America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Friday, March 24, 2023
HANDING THE AMERICAN ECONOMY TO BANKSTERS................ ALONG WITH IMPUNITY FROM PROSECUTIONS FOR THEIR ECONOMIC CRIMES - Bank Bailouts and the Chaotic Consequences of Redefining Rules
Bank Bailouts and the Chaotic Consequences of Redefining Rules
Referees aren’t supposed to change the rules in the middle of the game, but that’s exactly what federal government officials like Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have been doing in financial markets over the last two weeks.
The result is a chaotic mess wherein no one knows what the rules will be tomorrow and no one can plan for the future. What is allegedly a highly regulated sector of the economy feels more like a roll of the dice lately. The economy needs stable banks, which requires stable rules.
Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse earlier this month is the second-largest bank failure in American history, and the federal government’s response has been inconsistent at best.
Regulators previously declared the bank not to be a systemic risk to the banking system, meaning the bank’s potential failure would not pose a threat to the rest of the banking system. Yet when it was clear Silicon Valley Bank would fail, the rules changed and the bank was declared a systemic risk.
On that basis, the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve stepped in to prevent the bank’s liquidation. But they decided to change yet another rule in the process—deposit insurance.
Bank customers’ deposits are ordinarily insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. up to $250,000, and private insurance is available for additional coverage beyond that. Silicon Valley Bank’s customers chose not to avail themselves of that protection, however, despite over 96% of the bank’s depositors having cash at the bank in excess of the $250,000 FDIC guarantee.
To prevent those large depositors from losing any of their money, the Treasury and the Fed decided to guarantee all deposits at Silicon Valley Bank, despite the fact that the FDIC clearly does not offer unlimited deposit coverage. Millionaires who had their money at the bank are now receiving the benefit of insurance even though they never paid for it.
Imagine a person who could buy flood insurance for his home but chooses not to do so and then the home is destroyed in a flood. That person is not entitled to a bailout from the government—at taxpayer expense.
This unprecedented expansion of FDIC coverage was followed by statements from the Biden administration that Americans could rest assured that all deposits are safe.
But the rules were about to change again. Yellen was asked during her Senate testimony a few days ago whether all depositors at regional banks, like Silicon Valley Bank, are covered by the recent change in the rules regarding the FDIC. Shockingly, Yellen said no.
Only deposits at banks deemed systemically important could be guaranteed coverage, regardless of the size of the deposit. Which regional banks are systemically important? Yellen couldn’t say—that determination would be made on a case-by-case basis going forward. She reiterated this vague canon on Tuesday when she told the American Bankers Association, “Similar actions could be warranted if smaller institutions suffer deposit runs that pose the risk of contagion.” That’s hardly black and white.
Not only have the rules changed again, but now the referees can’t even clearly articulate them. The result has been a flood of large deposits fleeing smaller banks for larger banks that have already been declared systemic risks requiring government support. That cash drain from the smaller banks could put them at risk and precipitate even more problems in the already-troubled banking sector.
One of the reasons for these troubles is because banks are holding so many low-interest rate bonds. But that situation is itself a result of the federal government changing the rules of the game. When the Fed kept interest rates too low for too long in order to finance trillions of dollars in government deficit spending, the yield on bonds plummeted, and the banks buying those bonds took on tremendous interest rate risk.
Those banks were encouraged to continue that behavior because the Fed continued offering forward guidance that rates would remain low and that inflation was transitory. But that narrative changed one year ago, in March 2022, and interest rates began to rise. Just a few months after that initial rate hike, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said a larger 75-basis-point hike was “off the table,” and the Fed promptly followed that pronouncement by delivering four such rate hikes in a row.
It’s no fun if a party host randomly changes the rules of a game when everyone is in the middle of playing. But at least the trouble ends there. When the government changes the rules of banking without warning, the results can be financial disaster that cascades through the economy for years to come.
“Attorney General Eric Holder's tenure was a low point even within the disgraceful scandal-ridden Obama years.”
DANIEL GREENFIELD / FRONTPAGE MAG
Silicon Valley Bank Board Included Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton Donors
BERNIE SANDERS: The bank who begged for deregulation is the same one who begged for a bailout.
