says government will help SVB depositors but rules out bailout

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in the case of large retail banks, the government did help. In 2008, the federal government purchased stock in several banks in order to recapitalize them. One could argue this was a starker example of moral hazard than letting the bank fail, but making depositors whole.

Which is why you should always bank at a "too big to fail" institution. Why America has 4000 banks is beyond me. In my country they all consolidated in the 60s and 70s into a half a dozen giants.

I don’t agree. I diversify by using two small local Credit Unions. I also use a large bank for specific services.

Local Credit Unions and small local banks rock.

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