'No genocide': Tibet activists sidetrack Beijing Winter Olympics flame ceremony

 

Activists grabbed the spotlight at the flame-lighting ceremony for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in Greece on Monday by unfurling a Tibetan flag and a banner that said "no genocide" at the Games. The demonstrators pulled out the flag and banner during the ceremony in Olympia attended by International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach and several dozen dignitaries including Chinese officials.

Activists urge IOC to postpone 'genocide' Beijing Games

Issued on: 19/10/2021 -

Activists have called for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing to be postponed

 ARIS MESSINIS AFP

Athens (AFP)

Activists on Tuesday called for the postponement of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics as China prepared to receive the Olympic flame, a day after a protest disrupted the lighting ceremony in Olympia.

"This is sports-washing. There are no legitimate reasons to host the Games during a genocide," Zumretay Arkin, advocacy manager of the World Uighur Congress, told a news conference in the Greek capital.

"For sure there will be protests (in China) by Uighurs, Tibetans," said Arkin, who said she has had no contact with her family since 2017.

Lit on Monday in Ancient Olympia, the cradle of the ancient Games, the flame will be handed over to the delegation from Beijing 2022 at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, where the Olympics were revived in 1896, and will be flown to China.

During the ceremony in Olympia on Monday, the activists unfurled a Tibetan flag and a banner that said "no genocide" at the Games. A similar protest was held at the Acropolis in Athens.

Tibet has alternated over the centuries between independence and control by China, which says it "peacefully liberated" the rugged plateau in 1951 and brought infrastructure and education to the previously underdeveloped region.

But human rights campaigners and exiles say the Chinese central government practises religious repression, torture, forced sterilisation and cultural erosion through forced re-education.

Campaigners believe that at least one million Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim minorities are incarcerated in camps in Xinjiang.

After initially denying the existence of the Xinjiang camps, China later defended them as vocational training centres aimed at reducing the appeal of Islamic extremism.

"Who is going to guarantee that none of my relatives are actually now working in forced labour factories producing clothing and uniforms for the Olympic Games," Arkin said Tuesday.

"Can anyone tell me where my relatives are? I don't think so."

The activists on Tuesday said Hong Kong residents, Tibetans and Uighurs faced "Orwellian" surveillance in China, which they said was "emboldened" after hosting the Summer Games in 2008.

The IOC is legitimising "one of the worst violations of human rights in the entire 21st century" and defiling the spirit of the Games, said Pema Doma, campaigns director for Students for a Free Tibet.

"These Games cannot go ahead as planned, they must be postponed," she said.

IOC chairman Thomas Bach has batted off talk of a potential boycott, claiming the International Olympic Committee's political neutrality and saying it was up to governments to live up to their responsibilities.

A victim of the 1980 Moscow Games boycott, the former fencer has said such moves only punish athletes, and insists the IOC was addressing the rights issue "within our remit".

Around 2,900 athletes, representing approximately 85 National Olympic Committees, will compete in the Winter Games between 4 and 20 February 2022.

Arkin said the campaign "to train light on all the different abuses" was stronger than that of 2008, bringing together "Uighur communities, Hong Kong communities, Tibetan, Southern Mongolian, Chinese and Taiwanese communities".

"No one can stop us. Not the IOC, not governments, not sponsors, not athletes. We will not stop," she said.

Protesters Disrupt Torch Lighting For Beijing Winter Olympics


AP
Mon, October 18, 2021

ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece — Three activists protesting human rights abuses in China sneaked into the archaeological site where the flame lighting ceremony for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics was being held Monday and ran toward the newly lit torch holding a Tibetan flag and a banner that read “No genocide games.”

The protesters managed to enter the grounds and attempted to reach the Temple of Hera, where the ceremony was being held. They were thrown to the ground by police and detained.

A security officer tries to stop protesters holding a banner and a Tibetan flag as they crash the flame lighting ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. 

(Photo: ARIS MESSINIS via Getty Images)

“How can Beijing be allowed to host the Olympics given that they are committing a genocide against the Uyghurs?” one protester said, referring to the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in China’s northwest region of Xinjiang.

The flame was lit at the birthplace of the ancient Olympics in southern Greece under heavy police security.

With the public excluded amid pandemic safety measures, and a cloudless sky over the verdant site of Ancient Olympia, the flame was ceremoniously kindled using the rays of the sun before being carried off on a mini torch relay.

Earlier, other protestors were detained by Greek police before they could reach the site. Pro-democracy protests also had broken out during the lighting ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Games.

A police officer rushes to stop protesters holding a banner and the Tibetan flag (unseen) as they crash the start of the flame lighting ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics at the Ancient Olympia archeological site. 

(Photo: ARIS MESSINIS via Getty Images)

Despite widespread international criticism of China’s human rights record, the International Olympic Committee has shied away from the issue, saying it falls outside its remit.

