For the week ending May 10, total U.S. commercial bank deposits declined by $26.4 billion, or 0.15 percent, to roughly $17.123 trillion, the lowest level since July 2021. That represented the third consecutive week of rising deposit outflows as the fallout from the banking turmoil in early March persists.

Large commercial banks (negative $21 billion) and small institutions (negative $2.6 billion) both saw declining deposit volumes on a seasonally adjusted basis. In addition, foreign-related banks reported a $2.1 billion drop in deposits.

Since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the Fed’s H.8 data show that total deposits have plunged about $476 billion.

The same report found that loans and leases decreased by $3.3 billion.

Despite the downward trajectory in deposits, CIBC Capital Markets Inc. economists don’t believe this is a worrying trend, writing that the latest figures paint a portrait of a banking system normalizing following sizable pandemic-era liquidity injections.

“Some of what we’re seeing is more a reversion to more normal conditions after ballooning liquidity during the pandemic,” bank economist Avery Shenfeld wrote in a recent research note. “The common perception is that a draining of deposits causes a drop in loans.

“While that’s a plausible story for any one institution, in the aggregate, there’s also a cause and effect in the other direction, in which a decline in loans outstanding is what actually causes a drop in aggregate deposits.”

Meanwhile, additional central bank data suggest that banks are still tapping into the Fed’s emergency lending facilities.

The institution’s H.4.1 figures—the Fed’s balance sheet—confirm that loans from the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) climbed to a fresh high of $87 billion for the week ending May 17.

Soon after the SVB and Signature failures, the Fed launched the BTFP, which allows borrowers to use Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities as collateral for loans up to one year.

But while the raw data suggest that the banking system is still facing considerable stress, some public policymakers and market analysts assert that the worst is over.

Atlanta Fed Bank President Raphael Bostic believes the market stresses are subsiding, telling the regional central bank’s Financial Markets Conference on May 16 that “we’ve not seen this contagion take place.”

Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated at the Perspectives on Monetary Policy panel at the Thomas Laubach Research Conference on May 19 that the financial stability tools the central bank employed at the onset of the banking turmoil helped “calm conditions.”

Western Alliance Bancorporation recently supported these arguments after a May 15 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing confirmed that deposits rose by more than $2 billion in the three months to May 12.

Shares of the regional bank tumbled 2.44 percent during the May 19 regular trading session, but the stock recorded a weekly gain of about 25 percent.

U.S. regional bank stocks slumped to finish the trading week after two sources close to the situation told CNN that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned bank CEOs at a recent meeting that more mergers might be necessary.

Yellen met with more than two dozen bank CEOs and executives at a meeting convened by the Bank Policy Institute (BPI) on May 18. Despite a statement reaffirming the strength of the banking system, the Treasury Department didn’t mention these remarks.

The KBW Nasdaq Regional Banking Index fell a little more than 2 percent, while PacWest Bancorp declined almost 2 percent.

If Yellen’s remarks are accurate, new mergers will continue the trend of declining competition in the U.S. banking system. At the end of 2022, there were 4,135 commercial banks, down from the peak of 14,469 in 1983, representing a 71 percent decline over four decades, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC).

The Treasury’s cash balance in its bank account at the Federal Reserve is also heading lower as the department tries to prevent a default on the federal government’s debt. The latest update to the Treasury General Account (TGA) Opening Balance for May 18 stood at $68.332 billion, down from $94.629 billion and $316.381 billion at the start of the month.

Article from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.

In The Last American Vagabond video above, you can watch Agustín Carstens, general manager for the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), spell out exactly why globalists are promoting central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, so heavily.

“[With] cash we don’t know, for example, who’s using a $100 bill today,” he says. “We don’t know who is using a 1,000-peso bill today. A key difference with the CBDC is that Central Bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of Central Bank liability and also we will have the technology to enforce that.”¹

The video features an interview with finance guru Catherine Austin Fitts — publisher of The Solari Report² — who has warned that CBDCs are part of a plan to end all currencies. If that happens, a slavery system, steeped in the ideologies of transhumanism and technocracy, will be ushered in.

“We’re watching events that are within a framework, which is very engineered and planned,” Fitts says. “At the root of what’s going on today is there is a group of people who are trying to totally centralize control of all financial transactions on the planet — 100% — using digital technology.”³

Taxation Without Representation

“It’s a very rare moment when a central bank is telling you the truth,” Fitts notes, but Carstens’ statements did just that, detailing how central banks can enforce rules centrally “because it’s no longer your money, it’s our money — and we can set the rules on how you can use ‘our’ money,” she says.⁴

CBDCs will rapidly usher in an era of taxation without representation, leading to the end of liberty. By granting complete control of individuals’ financial transactions to central bankers, CBDCs allow the government to maintain complete control.

Without financial transaction freedom — the ability to transact with whoever you want, for any purpose — there will be no freedom, Fitts says. This is a key reason why we need to preserve cash. Right now, there’s a war going on between decentralizers, who are trying to preserve financial transaction freedom, and centralizers, who are fighting among themselves over who will be in control of the system.

“And, of course, every effort is being made by the corporate media to turn the rest of us who are trying to fight for transaction freedom to divide and conquer. And so it can be very confusing to watch this if you don’t see the gist of the main game,” Fitts explains.⁵

Central Bankers Hiding Behind Health Infrastructure

Part of what’s going on behind the scenes is what Fitts refers to as the Going Direct Reset — the “wholesale plan”⁶ of The Great Reset, which has been packaged for “retail” sale to the masses. The Going Direct Reset is detailed by John Titus on the Solari Report,⁷ but it involves the massive amounts of money — $3.5 trillion over a few weeks — injected into the economy in 2020.

That money was largely used in a way to build out only certain sectors — like space, the smart grid and health infrastructure — while starving others. This is another facet of gaining control and also involves the rollout of digital passports under the guide of keeping the population healthy and safe. Fitts explains:⁸

“Essentially, build out the infrastructure of control. Get everybody on an electrical grid … and we see this dance between finance and health care. If the central bankers had to do all the centralizing control with money they would end up with everybody coming at them with pitchforks, and so they hide behind health.

