"Why are banks allowed to have shareholders at all? Doing so only serves to privatize the gains, and then, when a bank goes too far in maximizing shareholder returns, socialize the losses."
- Robert Reich
The country, and indeed the world, may be quite nervous after the United States saw the second biggest bank collapse in American history in recent days. Of course, this brings to mind the financial meltdown that saw Lehman Brothers go under back in late 2008, which led to the so-called "Great Recession," the most serious economic crisis that the nation has faced since the Great Depression.
During his presidency, Trump insisted on more deregulations. Particularly relevant in this particular case was the gutting of the Dodd-Frank Act which was itself an attempt to protect Americans from the kind of corrupt and criminally irresponsible banking practices that had greatly contributed to the financial meltdown of 2008. It almost saw the collapse of the American economy, and nevertheless seriously hurt not just the American economy, but indeed the world economy at the time. In fact, it would take many years for the economy to truly recover.
Yet, as if in a hurry to prove just how short term our collective memory is, we voted a man in who actively promoted the same kind of reckless practices that had led to such a catastrophe in the first place. Not only did Trump advocate gutting the Dodd-Frank Act, he boasted about it. And for the most part, he succeeded in gutting it. And it was this kind of deregulation which allowed - quite predictably - the same kind of irresponsible big bank practices that led us to our last major economic slowdown. Also predictably, Trump - shameless and manipulative and misleading as he always is - is trying to claim that he knew this was going to happen all along, and is trying to pin it on Biden.
It remains to be seen whether Americans will believe this or not. Far too many Americans seem willing to believe whatever King Con Don spoon feeds them anyway, so it is no impossible that they will buy into his overly convenient and shamelessly self-serving interpretation.
Of course, there is no real way for sure to tell what will happen. Will the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank lead to something worse down the road? If so, how bad will it get? Or will it just be a relatively isolated incident?
Time will tell. But I thought that this video from Seth Meyers on his late night comedic show would well be worth sharing.
Enjoy!
Quote used above taken from Robert Reich's Facebook page from a post dated on March 14, 2023:
https://www.facebook.com/RBReich
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