In his speech in the ancient stadium of Olympia, where in antiquity male athletes competed naked during a special truce among their often-warring cities, IOC President Thomas Bach stressed that the modern Games must be “respected as politically neutral ground.”

Security officers stop three protesters holding a banner and a Tibetan flag as they crash the flame lighting ceremony for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics at the Ancient Olympia archeological site. (Photo: ARIS MESSINIS via Getty Images)

“Only this political neutrality ensures that the Olympic Games can stand above and beyond the political differences that exist in our times,” he said. “The Olympic Games cannot address all the challenges in our world. But they set an example for a world where everyone respects the same rules and one another.”

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

World at risk of second Great Depression due to coronavirus, says Chinese central bank

Zhu Jun from the People’s Bank of China says the risk is small, but the world must be alert to the threat

Economies around the world have been hit by the measures taken to stop the spread of Covid-19
Karen Yeung 5 Apr, 2020 SCMP

Measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 are likely to take

 a serious economic toll.  Photo: Xinhua

China’s central bank has warned the international community to be alert to the risk of a “Great Depression” in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, although it said the chances of this occurring was low.

“The possibility of a ‘Great Depression’ cannot be ruled out if the epidemic continues to run out of control, and the deterioration of the real economy is compounded by an eruption of financial risks,” Zhu Jun, director of the international department of the People's Bank of China, was quoted by local media as saying last week.

The difficult trade-off between the need to protect public health and the economic cost of shutting almost all face-to-face human activity has prompted warnings from many economists that the economic shock from Covid-19 may be more severe than the 2008 global financial crisis or even the Great Depression.

The latter, which began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, saw credit markets freezing up, massive bankruptcies, US GDP falling by more than 10 per cent and unemployment rates that touched 25 per cent.


Professor Terence Chong Tai-leung from the department of economics at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, said he was optimistic the global contraction would not be as severe as the 1930s slump.

“Governments are likely to decide to ease off restrictions by July. They need to prevent disruptions that would cause food shortages, social unrest or greater damage to human lives and the economy than if the restrictions continued,” Chong said. “The economy will naturally rebound when restrictions are lifted.”

But there is evidence the major toll this crisis is already having a massive impact on the US employment situation. US initial jobless claims of 6.65 million last week, up from 3.3 million the week previous week, highlighted fears of mass unemployment.

Currently global markets are already down 35 per cent, credit markets have seized up to 2008 levels. Even mainstream financial firms such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley expect US GDP to fall by an annualised rate of 6 per cent in the first quarter, and by 24 per cent to 30 per cent in the second.


Moody’s has warned that 30 per cent of US home loans may stop being serviced as a result of job losses and a lack of support for small businesses.

Zhu from the Chinese central bank said the biggest market uncertainty came from the fact that central banks’ swift and forceful actions could not directly help to control the epidemic but stopping its spread would help market confidence.

He said the policies of advanced economies had helped stabilise stock market sentiment but hidden risks continued to exist in the global financial system.

For example, stock markets in developed countries have been rising for many years so their valuations are under pressure.

If the market panics due to the intensifying impact of the epidemic, that could lead to tighter market liquidity, triggering market contagion across different asset classes.

The corporate sector, which has a relatively high level of debt, could also see an increase of defaults on banks’ non-performing assets and corporate bonds.


Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University's Stern School of Business, said the public-health response in advanced economies has fallen far short of what is needed to contain the pandemic and so the risk of a “greater depression” was rising by the day.

He warned that if a series of virus-related negative supply shocks reduced potential growth, the fiscal response of many countries could hit a wall as they would not be able to borrow enough in their own currency.

“After the 2008 crash, a forceful (though delayed) response pulled the global economy back from the abyss. We may not be so lucky this time,” Roubini said. “Who will bail out governments, corporations, banks and households in emerging markets?”



Despite a US$349 billion government backstop, US banks are refusing to lend to struggling small businesses at 0.5 per cent, and choosing to make the loans at 1.0 per cent instead.

Michael Every, global strategist at Rabobank said, in reality these financial packages can be hard to access, and may not be really effective.

“That is a Great Depression happening in the blink of an eye,” Every said. “Who knows where the damage will spread to, and when, if we are going to see 25 per cent unemployment across much of the developed world for an extended period?”

---30---

Key Democrat fears only a market crash will resolve debt limit impasse

“I would tell the president, ‘You can negotiate ,  there’s a reason we don’t negotiate with hostage-takers, Because you’ll be doing it again real soon.”