We see this use of the health infrastructure basically to build the train tracks of control. So, for the central banks, for example, to do CBDC they need a digital ID. Well, you get that because you’re trying to make everybody safe, right? … So we’ve had this dance during the Going Direct Reset of using health to justify more central control.”

Was the SVB Banking Collapse Deliberate?

During the pandemic, you had the Fed pumping a massive amount of money into the economy, while one-third to half of U.S. small businesses were shut down in the name of public health.⁹ This wreaked havoc with people’s loan portfolios, but what caused Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the 16th largest in the U.S.,¹⁰ to collapse?

“At Silicon Valley Bank (SVB),” Fitts says, “you have the biotech and life sciences and the tech IPO pipeline that literally sort of explodes in the bubble, and then when the bubble’s over it kind of shuts down.”

That was one aspect. Meanwhile, Fitts says, 49% of the small businesses in San Francisco shut down, “so if you’re SVB loaning to just small businesses in the Silicon Valley area … that could be as much as half your loan portfolio.”¹¹ However, ultimately Fitts believes the collapse was a deliberate takedown — not the result of a traditional bank run:¹²

“We had a takedown at SVB. There’s a game going on and … what it turned into was an effort by a variety of players to panic everyone into believing … that this was going to turn into a wider contagion run.

Now if you do look at the numbers on the banking system, if interest rates continue to stay high for a long period of time and a lot of banks have to run a negative arbitrage, that’s a problem … so you’re going to have banks that get into trouble and end up going out of business in that situation … but it’s not necessarily true that interest rates are going to stay up … we don’t know.”

Creating Financial Panic Drives Business to the Criminals

The panic created over instability in the banking system may also be part of the plan. By creating a banking run, many will take their money out of small banks and put it with the central banks that are at the root of the problem:¹³

“To get complete control, you’ve got to kill the small guys. You’ve got to kill the small farms. You’ve got to kill the small businesses and you’ve got to kill the small banks.

So, we use the health care game to shut down the small businesses and the farms — not because they’re less productive but because the guys running the game could pick up huge market share and make a fortune stealing their businesses and picking up their asses cheap …

You pump money into your pals and then you shut down your enemies, and then your pals can go pick your enemies up for cheap … so we shut down the small farms and small business … and now we’re ready to shut down the small banks.

Now, if you’re the top guys and you want to play this game, who better to shut down the small banks than panic on all the small bank depositors and scaring them and getting them to walk their deposits across the street to the criminals? … What they’re trying to do is get all their neighbors’ cattle to stampede into their corral.”

If the globalists take over, which is all but guaranteed if they control the financial system with CBDCs, they can institute worldwide slavery. But unlike in the past, technology now exists to keep track of people’s every move and control their ability to live in the modern world if they don’t obey. Fitts says:¹⁴

“The greatest most profitable business in the history of the world is slavery, more than mining, more than anything else. Slavery. That’s what this is about. Digital technology solves all the bad problems they had with slavery the last time. All those problems you can now solve with digital technology.

You can perfect your collateral — if I can implant a chip in you … then I can collateralize you. I can perfect my collateral as a banker and now we’re off to the races. I can build a slavery system and with robotics, AI and automation, I can manage it.”

How to Find a Good Local Bank

Fitts stresses that leaving the banking system isn’t the answer — finding a good local bank, and stashing your cash in a variety of places, is. While you’re there, let bankers know about the dangers of CBDCs. The Solari Report even has a template letter¹⁵ you can use to inform your bankers about the downsides of CBDCs. It reads, in part:

“It strikes me that creating a different, yet centrally controlled fiat currency that can be created from thin air and manipulated by unelected central bankers does not promote U.S. financial stability or provide citizens with consumer and investor protections — except in the sense that totalitarian governments can be financially stable through the power of taxation without representation and the ability to micromanage and regulate the spending of families and small enterprise.”

The bank or credit union you choose should not have a record of criminal behavior. Next, just as it’s a good idea to get to know the small farmers growing your food, it’s a good idea to get to know the people running your local bank.

The “No. 1 criteria is are they well managed? Are they well governed? Who owns, who manages, who’s on the board?” Fitts says. “What is the quality of the people and their experience and expertise?”¹⁶ The second criteria to look for is a steady deposit base.

“You want to look at the deposit base, you want to look at the loan base, you want to look at the investment portfolio,” according to Fitts. “And then you want to make sure that in the investment portfolio, or in their accounts, they have enough short-term investments and cash … it’s like a train. People get on and off, and you want them to have enough liquidity so they can handle the ups and downs.”

Fitts encourages everyone to get to know their community bankers and credit union executives. “If you’re concerned about your bank, go talk to your bank. If they’re doing a good job, they will answer your questions with confidence.”

How to Stop CBDCs

One of the top ways to stop CBDCs, in addition to ditching large, multinational banks in favor of trustworthy local banks or credit unions, is to use cash as much as possible, and not frequent shops that don’t accept it.¹⁷

You want to have your cash spread out, starting with keeping cash on hand in your home, ideally in a fireproof safe. Then you can expand to a safe deposit box at a bank, a small, local bank or investing in silver and gold coins. Meanwhile, talk to the people in your local community about why you’re using cash.

“Start using cash, and as you use cash talk to the small businesses that you frequent — small restaurants, small farms — and talk to them about how we can work together as customer and business to improve our endurance and resiliency and well-being,” Fitts says.¹⁸

Helping to build out your local food sources is also part of the solution, since having access to healthy food is critical to maintaining health and autonomy. “Anything you can do to build out the local food markets so that we can’t get cornered and be dependent on our enemy for food, it’s going to make a big difference to freedom,” she explains.¹⁹

There’s still time to defeat the globalists and maintain life as we know it. So, rather than feeling defeated, recognize that the opportunity exists to win this battle, one action and one individual at a time:²⁰

“Understanding this can be completely overwhelming and depressing, but the thing I want to encourage everybody to understand is facing it … is the doorway that you walk through. And the grief you experience to get to the other side and realize there are real solutions. Because in the official narrative there are no real solutions, but if you face reality, there are real solutions.”

