Came In Like A Teching Ball

Silicon Valley Bank failed and it remains to be seen what unintended consequences we may have unleashed by bailing it out. What’s clear, though, is that SVB’s risk exposure could probably have been detected and its failure prevented, and SVB’s richest, most powerful depositors tried to whip up a broader banking panic in order to build pressure on the government to save them from their poor decisions. They warned of everything up to civilizational collapse if the government didn’t announce that they’d be held harmless. And they got exactly what they wanted, with no strings attached, no new regulation, no new legislation, no symbolic tax on their standing in public life. They’ve gone right back to pretending to be masters of the universe, and they grow seemingly more enthralled with fascist politics every day, as if the Democratic government didn’t just bail them out. Economist Dean Baker joins host Brian Beutler to discuss the stakes of the bail out, and if economics can account for the moral hazard of caving to demands of extremely powerful political activists, openly allied with the political right, who threaten to break the system if they don’t get their way.