BY MIKE LILLIS 

THE HILL

- 04/23/23 

A key Democrat is warning this week that only a stock market collapse will break the partisan stalemate over raising the debt ceiling and preventing a government default over the summer.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a former Goldman Sachs executive and senior member of the Financial Services Committee, said the Republicans’ opposition to a debt limit hike without steep spending cuts is so entrenched that only an economy-rattling market tumble — like the crash that accompanied the financial crisis of 2008 — will shake GOP leaders to accept a bipartisan compromise.

“I fear that this ends the way the famous TARP, the Troubled Assets Relief Program, got passed in 2008. And that is when the markets finally say, ‘You guys have got to stop screwing around,’” Himes said Thursday during a wide-ranging interview in his Capitol Hill office.

TARP was Congress’s controversial response to the global financial crisis 15 years ago, providing $700 billion to stabilize teetering banks and restore faith in reeling credit markets. Championed by then-President George W. Bush and his treasury secretary — former Goldman CEO Hank Paulson, who warned of a global economic collapse if the funding was denied — the bill was killed in the House the first time it hit the floor in late September 2008.

The surprise vote sent the stock market into a freefall, pulling the Dow down 7 percent — the steepest decline since the attacks of 9/11 — and the Nasdaq down more than 9 percent. All told, the U.S. equity market lost $1.2 trillion in a day. Four days later, after making minor changes, spooked House lawmakers passed the bill and sent it to Bush’s desk.

Himes, who was first elected to Congress a month later, predicted it will require a similar scare to convince the Republicans who control the House to pass a debt ceiling increase that can also win President Biden’s signature.

“Sadly, I think it’s going to take that kind of market signal to wake my ideologically frenzied friends up and just say, ‘Let’s move on and do some real stuff,'” Himes said.

The debate surrounding the debt limit is growing more urgent as the government inches closer to the important moment when it exhausts the “extraordinary measures” it’s currently using to pay its debts — a mystery date Treasury officials say could come as early as June. Unless Congress raises that cap, the government would be unable to pay all of its existing obligations, marking the first default in U.S. history. Economists of all stripes have warned the effect on the global economy could be catastrophic.

Biden, from the start, has demanded a “clean” debt ceiling bill absent any other provisions — a stipulation Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who’s leading the Republican negotiations, has refused.

Pressured by conservatives in his conference, McCarthy is insisting on steep spending cuts to accompany the borrowing hike. As an opening bid, he introduced legislation on Wednesday to cut federal spending by $4.5 trillion over the next decade, according to GOP estimates, while raising the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or through March 2024, whichever comes first.

Republican leaders are racing to secure the support to pass the bill early next week, but they have some work to do to overcome the reservations from some GOP lawmakers — conservatives and moderates alike — who are fighting for favored changes.

Leaders are voicing confidence heading into the vote — “The cup is half full, we can get there,” McCarthy said — and even some of the most conservative GOP lawmakers are signaling their intent to support the package.

“[Democrats] certainly have been floating the notion that they didn’t think we can get to 218,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), who was among the conservatives who forced McCarthy to adopt a host of concessions — including a tougher line on deficit spending — in support for his Speakership bid in January. “I think they underestimate both where we’ve begun and what we accomplished in January to get ourselves better organized around clear ideas.”

Still, GOP leaders are reportedly short of 218 Republican votes, and Democratic leaders are warning McCarthy that he should expect no help from across the aisle.

“We’re at a point now where House Republicans are going to have to produce the votes for their extreme legislative proposal,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters Thursday.

Even if the bill passes the House, it’s dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate, putting the sides closer to default without a resolution. The dilemma facing McCarthy is finding some compromise that can win bipartisan support, for the sake of avoiding a default, without angering conservatives to the extent that they attempt to topple him from power — a process he agreed to make easier as part of his deal with them in January.

Himes said the challenges facing McCarthy are much tougher than those that confronted former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who had a much larger majority to work with during the debt ceiling battle of 2011, when the U.S. credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history.

“It’s unquestionably much worse,” he said. “One hundred days of experience as Speaker, and he’s got a tiny majority. And that majority includes people who — let me be diplomatic and say are unpredictable.”

Himes, echoing a chorus of others in his party, was quick to point out that Democrats voted to raise the debt limit three times under former President Trump — and even Republican deficit hawks were largely silent when those votes occurred under a GOP president.

“Remember, three times during Donald Trump the debt ceiling got raised, and you didn’t even notice because Kevin McCarthy and all the Republicans were like, ‘Let’s not screw around here now, we’ve got a [Republican] president,’” he said. “Now all of a sudden they need to take the grenade out, pull the pin and put it on the table.”