• ¹ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 0:53
• ² The Solari Report
• ³ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 3:46
• ⁴ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 4:24
• ⁵ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 6:06
• ⁶ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 9:42
• ⁷ Solari Report, Summary — Going Direct Reset
• ⁸ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 7:50
• ⁹ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 11:59
• ¹⁰ Yahoo Finance March 10, 2023
• ¹¹ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 12:18
• ¹² Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 43:22
• ¹³ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 45:08
• ¹⁴ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 32:10
• ¹⁵ The Solari Report, Template Letter to Bank December 14, 2022
• ¹⁶ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 35:34
• ¹⁷ The Solari Report Jauary 15, 2023
• ¹⁸ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 1:01
• ¹⁹ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 1:02
• ²⁰ Odysee, Catherine Austin Fitts Interview March 31, 2023, 55:59

For a moment, it looked like anyone with over $250,000 in the bank would lose their money. Apparently more than 90% of deposits at SVB exceeded this figure. That was the situation until the Fed came in and bailed everyone out over the weekend.

A timely reminder that money in the bank is NOT YOURS.

You are an unsecured creditor in what may very well be an insolvent institution. Some countries don’t even have deposit insurance, and every penny can be taken.

Meanwhile, here’s a live shot of me surveying my gold hoard (very little in banks):

In all seriousness, the issue here for SVB is actually with bonds.

Jamie Quint explained this on Twitter:

– In 2021 SVB saw a mass influx in deposits, which jumped from $61.76bn at the end of 2019 to $189.20bn at the end of 2021.

– As deposits grew, SVB could not grow their loan book fast enough to generate the yield they wanted to see on this capital. As a result, they purchased a large amount (over $80bn!) in mortgage backed securities (MBS) with these deposits for their hold-to-maturity (HTM) portfolio.

– 97% of these MBS were 10+ year duration, with a weighted average yield of 1.56%.

– The issue is that as the Fed raised interest rates in 2022 and continued to do so through 2023, the value of SVB’s MBS plummeted. This is because investors can now purchase long-duration “risk-free” bonds from the Fed at a 2.5x higher yield.

– This is not a liquidity issue as long as SVB maintains their deposits, since these securities will pay out more than they cost eventually.

– However, yesterday afternoon, SVB announced that they had sold $21bn of their Available For Sale (AFS) securities at a $1.8bn loss, and were raising another $2.25bn in equity and debt. This came as a surprise to investors, who were under the impression that SVB had enough liquidity to avoid selling their AFS portfolio.

Basically, SVB made a fixed income investment, rates moved higher, decimating the value of those bonds and now their collateral base is crappy. They’d need to sell assets to shore up their balance sheet, call in loans, raise equity, or all of the above — none of which is accretive and all of which may in itself call into question the solvency of the bank. Well, as it turns out, they waited too long to do any of that to try to fix things. And now they’re gone.

As we’ve been saying for years now, the unwinding of the bond market is going to create all manner of problems, many of which we’ve not even thought about. Anyone who is long bond duration is going to get hammered. The knock on effects promise to be substantial.

What to look out for? Banks, Insurances and Pension Funds.

Banks, insurance companies, and pension funds all own long-term paper at extremely low interest rates. Increasingly, they’ll be forced to compete with short-term treasuries, and they’ll lose. This is without them marking to market their balance sheets, which will come under enormous pressure. Consider a bond bought with a 1.25% coupon. When that same bond yields a mere 2.5%, the value of the bond gets cut in HALF. That’s a problem as all three of the above institutions will be forced to do one or all of the following in order to meet capital adequacy ratios:

1. Raise equity capital, which is dilutive and will be taking place in an environment of risk aversion. Ouch!
2. Liquidate some portion of their book in order to bring things back into line. Calling in loans in the midst of a market that is “risk off” means liquidity is poor or poorer than previously thought and prices crater quickly, especially with illiquid assets (think real estate, private equity, and so forth).
3. Seek a saviour from a better capitalised competitor in order to stay alive. Naturally, any transaction like this will be done on terms rather favourable to the acquirer. Call it distressed debt investing.

But what retail does? Buy more of those.

Remember, retail investors have no idea about any of the above. All they see is headlines on the nightly news and they freak out. This is why “managing the press” is so important to the powers that be. If not “managed,” we see mass withdrawals from depositors seeking higher yields which itself results in a wave of bank failures and that itself results in further withdrawals. Did I mention you may want to hold some gold?

In any event, the market sensing risk immediately sold the banks. All of them.

To be fair, every major index was down. The Dow, the Spooz, Nasdaq — all of them.

We don’t particularly care since we’re not invested in banks. With respect to the indices, we’re not invested in these either. This doesn’t mean however that we couldn’t see some headwinds as a liquidity crisis could cause problems for all and sundry here.

Interestingly that “useless lump of rock” took a few blue pills and got a rise.

The Coming Implosion

Give it 12 months or less, as the venture capitalists’ books are going to begin to be forced to mark-to-market their positions is going to be epic. I say they’re going to be forced to do this because most VC funded firms have 12 months of runway, and pray tell, who’s going to keep lending money to mostly (not all mind) cash incinerating Silicon Valley startups? So start your stopwatches and let’s clock back in 12 months from now or so (probably less).

Take a look at this Joint Statement by Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC

The following statement was released by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg:

Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system. This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth.

After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, and consulting with the President, Secretary Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, in a manner that fully protects all depositors. Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.

We are also announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank, New York, New York, which was closed today by its state chartering authority. All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer.

Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed. Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.

Finally, the Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors.

The U.S. banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation, in large part due to reforms that were made after the financial crisis that ensured better safeguards for the banking industry. Those reforms combined with today’s actions demonstrate our commitment to take the necessary steps to ensure that depositors’ savings remain safe.

Imagine being a conservative bank that did the right thing. You now pay for the folly of your competitors who completely pha-cdup. Communism.

The little midget woman assured everyone that this is NOT a bailout. So there’s that.

SVB is a warning sign not an isolated event.

It is a function of the risks that are out there. Anyone with long duration fixed income assets bought anywhere from 2008 onwards is holding increasingly worthless paper. The ramifications of this will be profound.