Failed bank's board revealed to be packed with Democrats
AREN'T THEY ALL?
“This was not because of difficulties in securing indictments or
convictions. On the contrary, Attorney General Eric Holder
told a Senate committee in March of 2013 that the Obama
administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their
CEOs because to do so might “have a negative impact on the
national economy.” AS THEY LOOTED TRILLIONS FROM
THE ECONOMY AND THEN PASSED ALONG SOME OF THE
LOOT IN THE FORM OF 'SPEECH FEE' BRIBES!
During his presidency, Obama bragged that his administration was “the only thing between [Wall Street] and the pitchforks.”
In fact, Obama handed the robber barons and outright criminals responsible for the 2008–09 financial crisis a multi-trillion-dollar bailout. His administration oversaw the largest redistribution of wealth in history from the bottom to the top one percent, spearheading the attack on the living standards of teachers and autoworkers.
The Republican staff of the US House Committee on Financial Services released a report Monday presenting its findings on why the Obama Justice Department and then-Attorney General Eric Holder chose not to prosecute the British-based HSBC bank for laundering billions of dollars for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels.
“This was not because of difficulties in securing indictments or convictions. On the contrary, Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013 that the Obama administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their CEOs because to do so might “have a negative impact on the national economy.”
As for the release of Democratic Party emails, even if one accepts the unsubstantiated claim that it was Russian operatives who turned them over to WikiLeaks, what the emails revealed were true facts about the operations of Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—facts that the electorate had every right to know. Among the documents released were Clinton’s speeches to Goldman Sachsand other banks, for which she was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. Other leaked emails exposed the corrupt efforts of the DNC to rig the primaries against Bernie Sanders.
Janet Yellen Raked in $7.2M from Wall Street, Corporations Since 2019
President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Treasury Department, Janet Yellen, raked in millions from Wall Street firms and multinational corporations for “speaking fees” over just the past two years, financial disclosure reports reveal.
Between 2019 to 2020, Yellen accepted more than $7.2 million from Wall Street firms and big banks like Citibank, Bank of America, Citadel, Barclays, ING, UBS, and Goldman Sachs, as well as multinational corporations like Deloitte, Google, Salesforce, and HSM.
Yellen, former Federal Reserve chair for President Barack Obama, took nearly $1 million to give nine speeches to Citibank — which is one of the largest banks in the United States. Likewise, Yellen accepted more than $800,000 from the hedge fund Citadel.
Yellen’s speaking fees from Wall Street firms and corporations range anywhere between $17,100 to nearly $300,000, according to the financial disclosures. Her latest paid speeches came in November 2020 when she cashed in $67,500 in fees from Deloitte, $72,000 from Daiwa Securities Group, and $45,000 from Magellan Financial Group.
Biden tapped Yellen as his nominee to lead the Treasury Department where she would become the first woman to lead the agency if confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Glenn Greenwald, an independent journalist, called Democrats “a neoliberal party” that “hide” behind diversity to avoid questions regarding cronyism.
“The Dems are a neoliberal party which serves Wall St & corporate power,” Greenwald wrote on Twitter. “They are overwhelmingly led by extremely rich people who serve these power centers. Touting diversity is how they try to hide that, and bad faith bigotry accusations are how they punish those who report it.”
Nolte: Bribes and Payoffs Disguised as ‘Speaking Fees’ for Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
Janet Yellen, the former chairwoman of the Federal Reserve who is now His Fraudulency Joe Biden’s Treasury Secretary, made millions off Wall Street “speaking fees” over the past two years.
In some cases, she didn’t even have to show up to speak. Her appearance was “virtual.”
In just two years, according to the Wall Street Journal, Yellen pulled in “more than $7 million in speaking fees during more than 50 in-person and virtual engagements … according to financial disclosures[.]”
Yellen listed $952,200 in income from speeches to Citi, one of the nation’s largest banks. She also disclosed speaking fees from PIMCO, Barclays (BCS), Citadel, BNP Paribas, UBS (UBS), Credit Suisse (CS), ING, Standard Chartered Bank and City National Bank.
Other companies shelling out big bucks for Yellen’s words of wisdom have included Goldman Sachs, Google, City National Bank, UBS, Citadel LLC, Barclays and Salesforce, according to the report.