Democrats, he added, are happy to debate the merits of federal programs and the funding provided to them. But that conversation should happen in the normal process of passing appropriations bills, he said, not with a federal default hanging in the balance. Durbin: Conversation about budget should be ‘separate’ from debt ceilingKlobuchar: Biden, McCarthy should negotiate on budget, not hold Americans’ mortgages ‘hostage’ over debt ceiling

“God bless you, if you want to cut food stamps to hungry children, if you want to make it harder to go to college, put that idea forward. But do it as part of the regular legislative process where we can debate it,” Himes said. “You don’t get to say, ‘We’re going to cut food stamps, and if you don’t do it, we’re blowing up the economy.’ Which is what the debt ceiling conversation is all about.”

Amid the debate, some moderate Democrats are quietly voicing frustrations that Biden has refused to negotiate with McCarthy. But a vast majority of the caucus is sticking with their ally in the White House, warning opening that door would set a dangerous precedent for debt ceiling debates in the future. Himes said his advice to Biden would be to hold his ground.

“I would tell the president, ‘You can negotiate. [But] there’s a reason we don’t negotiate with hostage-takers,’” Himes said. “Because you’ll be doing it again real soon.”

SILICON VALLEY BANK CRASH

Tech execs race to save startups from 'extinction' after SVB collapse
Reuters
March 12, 2023


By Jeffrey Dastin, Anna Tong and Krystal Hu

PALO ALTO, California (Reuters) - Technology executives, prominent venture capitalists and founders including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman raced this weekend to keep alive companies caught up in the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Friday's dramatic failure of the bank, which focuses on tech startups, was the biggest since the 2008 financial crisis. It roiled global markets, walloped banking stocks and left California tech entrepreneurs worrying about how to make payroll.

Aiming to avoid what Garry Tan, the CEO of startup accelerator Y Combinator, called a potential "extinction level event" in the tech sector, industry executives moved quickly to do what they could to save small businesses.

Altman, who runs one of Silicon Valley's hottest companies, bailed out some entrepreneurs from his own pocket, according to a Twitter message by his brother and one beneficiary who spoke with Reuters.

"I was running out of options, and so I just emailed him," Doktor Gurson, CEO of Rad AI, said in an interview on Saturday. Within an hour or two, Altman responded, offering him six figures: enough to make payroll and no strings attached, just a request to return the funds once Gurson is able, he said.

Asked for comment, Altman told Reuters, "I remember the investors who helped me out when I was running a startup and I really needed it, and I always try to pay it forward."

Henrique Dubugras, co-CEO of fintech startup Brex, also spent the weekend working the phone after his company announced an emergency credit line on Friday to help startups get through their next payroll.

As of Saturday evening, he said Brex had received $1.5 billion in demand from nearly 1,000 companies. "We’re trying to sign up lenders by end of day tomorrow. Everybody is sprinting," he said.

Even small startups are getting in on the action to help others. Aleem Mawani, founder of Streak, a company with about 30 employees, tweeted Friday he would lend his personal cash free of any terms to other small startups worried about paying staff. He said he then had discussions with a few companies and was aiming to prioritize lending for those living paycheck to paycheck.

“I'm a founder and I know how awful it would be to not make payroll,” Mawani said in an interview.

'MALFEASANCE OR MISMANAGEMENT'

By late Saturday, more than 3,500 CEOs and founders representing some 220,000 workers had signed a petition started by Y Combinator appealing directly to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and others to backstop depositors, many of them small businesses who are at risk of failing to pay staff in the next 30 days.

The petition advocated "stronger regulatory oversight and capital requirements for regional banks" and an investigation into any "malfeasance or mismanagement" by SVB executives. More than 100,000 jobs could be at risk, the petition warned.

SVB did not reply to a request for comment, and Y Combinator did not elaborate on the petition.

Venture investors have advised startups to seek alternatives to gain short-term liquidity. Some, including Lowercarbon Capital, have offered loans to portfolio companies that have funds stuck at SVB.

Its partner Clay Dumas said Lowercarbon would provide payroll support for the next two weeks and was wiring funds out Monday.

Khosla Ventures told Reuters, “Given the rapidly evolving situation, we are talking to 100+ portfolio companies assessing their critical needs and plan to bridge where we are a lead or major investor."

'LIFELINE'

Rad AI's Gurson had not talked to Altman for years when he emailed the OpenAI chief Saturday morning, desperate for help. The startup relied on SVB, the sudden closure of which meant he lacked the money to pay some 65 employees on Monday, he said.

"People's livelihoods depend on us," said Gurson, whose San Francisco-based company helps radiologists work more efficiently and includes staff with wide-ranging roles and wherewithal. "They’ve got mortgages to pay; they’ve got bills."

Gurson's co-founder waited eight hours on a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation hotline to no avail, he said. Multiple attempts to transfer funds out of SVB had failed.

But Gurson saw a Twitter post from Altman, whom he met as a founder participating in 2014 in Y Combinator, where Altman was president. The two men did not know each other very well, he said.

"It's like a lifeline," Gurson said of Altman's generosity.