What nobody is talking about, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why, is that this has implications on the international front. Imagine, for a moment, you’re China. You see all this going down. You realize that the Fed can’t “tame inflation” while simultaneously bailing out the banks. It’s one or the other, and they’ve just announced they’ll bail out the banks. It is worth remembering China holds roughly a trillion in US debt.

Now, add to that the neocons threatening war with China, and you can see that there is a non zero risk that China tries to get out of the kitchen first and sells their US bonds. I know that’s what I’d do.

For whatever is worth, my favorite bank in this environment is something akin to Gringotts.

International Man’s Note: The Western system is undergoing substantial changes, and the signs of moral decay, corruption, and increasing debt are impossible to ignore. With the Great Reset in motion, the United Nations, World Economic Forum, IMF, WHO, World Bank, and Davos man are all promoting a unified agenda that will affect us all.

To get ahead of the chaos, download our free PDF report “Clash of the Systems: Thoughts on Investing at a Unique Point in Time” by clicking here.

Article cross-posted from International Man.

The failure of SVB is the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, behind only the failure Washington Mutual in September 2008. So, are the failures of SVB and Signature only isolated problems without systemic contagion, or do they represent the proverbial canary in the coal mine, warning of greater systemic troubles ahead? Here is a summary of the causes behind the failures of both banks, the response by the federal banking regulators, and the potential consequences.

Impact of Federal Reserve Policies

The Fed’s policy of artificially low interest rates and massive purchases of U.S. government debt since 2008, especially since 2020, has encouraged banks and businesses to engage in speculative activities that have not been driven by true market forces. This macro-financial environment can lull banks into a false sense of acceptable market and interest-rate risk.

With interest rates near zero from March 2020 to March 2022, along with an extraordinary 41 percent increase in the M2 money supply during that time period, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) reached a 41-year high in 2022. This prompted the Fed to abruptly change course in March 2022 with rapid increases in its Fed Funds Rate from 0.25 percent to 4.75 percent in February 2023. Such a swift increase in interest rates over the past year would require banks to adjust their asset-liability management to protect against interest-rate duration mismatches between assets and liabilities, known in banking terms as “duration risk.”

In the case of SVB, it was guilty of gross mismanagement of its duration risk over the past year, as it reported an abnormally high 41 percent of its total assets in Held-to-Maturity (HTM) securities, amounting to $91 billion at the end of 2022. These HTM securities, while mostly long-term U.S. government securities with little or no credit risk, had substantial duration risk in a rising-interest-rate environment, as fixed-rate securities fall in price when interest rates rise. This is how SVB got hammered, as it was forced to sell its HTM securities at big losses to cover the run-on-cash withdrawals by its deposit customers in the days leading up to its closure.

Flawed Regulatory Ratios for Assessing Bank Capital

Thomas Hoenig, a former head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and former vice chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), made insightful comments in a March 17 article in the Wall Street Journal. He said that the use of the government-derived “risk-weighted capital” in evaluating a bank’s capital position is a major problem because it does not describe real, tangible capital. In the case of SVB, Hoenig notes in a March 10 article that SVB’s regulatory risk-rated “Tier 1 Capital Ratio” was around 16 percent, a presumably safe capital position, but the more market-realistic “Tangible Capital-to-Asset Ratio” was only around 5 percent. Hoenig is concerned that the use of risk-weighted capital ratios, adopted by bank regulators around the world in 2014, will lead to more problems in the banking sector. Hoenig makes this point in his Wall Street Journal article.

“The other thing about risk weight,” Hoenig said, “is that it’s a political process. It’s not a market process. The market no longer determines capital in the banking, industry. It’s now politicians, lobbyists and the regulators who have to battle it out among themselves. Therefore, you get these nonmarket solutions like risk-weighted capital. And banks are incentivized to increasingly leverage their balance sheets.”

Questionable Bank Regulator Oversight

The deposit runs that occurred with both SVB and Signature Bank raise serious questions about the competence and/or possibly even the corrupt complicity of the regulators with oversight responsibility for the two banks. While the management of the two banks appropriately deserve blame for their failures, the relevant bank regulators also need to be held accountable for missing obvious regulatory red flags from such large banks well in advance of their failures.

In addition to the asset-liability duration mismatch at both banks, other red flags included abnormally high growth rates and concentrations in risky business sectors (green energy technology startups at SVB and crypto exposures at Signature) and extraordinarily high amounts of uninsured deposits.

Looking at data for the end of 2022, SVB had only 12.5 percent of its total deposits within the FDIC-insured limit of $250,000 per deposit account, which indicates that a whopping $151.5 billion of its total deposits of $173.1 billion were uninsured. A similar situation existed at Signature Bank, with only 10.3 percent of its total deposits of $88.6 billion under FDIC deposit insurance, indicating $79.5 billion in uninsured deposits. Thus, the combined uninsured deposits of both failed banks amounted to $231 billion, which should have alerted the banking regulators of duration risk and potential liquidity risk.

It is unclear at this point how these regulatory red flags were missed by the relevant regulators. The primary financial regulators for SVB and Signature Bank were their respective district Federal Reserve banks, i.e. the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (SF Fed) for SVB and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (NY Fed) for Signature. The FDIC was also involved in its traditional role as regulatory supervisor over the banks’ deposit insurance. The state banking regulators in California and New York also conduct bank examinations.

Because of the unexpected large-scale deposit run on Silicon Valley Bank that resulted in its failure, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced on March 13 that the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, Michael Barr, would lead a six-week review of the Fed’s regulatory supervision surrounding SVB. The Fed has committed to releasing Barr’s report by May 1.

Concerning Reactions by Federal Banking Regulators

The response to the failures of SVB and Signature Bank, and more recently to the troubled First Republic Bank, is extremely concerning for several reasons.

• Bailout of Uninsured Deposits: The decision of federal regulators (the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC) to guarantee funds for all depositors of both failed banks makes a mockery of the FDIC’s $250,000 deposit-insurance limit and signals a new acceptance by the federal regulators to bail out all depositors in any bank failure. This effectively means that the FDIC will now be expected to cover all of the deposits in the U.S. banking system.