So when the White House was asked this week if Yellen’s speaking fees have created a painfully obvious conflict of interest as it relates to this Gamestop/Robinhood/Reddit story, Press Secretary Lyin’ Ginger sputtered:
I don’t have anything further for you on it, except for to say, separate from this Gamestop issue, the Treasury Secretary is a world-renowned expert on the economy.
It should not be a surprise to anyone that she was paid to give her expert advice before she came into office.
Oh, well, that certainly puts the issue to rest!
I mean the fact that (as Real Clear Politics perfectly summarized it) “Citadel, the firm that bailed out the first hedge fund to be bankrupted by the crowd-sourced stock-buying bonanza this week, has paid Yellen more than $800,000 in speaking fees in recent years,” is nothing to be concerned about! Not even as we watch a countless number of everyday retail investors getting shut down in an effort to protect Yellen’s billionaire pals at Citadel and elsewhere.
If you want a look at how this grift works, Jack Posobiec tweeted out a bare bones list of Yellen’s Wall Street speaking fees, and this simple list is more striking than any newspaper write-up. The numbers are outrageous. Why would anyone drop hundreds of thousands of dollars to have some former fed chair come in to tell tired war stories and do some punditry?
What I mean by that is: What’s the benefit to the financial firm shelling out all this money (plus airfare and fancy accommodations)?
Even more, what’s the benefit if she appears virtually from her kitchen at home?
Does the presence of a 74-year-old former-Fed Chair bring these financial firms more customers? Does the prestige and star power of such an appearance increase the firm’s client list?
Of course not.
You wouldn’t walk across the street to see Janet Yellen for free, even if free lunch was served.
So what does this tell us about these speaking fees?
Sorry, but these speaking fees are nothing more than America’s elites figuring out a way to legalize bribes and payoffs. That’s it. That’s all that’s going on here.
While it may not be legal for me to hand you an envelope full of cash, it’s perfectly legal for me to fly you out in a private plane (or first class), put you up in a suite, wine you and dine you, and then hand you a gazillion dollar check for an hour’s work because wink-wink-nod-nod-knowwhatImean-knowwhatImean?
We see the same thing all the time with book advances.
Some pol is paid an exorbitant amount of money to write a ghost-written book no one reads…
Get this…
In 2014, Gov. Andrew “Grandma Slayer” Cuomo (D-NY) was paid a $783,000 advance by Harper Collins to write his memoirs, which sold exactly 3,800 total copies. Harper Collins lost a fortune.
So why did the company do it?
Why would a publisher be willing to take a beating like that?
Gee, could it be that Harper Collins is New York-based and Cuomo is New York’s governor and this was a legal way to funnel him close to a million dollars in the form of legalized graft?
It gets worse…
Cuomo has so far refused to disclose how much Penguin Random House paid for his 2020 book American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic last year, but what we do know is that another major publisher gave this proven-failure of an author a second money grab.
The whole system is rigged, y’all.
The political media, the politicians, the government, and the financial media all attack who? The robber barons in these hedge funds who organize to make billions by destroying a company? No, they illegally shut down and smear the everyday guys on Reddit who had the temerity to play the same game and win.
Funnel a few million to Yellen, give CNNLOL and CNBC some nifty stock tips… That’s all it costs Wall Street to protect its billions and destroy the Reddit barbarians, whose only sin is outsmarting you.
And it’s all legal.
Rigged. Rigged. Rigged.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
GOP Rep. Steube: Yellen Getting Speaking Fees from Banks She’ll Decide on Bailouts for Is ‘Corruption’ ‘Beyond the Pale’
On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Evening Edit,” Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) stated that there is a “level of corruption in Washington” that “is beyond the pale” and cited Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen received $7 million in speaking fees before she took the office, including from major financial institutions “that she’s going to decide to bail out.”
Host Elizabeth MacDonald asked, [relevant exchange begins around 2:15] “I’ve been covering bank crises since the ’80s, S&L crisis, then Long-Term Capital Management, then the 2007 — the dotcom bust, they did corporate accounting scandals, then in 2007-2008, Congressman, nobody ever said back up uninsured deposits ever. This is because of a few banks that made bad bets, and all of a sudden, the Biden White House gets to change the rules that have been the gold standard forever, when even FDR said do not insure bank deposits, bankers will roll the dice and ruin things. So, where do you go from here, Congressman, will you guys try to stop this push that’s now — it’s moving, that could happen? What do you think?”