Gurson estimated "conservatively" that Altman has given more than $1 million to support other startups in similar need.

"The crazy thing here is he's not an investor in our company," Gurson said. "He didn’t ask for anything."

Altman did not comment on how much he had given companies but said he did not view his contributions as risky.

"Even if SVB can't find a buyer or a loan over the weekend, a lot of the money startups have on deposit will be made available to them. But in the meantime, people are facing a real liquidity crunch through no fault of their own, and employees need to get paid," he said.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, Anna Tong and Krystal Hu in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Tatiana Bautzer; Writing by Kenneth Li; Editing by William Mallard)

Silicon Valley Bank's demise began with downgrade threat



2023-03-11 
Peder B. Helland - Hope

In the middle of last week, Moody's Investors Service Inc delivered alarming news to SVB Financial Group (SIVB.O), the parent of Silicon Valley Bank: the ratings firm was preparing to downgrade the bank's credit.

That phone call, described by two people familiar with the situation, began the process toward Friday's spectacular collapse of the startup-focused lender, the biggest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis.

Friday's collapse sent jitters through global markets and walloped banking stocks. Investors worry that the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate increases to fight inflation are exposing vulnerabilities in the financial system.

Details of SVB's failed response to the prospect of the downgrade, reported by Reuters for the first time, show how quickly confidence in financial institutions can erode. The failure also sent shock-waves through California's startup economy, with many companies unsure how much of their deposits they can recover and worrying about how to make payroll.

The Moody's call came after the value of the bonds where SVB had parked its money fell due to the higher interest rates.

Worried the downgrade could undermine the confidence of investors and clients in the bank's financial health, SVB Chief Executive Greg Becker's team called Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) bankers for advice and flew to New York for meetings with Moody's and other ratings firms, the sources said.

The sources asked not to be identified because they are bound by confidentiality agreements.

SVB then worked on a plan over the weekend to boost the value of its holdings. It would sell more than $20 billion worth of low-yielding bonds and reinvest the proceeds in assets that deliver higher returns.

The transaction would generate a loss, but if SVB could fill that funding hole by selling shares, it would avoid a multi-notch downgrade, the sources said.

REUTERS

Silicon Valley Bank staff offered 45 days of work at 1.5 times pay, FDIC email shows

LANANH NGUYEN AND PETE SCHROEDER
REUTERS

Employees of Silicon Valley Bank were offered 45 days of employment at one and a half times their salary by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, the U.S. regulator that took control of the collapsed lender on Friday, according to an email to staff seen by Reuters.

Workers will be enrolled and given information about benefits over the weekend by the FDIC, and healthcare details will be provided by the former parent company SVB Financial Group, the FDIC wrote in an email entitled “Employee Retention” late on Friday. SVB had a workforce of 8,528 at the end of last year.

Staff were told to continue working remotely, except for essential workers and branch employees.

The FDIC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Silicon Valley Bank imploded after depositors, concerned about the lender’s financial health, rushed to withdraw their deposits. The frenetic two-day run on the bank blindsided observers and stunned markets, wiping out more than $100 billion in market value for U.S. banks. SVB ranked as the 16th biggest bank in the United States at the end of last year, with about $209 billion in assets and $175.4 billion in deposits.

Members of California’s congressional delegation are set to be briefed by FDIC officials on Saturday, according to a report by Politico, which cited two people familiar with the situation.

The lender’s main office in Santa Clara, California, and all of its 17 branches in California and Massachusetts will reopen on Monday, the FDIC said in a statement on Friday.

ABC host slams regulation cuts 'under President Trump' after Silicon Valley Bank collapse

David Edwards
March 12, 2023

ABC/screen grab

ABC host Martha Raddatz noted that Trump-era regulation cuts may have contributed to the rapid collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week.

While speaking to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Raddatz wondered about the downfall of the go-to bank for tech startups.

"Senator, after the financial crisis in 2008, regulations were put into place to make sure banks could weather large losses," Raddatz told Warner on Sunday. "Under President Trump, some of those were rolled back, and in 2018, you were one of only 17 Democrats who voted for the bill that rolled back some banking rules, including for institutions the size of Silicon Valley Bank."

"Do you regret that vote?" the host asked.

Warner defended the vote: "I do think these mid-sized banks needed some regulatory relief."

"So, Senator, you don't regret that vote?" Raddatz pressed.

"I don't regret that vote," he insisted.

Watch the video below from ABC or at the link.