At the end of 2022, the FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund (“DIF”) was $128 billion in comparison to the $17.7 trillion in total bank deposits in the entire U.S. banking system. The total deposits of SVB alone ($173 billion on Dec. 31, 2022) are enough to wipe out the entire balance of the DIF. So, how will deposits in excess of the Deposit Insurance Fund be funded? On March 12, a joint statement by U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC announced that any losses to the DIF would be recovered by a “special assessment on banks.” Such a special assessment means that the entire U.S. banking system will need to raise fees and/or charge higher interest rates on its customers in order to cover the cost of the newly mandated special assessment to cover the mismanagement of failed banks.

• Creation of a New Emergency Lending Program for Banks: On March 12, the Federal Reserve announced the creation of a new emergency lending program for banks, the “Bank Term Funding Program” or “BTFP.” This new program will allow banks to obtain cash from the Fed’s discount window with one-year term loans backed by collateral comprising U.S. government securities. In addition to providing yet more government support to the banking system, the BTFP also allows banks to pledge their collateral at par. This is another misguided Fed policy action, as it allows banks to offload securities with below-par market values onto the Fed at par value. This will not only encourage less prudent risk management by banks, but will also likely result in further expansion of the Fed’s already massive $8.6 trillion balance sheet.

Within the first three days of its start, banks had already borrowed $11.9 billion from the new BTFP. For the week ending March 17, banks had borrowed another $148.2 billion from the Fed’s 90-day discount window, the largest weekly amount since September 2008.

• Inability to Sell the Failed Banks: Typically, the FDIC will have a buyer lined up ahead of the closing of a failed bank, typically another bank in good standing, but, as of Monday, the assets of neither bank have been sold. The market rumors indicate that the FDIC has, in fact, received several expressions of interest from legitimate institutional buyers, but they have been rejected by the FDIC Board. It is unclear why the FDIC has been rejecting interest from apparently legitimate buyers. Some market observers have speculated that it is due to the political ideology of the current FDIC Board, as it opposes mergers or acquisitions that lead to larger banks.
• Evidence of Political Corruption: When the FDIC initially announced the closure of SVB on March 10, it stated that uninsured depositors would not be covered in accordance with standard FDIC practice. However, just two days later on March 12, the FDIC did a complete reversal, stating that all uninsured depositors would be covered. The federal regulators justified taking this abrupt action by calling it a “systemic risk exception,” despite neither SVB nor Signature Bank having been designated as systemically important banks by the Federal Reserve.

This has led to scrutiny over the profile of the uninsured depositors at both banks and is revealing some noteworthy political connections. For example, the Intercept reported that Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been a client of SVB for many years and is associated with at least five bank accounts at SVB, including the accounts of three winery companies he owns. As for Signature Bank, it could not be more ironic that former Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), coauthor of the largest banking reform bill in history, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, has been serving on the board of directors of Signature since 2015 and has earned compensation of over $2.4 million. Multiple media reports indicate that both SVB and Signature have been heavy donors to the Democrat Party and that uninsured depositors at both banks include other high-profile names that have been big donors to Democrats. Thus, evidence of possible political corruption behind the uninsured depositor bailouts of both banks needs to be thoroughly investigated (but don’t hold your breath).

Consequential Impact on Moral Hazard

The unprecedented bailout of $231 billion in uninsured deposits at two large regional banks, plus a new Federal Reserve emergency bank lending program with weak collateral requirements, will lead to yet more moral hazard in an American financial system already accustomed to being bailed out by the federal government. It also throws out the much-heralded objective of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act to eliminate “Too Big To Fail” government bailouts in the U.S. financial system.

Contagion Outlook

It remains to be seen whether the failures of SVB and Signature will result in any significant financial contagion into other banks and financial institutions. However, the two failures clearly affected New Republic Bank, which subsequently suffered $70 billion in deposit withdrawals. This triggered the collaboration of 11 of the largest U.S. commercial banks to transfer $30 billion in deposits to New Republic to save it from the same bank-run failure that SVB and Signature experienced. An important banking sector metric of concern is the explosive growth in unrealized losses in 2022. At the end of 2022, the U.S. banking sector held $620 billion in unrealized losses. This may indicate that more turmoil lies ahead for the U.S. banking sector. Stay tuned.

This article originally appeared on the American Spectator.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

According to Fox Business [emphasis added]:

On Sunday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company of Raleigh, North Carolina entered a purchase agreement for all deposits and loans of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, National Association.

“The 17 former branches of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, National Association, will open as First–Citizens Bank & Trust Company on Monday, March 27, 2023,” the FDIC said in a statement.

“Customers of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, National Association, should continue to use their current branch until they receive notice from First–Citizens Bank & Trust Company that systems conversions have been completed to allow full–service banking at all of its other branch locations,” the statement continued.

Depositors of the Santa Clara, California-located bank will automatically become depositors of First–Citizens Bank & Trust Company, according to the statement, and all deposits will be assumed and insured by First–Citizens Bank & Trust Company, up to the insurance limit.

The FDIC said: “As of March 10, 2023, Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, National Association, had approximately $167 billion in total assets and about $119 billion in total deposits. Today’s transaction included the purchase of about $72 billion of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, National Association’s assets at a discount of $16.5 billion.”

In addition, approximately $90 billion in securities and other assets will remain in the receivership for disposition by the FDIC.

According to the statement, the FDIC and First–Citizens Bank & Trust Company entered into a “loss–share transaction” on all commercial loans it purchased from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

In layman’s terms, First Citizens Bank is doing the equivalent of taking over payments. The losses accrued during the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank as well as future losses when depositors pull out of their new bank will go through the legal but extremely shady transition process of book-jumping. Assets and liabilities will be bounced around different balance sheets to dilute the reported losses, but at the end of the day it will all come back to taxpayers. All of it.

On the heels of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse earlier this month, 186 more banks are at risk of failure even if only half of their depositors decide to withdraw their funds, a new study has found.

That is because the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes to tamp down inflation have eroded the value of bank assets such as government bonds and mortgage-backed securities.

