One thing that gets you is that you have these intensely selective law schools and the people they admit turn out to be head cases. And almost no one on the faculty objects. The simplest way to repair the problem is for Stanford’s board to close the law school and discharge its employees. Which, of course, they will never do.

My word! Cackles vs. Fauxcahontas!
It’s almost…Nietzschean!
https://spectator.org/nietzsche-in-the-shadows/

+ Bonus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUJCVgcGLCQ

(Um, make that Comedy Alert!!
Prepare your floors and walls with thick, durable matting….)

REVEALED: Only ONE member of failed SVB’s board had a career in investment banking – and the rest were Obama, Clinton mega-donors who ‘grieved’ when Trump won including one who went to Shinto shrine ‘to pray’
Tom King, 63, was the only member of the Silicon Valley Bank board who had experience in investment banking
The others were major Obama and Clinton mega-donors, including one who cried when Trump won in 2016
The board is now being investigated for its failure to act ahead of the bank’s collapse, as some argue it was too focused on being woke
…
When the bank fell on Friday, it touted that its board included ‘1 black,’ ‘1 LGBTQ+’ member and ‘2 veterans.’ It also noted that its board is 45 percent women.

But only one board member is under the age of 60 — while the oldest is 78.
…
The bank finally named a qualified board member in September 2022, with the appointment of Tom King.

Kay Matthews, the chair of the board of directors, said at the time: ‘Tom’s proven leadership within complex global financial services firms makes him well suited to join SVB’s board as the company continues to grow.

‘Tom’s expansive knowledge of the financial services industry will contribute to SVB’s ability to execute its strategy and deliver long-term value for stakeholders,’ she promised.

Meanwhile, Becker said in a statement that King has ‘leveraged his global banking and corporate finance expertise, regulatory knowledge and keen relationship-building talents to build and transform businesses.

‘His strategic thinking and values-led leadership will be an asset to our company and our clients.’

The company also announced at the time it had $214billion in assets and more than 7,700 employees globally.

It now remains unclear why the board failed to act as SVB was making risky investments.

I can’t believe they wrote that with a straight face.

Executives at the company began depositing much of its excess funds accrued during the COVID pandemic in higher-yielding, long term bonds, along with $80billion in 10-year mortgage-backed securities that pay out 1.5percent rather than the short-term Treasury Department securities that pay out only 0.25percent beginning in 2021.

That left the bank with a deposit base heavily skewed toward technology firms with huge accounts, over the $250,000 insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

By the end of 2022, a vast majority of the bank’s deposits, $157billion, were held in just over 37,000 accounts that were over the FDIC’s deposit-insurance gap.

It then continued business as usual, borrowing short-term from depositors and lending long-term without any interest-rates — even as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned that higher interest rates were coming.

As customers started to ask for their money back as the economy revamped, SVB had to sell $21million worth of its underwater long-term assets with an average interest rate around 1.8percent.

That meant that the bank lost $1.8billion on sales, leaving executives frantically trying to raise more than $2billion to fill the hole, which it was unable to do.

https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/03/14/svb-a-guest-post-by-francis-turner/#comment-908164
AesopFan says:March 15, 2023 at 4:51 am
Francis: “Lots of small businesses applied for [pandemic] grants and got them and banked much of the money because they didn’t need to spend it all at the time. …It looks like SVB basically got about 5% of all US Wuflu subsidy spending deposited in it in 2020 and 2021.”

So: the money that Biden has promised that the depositors will somehow get back from FDIC (which we know means taxpayers will provide it through one means or another) is money that they got from the taxpayers in the first place.

WHY? — instead of Biden Inc. just saying, “If you didn’t need it when we gave it to you, you don’t get it back now.”

Of course we all know the answer: many SVB depositors are their buddies, even if they are evil rich capitalists who aren’t paying their fair share.
And never will.

@ Almuric [a few comments back at Hoyt’s]: “Gavin Newsom failed to disclose personal ties including his bank accounts at Silicon Valley Bank while lobbying for their bailout.”

miguel cervanes;

If we’re talking about “I Will Wait for You,” I had that impression too. It wasn’t in “Dr. Zhivago,” as I thought, but Frank Sinatra and Connie Francis covered it. Here’s Connie’s version, which gets the song’s tender vulnerability as opposed to Sinatra’s swagger:
_________________________________

–Connie Francis, “I Will Wait For You”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi57d50pCUw
_________________________________

People have largely forgotten Connie. I haven’t.

For anyone interested in the French version of a big 60s Hollywood film, “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” is the go-to.
_________________________________

–“I Will Wait for You”, “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaY6iWmQXS4
_________________________________

Catherine Deneuve!

APPEARED perfectly fine you mean.
I worked for a company that APPEARED perfectly fine for months until suddenly all hell broke loose and everything collapsed within a few days. CEO had emptied out the bank accounts and the division managers managed to keep things going by selling off more and more assets and cover one hole with another.

Its like electric cars being environmentally friendly, and they might be so long as you do not consider the ultimate source of the electricity they use. Even if its solar panels, you need to consider the development of the materials of the panels. A lot of fossil-fuel is burned there.

FDIC is another hidden-ball-trick.