SILICON VALLEY BANK USED FORMER MCCARTHY STAFFERS TO WEAKEN REGULATIONS, LOBBY FDIC

Two senior aides to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy were among the top lobbyists for the bank at the center of a new financial crisis

Ken Klippenstein
March 11 2023

AFTER SUCCESSFULLY LOBBYING, for the rollback of new rules applied to Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis, lobbyists for Silicon Valley Bank immediately began pressing their case further to the federal authority that insures bank deposits in the event of another crisis, according to lobbying disclosures reviewed by The Intercept. The lobbying effort managed to exempt banks the size of SVB from more stringent regulations, including stress tests aimed at uncovering the type of weaknesses that led to the bank’s implosion last week. Two of the bank’s top lobbyists previously served as senior staffers for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who himself pushed for the repeal of significant pieces of the landmark Wall Street reform legislation known as Dodd-Frank.

The meltdown of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday represents the second largest bank collapse in American history and the first since the 2008 financial crisis. Over 90 percent of SVB’s deposits exceed the amount federally guaranteed by the FDIC, meaning those people may never see their money again, or may lose substantial amounts.

SVB’s president, Greg Becker, himself pushed for weaker banking regulations, telling congress to lift “enhanced prudential standards…given the low risk profile of our activities,” as The Lever reported.

A chief culprit, economists say, is legislation signed into law by President Trump in 2018, which rolled back key parts of the Dodd-Frank banking regulations passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. That 2018 legislation, called the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, passed with strong support from the Republican Party and critical support from some Democrats. Among those leading the charge was then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is now House Speaker.

“We’re going to move this Senate bill directly to the president’s desk to ensure these reforms help the economy to grow further by making community banks stronger,” McCarthy said of the legislation in 2018. “This is going to free up a great deal of capital and this will help a lot.”

Two former staffers for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are registered lobbyists for Silicon Valley Bank, with one specifically lobbying on the 2018 Dodd-Frank repeal law that experts say made this crisis more likely, according to federal lobbying disclosures reviewed by The Intercept.

Other SVB lobbyists worked for political figures cutting across both parties including President Bill Clinton, former Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wy., former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., former Sen. Arlen Specter D/R-Pa., and former Rep. Jay Inslee, now governor of Washington.

Brian Worth served as coalitions director for McCarthy from January 2011 to May 2014, when he was House Republican Whip. Since March of 2017 he’s been a partner at Franklin Square Group, where he’s worked as a lobbyist for SVB. Wes McClelland served as a policy advisor and senior policy advisor for McCarthy from April 2011 to September of 2015 and joined Franklin Square in January of last year, where he has also lobbied on SVB’s behalf.

Franklin Square is the only lobby group that SVB has used in over a decade, having lobbied on its behalf every year from 2009 to 2023. The only other lobby shops SVB has employed were DLA Piper from 2009-2010 and McGuireWoods consulting from 2010-2011.

A spokesperson for McCarthy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Worth lobbied on the repeal law beginning on October 1, 2017, right up to its passage on May 24, 2018. Then, starting on July 1, 2018, SVB began lobbying the FDIC — the very same federal agency responsible for insuring bank deposits, which was tasked with implementing critical portions of Dodd-Frank.

Though Franklin Square has lobbied on behalf of SBV since 2009, the 2018 filing represents the first time it had ever lobbied the FDIC.

Beginning on April 20, 2022, McClelland also began lobbying the FDIC on SBV’s behalf, which both he and Worth continued doing right up until SBV’s last lobbying filing this year.

The lobbying disclosures do not provide any more detail about the work. Neither Worth nor McClelland immediately responded to requests for comment.

“This was a 100 percent avoidable problem,” economist Dean Baker told The Intercept in an email, pointing to the Dodd-Frank repeal bill. “That bill raised the asset threshold above which banks have to undergo stress tests from $50 billion to $250 billion. SVB would have been required to undergo regular stress tests before the revision; among the stresses you look at are sharp rises in interest rates, which is apparently what did in SVB. Presumably, if its books had been subject to this test, the risk would have been detected and they would have been required to raise more capital and/or shed deposits.”

Twitter slams 'moron' Charlie Kirk for suggesting Silicon Valley Bank crashed because of 'DEI' efforts

Maya Boddie, Alternet
March 12, 2023

Charlie Kirk speaking with attendees at the 2021 Southwest Regional Conference hosted by Turning Point USA at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

Turning Point USA founder and conservative, Charlie Kirk, suggested Silicon Valley Bank collapsed due to the lender's diversity, equity and inclusion commitment statement on its website.

Kirk tweeted, "It is a mystery why Silicon Valley Bank collapsed," along with a screenshot of the banks Diversity, Equity and Inclusion statement.

NBC reporter Ben Collins responded to Kirk's tweet, writing, "On the right-wing internet, SVB collapsed because of DEI and ESG, which is just SBF's version of CRT. This is the kind of sentence you're gonna start hearing from presidential candidates, and they're going to wonder why nobody cares. It's meaningless acronyms all the way down."

Other Twitter users chimed in to criticize the right-wing activist's theory, calling it "embarrassing, even for you."