“The recent declines in bank asset values very significantly increased the fragility of the U.S. banking system to uninsured depositor runs,” economists wrote in a recent paper published on the Social Science Research Network.

Needless to say, these banks realize that they are in jeopardy, and a coalition of mid-size banks is literally begging federal regulators to cover all uninsured deposits for at least the next two years…

A coalition of midsize US banks asked federal regulators to extend FDIC insurance to all deposits for the next two years, arguing the guarantee is needed to avoid a wider run on the banks.

“Doing so will immediately halt the exodus of deposits from smaller banks, stabilize the banking sector and greatly reduce chances of more bank failures,” the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America said in a letter to regulators seen by Bloomberg News.

If federal regulators don’t do this, vast amounts of money will continue to be transferred from small and mid-size banks to the “too big to fail” banks.

But I’ll tell you why such a move is not likely to happen right now.

If every bank account in America is suddenly fully guaranteed by the federal government, there will be a giant sucking sound as wealthy individuals pull their money out of European banks where large balances are not fully insured.

The European banking system is already teetering on the brink of collapse.  In fact, we just learned that UBS has just agreed to an emergency purchase of Credit Suisse…

Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, has agreed to buy its ailing rival Credit Suisse in an emergency rescue deal aimed at stemming financial market panic unleashed by the failure of two American banks earlier this month.

“UBS today announced the takeover of Credit Suisse,” the Swiss National Bank said in a statement. It said the rescue would “secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy.”

UBS is paying 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.25 billion) for Credit Suisse, about 60% less than the bank was worth when markets closed on Friday. Credit Suisse shareholders will be largely wiped out, receiving the equivalent of just 0.76 Swiss francs in UBS shares for stock that was worth 1.86 Swiss francs on Friday.

So to protect foreign banks, small and mid-size banks in the U.S. will be allowed to fail.

But if large numbers of small and mid-size banks start failing, this country will rapidly plunge into an economic nightmare.

On Saturday, Zero Hedge posted one of the greatest tweets that I have seen in a long time…

If the Fed does not contain the regional bank collapse, there will be another great depression.

Small/medium banks account for 50% of US commercial and industrial lending, 60% of residential real estate lending, 80% of commercial real estate lending, and 45% of consumer lending pic.twitter.com/wzTMHxSnXI

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 18, 2023

I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Our economy runs on mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and debit cards.

If a bank gets into trouble, the flow of credit from that bank is restricted.

And if a bank fails, the flow of credit from that bank completely stops.

If lots of banks start going under in this country, economic activity will shrink substantially and we really will be facing “another great depression”.

At this point, conditions are so dire that Warren Buffett is getting personally involved…

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett has been in touch with senior officials in President Joe Biden’s administration in recent days as the regional banking crisis unfolds.

There have been multiple conversations between Biden’s team and Buffett in the past week, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The calls have centered around Buffett possibly investing in the US regional banking sector in some way, but the billionaire has also given advice and guidance more broadly about the current turmoil.

It appears that far more is going on behind the scenes than we are being told.

Interestingly, lots of private jets were flying in and out of Omaha on Friday…

The Private Jets arrived in Omaha in multiple groups. Sometimes landing at almost the same exact time.

Did Buffett schedule some meetings with different groups of CEOs every hour?

Number of Jets arriving:
5 ~10am (est)
3 ~2pm
5 ~3:30pm
5 ~5pm
6 ~6:15pm
3 ~7:30pm pic.twitter.com/68Ok6zl8cA

— FuzzyPanda (@FuzzyPandaShort) March 17, 2023

Hopefully a way can be found to stabilize the banking system, because economic conditions are certainly bad enough already.

Earlier today, I was surprised to learn that Disney is getting ready to conduct a second round of layoffs…

After announcing a plan to slash nearly 7,000 jobs, Disney is reportedly instructing managers to propose budget cuts and put together lists of employees to be laid off in the coming weeks.

It is unclear whether Disney will begin layoffs in small waves or cut thousands of employees all at once, but the company will announce at least 4,000 current employees will be out of work sometime in April, according to Business Insider.

All over America, large companies are letting workers go.

But even though a significant economic downturn has already obviously begun, we are being told that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates yet again this week…

The Federal Reserve will kick off its meeting with trading expected to be light heading into a decision on interest rates Wednesday.

Despite the market tumult, 62% of investors expect the policymakers to continue hiking rates, which would mark the ninth straight increase. Thirty-eight percent expect no change, according to CME’s FedWatch.

After everything that has transpired over the past couple of weeks, it would literally be suicidal to raise rates again.

But they just might do it anyway.

So many of the things that I have been relentlessly warning about are now starting to transpire right in front of our eyes.

A great financial meltdown has begun, and our leaders seem very unsure about how to handle it.

Unfortunately for them, what we have gone through so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.

I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.

I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced through a press release that they are lifting the $250,000 FDIC insurance limit. She proudly announced twice in her release that taxpayers wouldn’t be hit with the burden. This means they’re going to print more money.

Did FDIC insurance for depositors just become unlimited ??? pic.twitter.com/sS8Okhtkiw

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) March 12, 2023

According to the press release:

Washington, DC — The following statement was released by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg:

Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system. This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth.

After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, and consulting with the President, Secretary Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, in a manner that fully protects all depositors. Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.

We are also announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank, New York, New York, which was closed today by its state chartering authority. All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer.

Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed. Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.

Finally, the Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors.

The U.S. banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation, in large part due to reforms that were made after the financial crisis that ensured better safeguards for the banking industry. Those reforms combined with today’s actions demonstrate our commitment to take the necessary steps to ensure that depositors’ savings remain safe.

Bad fiscal policy hurts everyone. Some will be affected in the near future. Many of us will be impacted immediately. But the Democrats’ Big Tech cronies will have their suffering minimized at the expense of everyone else.

Editor’s Note: Now would be a good time to talk to Genesis about physical precious metals.

All of the depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank will be protected, and all of them will have access to their money right away.  They aren’t calling this a “bail out”, but that is essentially what it is.  But will it be enough to stop the bank runs that are already happening?

