Brecht’s Critique of”Don’t Say We Didn’t Tell You So” (Elizabeth Warren’s Rebuke of the Latest Bailout)

Monday, March 13, 2023

It’s such a great feeling to watch a system falling over itself as it props up its “wealth management” portfolios. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which was the 16th largest bank in the entire country a week ago, seemed to have been doing quite well over the past three years. According to Elizabeth Warren, SVB’s profits rose over 40 percent since the start of this decade and its leadership was proportionately rewarded: Mr. Greg Becker, who has been the CEO of SVB since April, 2011, was paid $9.9 million last year, including a $1.5 million bonus for boosting bank profitability. At this point, I think it’s fair for the general public to have a look at his tax returns for the past ten years, not to mention a list of those political candidates whose election campaigns he has contributed to.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/opinion/elizabeth-warren-silicon-valley-bank.html

Not that something like this comes as any surprise to those of us who are familiar with how capitalism has set up its race track. By all means no good deed goes unpunished, and that includes how the “good deed” of the bank bailout of 2007-2008 comes full circle. For those who want the specific, pertinent detail, suffice it to say that SVB was at the trough when the “Troubled Asset Relief Program” (TARP) was taking care of the well-off. TARP provided an “investment” of $235 million to SVB to get things up and running again. This past week’s intervention by the government shows that when it comes to protecting the wealthy, there’s no hesitation about rewarding those who didn’t learn their lesson the first time.

“What is the crime of robbing a bank compared to that of founding one?” — “The Threepenny Opera” by Brecht and Weill

Perhaps that famous line should be amended:
“What is the crime of robbing a bank compared to that of bailing out one?”

Meanwhile, Governor Newsom of California refused last year to support an additional one percent raise for CSU faculty, even as inflation was running at triple the rate of the increase the CSU’s union had foolishly consented to.

Hey, you want to know what cuased the latest bank failure? — There you have it! It was those greedy college professors who caused this bank run. If they had accepted the zero percent raise that the chancellors on CSU’s Board of Trustees had offered back when negotiations on a new contract started, no doubt none of the problems that afflicted SVB would ever have happened. Shame on you, CSU professors.

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