@williamlegate: "to suggest that this is the reason is absurd, but it was also very predictable. I called it yesterday that you all would blame this on DEI"

@holman: "it's okay to admit you don't understand banking!"

@Cassizzi: "Frankly it would be a bigger mystery if a community college dropout like yourself knew anything about liquidity risk management in a financial institution. But nice try, Charlie."

@buccocapital: "you are a true moron"

READ MORE: 'War on white people': Charlie Kirk's train derailment conspiracy theory

David Burrows: "Hilarious. Now tell us why CPAC collapsed"

@MikieAndTheVibe: "im not sure if this post just makes 0 sense or if you’re saying that the company failed because they attempt to include gay and black people"

Andy Brining: "Yeah, everything with you is a mystery for some reason. I wish we could discover the common factor."

READ MORE: Silicon Valley Bank becomes 'largest bank' to collapse 'since 2008' financial catastrophe: report

@e_michael1: "In case people were wondering, this is *not* why SVB failed."

@RagingGinge: "c'mon Charlie this is embarrassing even for you."

READ MORE: Silicon Valley Bank's collapse triggers concern over potential 'bloodbath' and risk to broader markets

Inside the Silicon Valley Bank failure: A tech industry in shock as it awaits a government response

People stand outside of an entrance to Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California, 10 March 2023 - Copyright AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

By Aleksandar Brezar • Updated: 11/03/2023 -

The news out of California that authorities shut down Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on Friday shocked the tech start-up and venture capitalist world, with its sudden collapse over the course of two days roiling the market by Saturday.

SVB - the 16th largest bank in the US but a crucial one for the startup community - was closed down by regulators on Friday after a bank run dealt it a lethal blow following attempts to recover deposit losses and the sale of treasury bonds and securities.

"SVB was obviously the beacon of the start-up venture community for four decades. Almost, you know, one of those institutions that everyone viewed as too big and too strong to fail," Samir Kaji, a former banker who spent more than 20 years in the industry, told Euronews Next.

Silicon Valley Bank collapse: Fears of financial crisis after bank used by US tech sector fails

Yet SVB was hit hard by funding drying up over the past year in the tech and startup sector as well as the Federal Reserve's plan to aggressively increase interest rates to combat inflation.

The bank was backed by billions of dollars worth of bonds, but in having to sell them at a time when interest rates were high, they sold them at a significant loss.

But SVB’s customers were largely startups and other tech-centric companies that started becoming needier for cash over the past year.

A Brinks truck is parked outside of Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, 10 March 2023

AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

"When they had the announcement of the capital reshuffling [on Wednesday]," he recalled, "what ended up happening there was a 'town hall' call with their clients which are mainly these VC firms".

And it actually incited more panic than it did to reassure, Kaji explained.

"There were torrents of emails, voicemails, calls, Slacks, text messages, where all of the VCs were imploring their companies to move capital out of SVB, which created that $42 billion leaving the bank".

SVB's 'specific' problems to result in only pockets of instability?

SVB is expected to re-open Monday with the FDIC in charge. It said all insured depositors would have full access to insured deposits no later than Monday morning.

"While there are no guarantees, it is very likely that the FDIC - which is the institution created in the New Deal to deal with bank runs and prevent bankruptcy - will likely resolve the situation," Armand Domalewski, a data analyst with a background in economic policy told Euronews Next.

There were torrents of emails, voicemails, calls, Slacks, text messages, where all of the VCs were imploring their companies to move capital out of SVB, which created that $42 billion leaving the bank.

Samir Kaji

Former banker

"People in the US think that their deposits are only insured up to $250,000 [€234,000], which is legally true. But in general what the FDIC tries to do since 2008 is arrange sales to other banks so that the customers are transitioned overnight. They don't lose their deposits".

The people who invested directly in SVB are going to get wiped out, but depositors have reasons to be hopeful, Domalewski explained.

The Silicon Valley Bank failure is the largest since Washington Mutual’s demise in 2008 - a watershed moment that triggered a major financial crisis and crippled the world’s markets since.

Yet SVB’s failure is expected to result only in pockets of instability, mostly due to its nature as a "boutique" bank and specific portfolio favoured by US tech startups and venture capital, servicing nearly half of the market.

Additionally, US and international regulators have introduced more stringent rules since the last financial crisis, aimed at ensuring that one bank’s failure would not trigger a cascade event, harming the broader economic system.

An FDIC sign is posted on a window at a Silicon Valley Bank branch in Wellesley, Massachusetts, 11 March 2023

AP Photo/Peter Morgan

The problems encountered by the bank "are very specific" and are not likely "to affect the entire banking sector, let alone the major banks," Ken Leon, an analyst with the firm CFRA, told AFP.