Late last week, huge lines at Silicon Valley Bank quickly made headlines all over the nation.

NEW: Massive line forms outside Silicon Valley Bank in California as customers panic.

Welcome to Biden’s America. It will only get worse.pic.twitter.com/MNCQuKIc9h

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 10, 2023

The panic at Silicon Valley Bank quickly spread to other banks in California.  In particular, First Republic Bank was hit really hard…

Dozens of customers lined up outside of a First Republic Bank in southern California on Saturday eager to withdraw their funds in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

There had been fears following SVB’s demise for First Republic’s future when analysts pointed out the similarities between the estimated value of their assets versus the actual value.

As news of what was unfolding in California spread like wildfire on social media, soon there were lines at various banks all over the nation.

Shades of 1930’s. This is my bank in Wellesley this morning. Boston Private Bank, recently acquired by Silicon Valley Bank. Ruh, roh. pic.twitter.com/MAD46ozShx

— Lawrence Lepard, "fix the money, fix the world" (@LawrenceLepard) March 10, 2023

But most of those that have been pulling money out of U.S. banks over the past few days never stood in any line.

And that is because we now live in an era where most banking is done on phones and computers…

Question: How did $42 billion get withdrawn Friday alone without thousands in line?

Answer: your phone!

This is not the Bailey Savings and Loan anymore.

This should scare the hell of bankers and regulators worldwide.

We have never seen anything quite like what we witnessed on Friday.

When it became clear that Silicon Valley Bank was collapsing, unsecured depositors engaged in a mad scramble to get their money out while they still could.

Silicon Valley Bank was the main bank for two of our companies, my personal savings, and my mortgage. This is how things unfolded for us:

Between 2013 and 2023, all good.

Thursday, 9 AM: in one chat with 200+ tech founders (most in the Bay Area), questions about SVB start to…

— Alexander Torrenegra (@torrenegra) March 11, 2023

And this wasn’t just happening in the United States.

Silicon Valley Bank had branches all over the planet, and so the panic that we were watching was truly global…

Startup founders in California’s Bay Area are panicking about access to money and paying employees. Fears of contagion have reached Canada, India and China. In the UK, SVB’s unit is set to be declared insolvent, has already ceased trading and is no longer taking new customers. On Saturday, the leaders of roughly 180 tech companies sent a letter calling on UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to intervene.

“The loss of deposits has the potential to cripple the sector and set the ecosystem back 20 years,” they said in the letter seen by Bloomberg. “Many businesses will be sent into involuntary liquidation overnight.”

This is just the beginning. SVB had branches in China, Denmark, Germany, India, Israel and Sweden, too. Founders are warning that the bank’s failure could wipe out startups around the world without government intervention. SVB’s joint venture in China, SPD Silicon Valley Bank Co., was seeking to calm local clients overnight by reminding them that operations have been independent and stable.

Of course not everyone that had money in SVB got burned.

For example, Peter Thiel and his minions got their money out in time…

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund had no money with Silicon Valley Bank as of Thursday morning as the bank descended into chaos, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Founders Fund withdrew millions from SVB, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. It joined other venture funds that took dramatic steps to limit exposure to the now-failed financial institution. Founders Fund also advised its portfolio companies that there was no downside to moving their money away from SVB, even if the risk was low.

And a number of key SVB executives conveniently sold off shares in the bank just last month…

Bill, this may interest you:

Before the collapse, executives sold shares.

Gregory Becker, CEO, sold 11% on Feb 27, 2023.

Michael Zucker, Counsel, 19% on Feb 5.

Daniel Beck, CFO, 32% on Feb 27.

Michelle Draper, CMO, 25% on Feb 1.

Read more: https://t.co/GI3EDmPOGU pic.twitter.com/5kXUr34Wf6

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) March 11, 2023

But countless others did not pull the plug in time.

Apparently, that even included Harry and Meghan.

BREAKING: HARRY AND MEGHAN STAND TO LOSE MILLIONS IN COLLAPSE OF SVB BANK

Sources tell iSN the couple set up accounts following the advice of friends in Silicon Valley.

"This is a major blow," said our source, "They had all of Harry's money there." pic.twitter.com/d5qrfYa2Qo

— iSource News (@isource_news) March 11, 2023

Oh the humanity!

There was no way that the Federal Reserve was going to allow Harry and Meghan to lose millions.

So now they have stepped in with mountains of fresh cash.

But is the Fed prepared to do this for all of the other banks that will soon be in trouble too?

According to CNN, U.S. banks “were sitting on $620 billion in unrealized losses” as of the end of last year…

Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse last week sent tingles of panic down investors’ spines as it highlighted a larger problem across the banking sector: The widening gap between the value large lenders place on the bonds they hold and what they’re actually worth on the market.

SVB’s downfall was tied, in part, to the plunge in the value of bonds it acquired during boom times, when it had a lot of customer deposits coming in and needed somewhere to park the cash.

But SVB isn’t the only institution with that issue. US banks were sitting on $620 billion in unrealized losses (assets that have decreased in price but haven’t been sold yet) at the end of 2022, according to the FDIC.

This crisis is far from over.

As I have been arguing for years, our deeply flawed system simply cannot survive without artificial support.

What has transpired over the past several days is clear evidence of this fact.

The Federal Reserve has decided to ride to the rescue once again, and the financial community is cheering.

But will it be enough to stop the wave of panic that has now been unleashed? We shall see.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.

I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.

I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog.

Following the earthshattering fall of Silicon Valley Bank on Tuesday, fear of more carnage prompted actions by other banks. Now, the FDIC has shuttered another bank on the other coast, making massive turbulence in the coming weeks a certainty.

Regulators have shut down New York’s Signature Bank for the same basic reasons they took down Silicon Valley Bank. According to Red State:

The move to shutter the second bank is seen in the financial world as a race to contain the fallout from SVB’s collapse. The Fed is trying to auction the bank’s assets off, accepting bids until Sunday night. There is concern in Washington D.C. that this is the beginning of a bigger financial crisis, one that could rival the Global Financial Crisis from the Bush and early Obama years. The worry from folks like my colleague Streiff is that this is a very big and very slippery slope toward nationalizing the financial markets.