Steube responded, “Well, we will absolutely, in the House and Chair McHenry (R-NC), we were all together, the caucus was together in Orlando today. And he said he doesn’t support bank bailouts. He didn’t support it before. He doesn’t support it now. That’s the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee. You’re not going to not see the Republicans support that at all. And what I find very interesting is Yellen herself got millions of dollars, $7 million in speaking fees before where she’s at now from some of the banks that she’s going to decide to bail out. The level of corruption in Washington is beyond the pale.”
Summers: First Republic Bank Rescue Package Seems ‘Corporatist and Deal-Based Between the Government and Big Banks’
During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” Harvard Professor, economist, Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, and Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton Larry Summers stated that the rescue package for First Republic Bank “was not an objective private sector assessment to have confidence in First Republic.” And “seemed a little corporatist and deal-based between the government and big banks to me.”
Summers said, “It was JPMorgan and a number of other banks who were apparently corralled by the secretary and by JPMorgan. I don’t know what to make of it. The government has committed to put money in there at par above the market value of securities for a year. The fact that the banks made a commitment for 120 days so they can get out well ahead of the government at an interest rate that we don’t yet know what it is, with what the understandings in the agreement with the Treasury are. I suppose the fact that everybody’s acting will make people a little more confident. But it made me nervous. This was not an objective private sector assessment to have confidence in First Republic. So, I’m not sure what to make of it. It seemed a little corporatist and deal-based between the government and big banks to me. But we’ll have to see how it unfolds. And I hope there will be total transparency on all the understandings.”
Prominent tech companies, liberal news outlets, and a Democratic politician’s vineyards are among the thousands of businesses that breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday when the Biden administration moved to bail out Silicon Valley Bank.
Silicon Valley Bank maintained $209 billion in assets and $175.4 billion in total deposits, making it the 16th-largest bank in the country. It was the second-largest bank to fail in American history when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took control of the institution on Friday.
President Joe Biden has insisted that the FDIC's move was not a bailout, and claimed his administration is working to protect "American workers and small businesses." But average Americans won't benefit the most from the bailout. Ninety-three percent of the bank’s depositors kept more than $250,000 in the bank.
While the California bank was famous for its rolodex of tech clients, it happily accepted deposits from all manner of people, including some of the individuals and institutions involved in pushing the Biden administration’s bailout.
Here are just a few.
Gavin Newson
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D.) trio of wineries are clients of the failed financial institution, as is the governor himself. He has maintained personal accounts at the failed bank for years, the Interceptreported, citing a former Newsom aide. Newsom’s efforts to rescue Silicon Valley Bank’s clients could also put him on the wrong side of the law. California law prohibits elected officials from influencing official matters in which "the official has a financial interest," Insiderreported.
Newsom was instrumental in convincing Biden over the weekend that a bailout of the failing bank was necessary. He was also one of the first politicians nationwide to hail the president’s swift move on Sunday to make all of Silicon Valley Bank’s clients whole. Newsom was one of many high-profile Democrats who received money from Silicon Valley Bank, whose employees have also given tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes.
The emotional toll Newsom may have faced had his wineries failed amid Silicon Valley Bank’s implosion would have likely been equally as devastating as the impact on his bottom line. He refused to sell his businesses when he first ran for governor in 2018, saying: "These are my babies, my life, my family. I can’t do that. I can’t sell them."
BuzzFeed
Liberal online media company BuzzFeed revealed to investors Monday that it held $56 million in cash and cash equivalents as of the end of 2022, the majority of which was held at Silicon Valley Bank. The news capped off a not-so-banner 2022 fiscal year for BuzzFeed, in which the company weathered a net loss of $201.3 million, laid off 40 percent of its newsroom, and saw its stock price plummet by 90 percent.
BuzzFeed has placed little focus on the bank’s collapse, having mentioned the story in its morning newsletter, a quiz published Wednesday, as well as a passing reference in a Tuesday story about a "viral alpha male finance podcast parody sketch." None of the stories mentioned BuzzFeed’s financial connection to the bank.
As part of its efforts to right its ship, BuzzFeed announced it would leverage artificial intelligence to spin up viral listicles and quizzes. BuzzFeed News editor in chief Karolina Waclawiak also told the company’s remaining editorial staffers at a recent meeting to shift away from long-form news reporting and prioritize click-bait celebrity news, the Wall Street Journalreported.
Vox Media
Vox Media, the parent company of dozens of liberal news companies including Vox, New York magazine, the Verge, and Polygon, disclosed in news stories that it banked with Silicon Valley Bank before its collapse.
Unlike BuzzFeed, Vox has disclosed its financial connection to the failed bank in news stories this week. That hasn’t stopped the outlet, however, from carrying water for the Biden administration. On Tuesday, for example, it published a story mocking concerns that Silicon Valley Bank’s fixation on woke initiatives may have contributed to its demise.
Vox spokeswoman Lauren Starke told the Washington Post that the company doesn’t anticipate "any significant impact" due to the bank’s failure but added that it has suffered "logistical issues such as the temporary suspension of accounts and company credit cards."
In a Monday piece on Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, Vox competitor the Dispatch parenthetically disclosed it had been a Silicon Valley Bank customer.
Black Lives Matter
While Black Lives Matter isn’t a known client of Silicon Valley Bank, the bank’s untimely failure marks the end of a significant gravy train for the movement.
Silicon Valley Bank and its employees contributed more than $73 million to the Black Lives Matter movement and related causes since 2020, according to a database maintained by the Claremont Institute.
The Green Energy Racket
Silicon Valley Bank’s failure could have delivered a seismic blow to the climate change industry and the more than 1,550 technology companies that specialize in solar, hydrogen, and battery storage solutions that held funds at the bank, had Biden not bailed the institution out.
Still, the bank’s failure will have lingering effects for the industry, with insiders warning that Silicon Valley Bank was often the only institution willing to lend funds for their projects.
"Silicon Valley Bank was in many ways a climate bank," Kiran Bhatraju, the chief executive of the nation’s largest community solar manager, Arcadia, told the New York Times. "When you have the majority of the market banking through one institution, there’s going to be a lot of collateral damage."
Wedbush Securities technology sector analyst David Ives added that the bank’s failure is a "major blow to early-stage and even late-stage tech startups."
Silicon Valley Bank "was the bank that would always pick up the phone when other large money center banks wouldn’t," Ives toldPolitico.
HA, HA, HA! - LOTS OF LAUGHS! WATCH IT NOT HAPPEN!
DNC, Joe Biden Will Return Campaign Donations Tied to SVB
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign stated they would return political donations tied to the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, according to USA Today.
The DNC told the publication that the money would be returned following last week’s bank collapse. The announcement was made the same day the bank’s parent company, SVB Financial Group, filed for Chapter 11 protection in New York bankruptcy court.
A spokesperson from the DNC told USA Today that Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign and the DNC would donate the contributions from 2020 or later from SVB CEO Greg Becker and the bank’s managing director, Gerald Brady.
USA Today reported that Biden’s presidential campaign and aligned PACs received at least $11,900 from SVB executives, including Brady, and the former brand ambassador and head of startup banking, who took over one of Brady’s roles running a division of the bank, Claire Lee. Additionally, the DNC took at least $32,250 over the years from Brady, Lee, and other former SVB executives.
The report also noted that Becker donated $2,800 to Biden’s campaign, and Brady donated $5,500. Brady also gave $12,050 to the DNC. Reportedly, Biden’s presidential campaign will return $8,400, and the DNC will return $12,050.
Last week, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed when panicked customers suddenly withdrew tens of billions of dollars after it announced a loss of approximately $1.8 billion from selling its investments in U.S. treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. Ultimately, regulators shut Silicon Valley Bank down, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) took control of the bank and said they would protect insured deposits.
On Sunday, the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC announced that they would be taking “decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in [the U.S.] banking system” by effectively making deposits above the FDIC’s $250,000 limit available this past Monday. The bank failed to be auctioned off last weekend after none of the largest U.S. banks bid, but there is supposed to be another attempt at auctioning the bank off on Friday, according to multiple reports.
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