The Fed, in its release, is trying to convince Americans that this is limited to just a depositor bailout and not a greater handout to shareholders and other debtholders, saying “Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected” and that “Senior management has also been removed.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen initiated an emergency series of policies. The most noteworthy is to remove the $250,000 limit on FDIC depositor insurance. This will allow big money depositors at these two banks to not be harmed. To be able to do this without putting the burden on taxpayers means printing more money. This is why in Yellen’s press release she noted that they are working with the Fed to offer a bailout to depositors.

According to the press release:

Washington, DC — The following statement was released by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg:

Today we are taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system. This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth.

After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, and consulting with the President, Secretary Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, in a manner that fully protects all depositors. Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.

We are also announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank, New York, New York, which was closed today by its state chartering authority. All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer.

Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed. Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.

Finally, the Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors.

The U.S. banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation, in large part due to reforms that were made after the financial crisis that ensured better safeguards for the banking industry. Those reforms combined with today’s actions demonstrate our commitment to take the necessary steps to ensure that depositors’ savings remain safe.

It’s noteworthy that she referred to these measures as “reforms” rather than anything temporary. This isn’t a stopgap. It’s the new normal. This tells us beyond any shadow of a doubt that they realize the economy is in the process of tanking and they’re trying to hold it together until they get their Central Bank Digital Currency ready.

That’s part of the endgame. A manufactured and semi-controlled economic collapse will give the powers-that-be the predicate they need to force a Digital Dollar upon sooner rather than later. This is why I strongly urge Americans to start stocking up on essentials now. Tighten your financial belts. Cancel amenities and reduce frivolous spending if appropriate. Things are getting very rocky and if this really is by design as I suspect, it’s not going to get any better soon.

This is also why I am telling friends and family to move their retirement funds to self-directed precious metals IRAs. I am not a financial advisor but it makes a whole lot of sense to me to get wealth as far away from other markets as quickly as possible. Even though we have three gold sponsors, in this unique circumstance I’m recommending one in particular.

It’s for this reason that I’m always very cautious when ringing the alarm bells about the economy. On one hand, I have been warning readers of challenges that could impact their financial situation. For months I have said the biggest threat to banks and investment firms is wokeness; the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank can be directly attributed to exactly why I’ve been predicting.

On the other hand, I do not want my voice to add to fear that could help bring about the things that scare us. With that said, it certainly appears that the things that have concerned me and others are coming to pass which is why I’m more bullish than ever about moving retirement accounts and wealth to physical precious metals. I recommend three gold companies, but for this specific time I’m encouraging people to talk to my Christian, America First precious metals partner. They seem most suited to help people through what’s happening in America today. Here’s Jack Philips from The Epoch Times with more news on what’s happening with banks.

2 More Banks Seek to Reassure Customers After Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

California-based First Republic Bank and Arizona-based Western Alliance Bancorporation both attempted to calm nerves around the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank after shares for both financial institutions plunged in the past week or so.

First Republic Bank told customers that their deposits were safe amid fears of spillover caused by SVB’s collapse late last week and as shares of First Republic Bank dropped 33 percent over the past five days.

In a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, First Republic said its liquidity position remains strong amid falling share prices.

“This filing reiterates First Republic’s continued safety and stability and strong capital and liquidity positions,” the filing stated. “First Republic’s deposit base is strong and very-well diversified. Consumer deposits have an average account size of less than $200,000 and business deposits have an average account size of less than $500,000.”

The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures deposits up to $250,000 per depositor per insured bank, for each account category. There were reports that about 85 percent of  Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) accounts weren’t insured as the financial institution was often used by tech firms and startups.

“Within business deposits, no one sector represents more than 9 percent of total deposits, with the largest being diversified real estate. Technology-related deposits represent only 4 percent of total deposits,” First Republic also said. Its investment portfolio is less than 15 percent of total bank assets and only less than 2 percent of total bank assets are categorized as available for sale.

Silicon Valley Bank is the first FDIC-insured institution to fail this year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said, although analysts noted that its collapse represents the largest bank to fall since 2008 when Washington Mutual collapsed. The last FDIC-insured institution to close was Almena State Bank in Kansas on Oct. 23, 2020.

Meanwhile, Western Alliance, based in Phoenix, issued a news release on March 11 that “deposits remain strong,” saying that “total deposits of $61.5 billion, an increase of $7.8 billion since year end, led by our deposit verticals of Settlement Services, Home Owner Associations and Mortgage Warehouse. The company expects deposits to moderately decline from these levels by quarter end due to typical seasonal and monthly activity.”

Like First Republic, shares of Western Alliance have plunged about 35 percent. As of Friday, it held $2.5 billion cash on its balance sheet while held-to-maturity securities made up less than 2 percent of assets with an unrecognized loss of $192 million as of Feb. 28.

Fears

On Twitter, a highly visible post alleged that people were going on “a bank run” at a Brentwood, California, First Republic Bank location. That post’s video, shot from a moving vehicle, showed what appeared to be a long line of people standing outside the branch.

“I’ve never seen a bank run in Brentwood Los Angeles in over 40 years—this is at first republic bank branch. People standing in rain,” the user alleged on March 11. The Epoch Times has contacted First Republic Bank for comment on the claim and others.

A Daily Mail article, too, published photos of the long lines outside the Brentwood location. Before SVB’s collapse, depositors moved to withdraw their money en masse, triggering California state regulators to shutter the bank and allow the FDIC to take over.

Those concerns were also exacerbated by a Wall Street Journal article with a headline that blared, “First Republic Hit by Silicon Valley Bank Failure” and that “investors have grown wary of First Republic Bank for reasons similar to those that caused concern at SVB.”

The bank, which was founded in San Francisco in 1985, has some 80 branches in 11 states around the United States. The WSJ article noted that the bank’s funding relies largely on wealthy individuals who want to seek higher yields on their money.

With about $212 billion in total assets, First Republic Bank is the 14th largest in the United States. Western Alliance is smaller, with about $34 billion in total assets.

Reuters contributed to this report. Image by Ali Eminov via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0.