Morgan Stanley's analysts echoed this view, insisting in a statement: "We want to be very clear... We do not believe that the banking sector is facing a liquidity crunch".

Authorities in the US have also expressed their confidence in the country’s banking sector, which is far more diversified across multiple industries, customer bases, and geographies.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday that the banking sector remained "resilient,” while White House economic adviser Cecilia Rouse said the sector was "fundamentally different from what it was 10 years ago".

Silicon Valley Bank collapse: Here's how and why it happened

'Businesses should not fail because their choice of bank failed'

Some high-tech companies were hit hard by the news of SVB’s failure, however. On Friday, streaming device maker Roku said they had "around $487 million" (€456.9 million), or 26 per cent of its cash reserves, deposited at SVB.

Roku’s shares have gone down 10 per cent in extended trading, but the company said that "it continues to believe that its existing cash and cash equivalents balance and cash flow from operations will be sufficient […] for the next twelve months and beyond".

Requiring every individual business to do constant due diligence wherever they put their money creates a huge amount of stability.

Armand Domalewski

Data analyst

But smaller companies spent Saturday in heightened panic, as some of the startups depending on SVB became concerned over their ability to pay their employees post-shutdown.

Others scrambled to look for a bank to replace SVB even before markets reopen on Monday.

This is understandable, according to Domalewski, as fairly small businesses feeding a hundred employees feel "they’ll run out of money very very fast".

"Businesses should not fail because their choice of bank failed," Domalewski said.

"Requiring every individual business to do constant due diligence wherever they put their money creates a huge amount of stability".

"But I do think also, they should just wait to see what happens till Monday".
'Irrational' premise still led to 'rational' movement of cash

Yet the freakout persisted throughout Saturday, with emails from various firms said to have been circulating imploring companies to move their cash from other specialised banks to a top four bank as soon as possible.

"What this really cascaded into then is all of the regional banks being reviewed and many of the VCs have now looked at all this and said, 'Okay, well my distrust is not only with SVP, but it's actually with the broader read of the banking sector outside of the top four,'" Kaji explained.

Santa Clara Police officers exit Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, 10 March 2023

AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

"And so everyone right now is looking at their company's funds and saying we simply just can't take a chance".

"When you have mass hysteria, the cat's already out the bag... the premise based on which people moved money was probably irrational, but once it started the movement of the cash it became rational".

"Because you never want to be the last one out. No one wants to be stuck in that same position with another bank" that is failing in the same way, Kaji concluded.
Protections in place to make all the difference?

In Europe, German and UK regulators are said to be monitoring the fallout of the SVB Group, although expectations of its overseas future were mostly optimistic on Saturday.

The group has offices in both European countries, as well as Ireland, Denmark, and Sweden, but its international arm is thought to represent a minor part of its overall business, with just 3 per cent of its total client funds coming from abroad.

On Friday afternoon CET, SVB’s UK branch said in a statement that it "has been an independent subsidiary since August 2022 with a separate balance sheet to the SVB Financial Group and an independent UK Board of directors".

And Domalewski believes that the protections in place since 2008 will make all the difference come Monday.

"There's a reason that we did all this since 2008 — passed a lot of new financial regulations formally and informally to make our banking systems a little more boring, a little more arduous, but to like prevent things like this from causing a full-scale crisis," he explained.

"It's been a long time since we've had a bank failure,” Domalewski said, “and people have forgotten what that's like".


Additional sources • AFP

On The Dole

I love ths headline, speaking truth to power as they say, too often unemployment appears to have no apparent cause but it does of course, the bosses decide....Canadian employers wipe out 71000 jobs

Even though the bosses were given HR advice not to do this, they can't help themselves they have no plan to deal with the recession so they fall back on the old tried and true, lay off workers.

Fears of a million layoffs a month in corporate America

And as usual the cheery economic advisors to the bosses didn't expect this.
Canada lost 70600 jobs in November, about three times more than many economists had expected, Statistics Canada reported on Friday.

As strategist Ed Yardeni wrote, "the latest batch of economic indicators is so bad that we are either spiralling into a depression or we are within a few months of a V-shaped recovery."
Put Mr. Abramson, 42, firmly in the V-shaped camp. He doesn't believe a years-long slump is lurking in the shadows, although the markets have been trading that way.
"It's been a rough economy, which we underestimated," he says. But the market response reflects a "psychological meltdown" that has taken stocks down to ridiculous valuations.
"We've been fully invested for a period here, because we didn't believe this was going to go as far down versus valuation and economic reality as it has. We thought this was going to be a normal 20-per-cent correction." Oops.

So while Harper created a political crisis to avoid addressing the economic crisis, it slapped him in the face like a wet fish. Indeed can you say recession, the word he refuses to use. And he has no plan to address it, so he creates a political crisis to distract us from the bad news.

Harper shuts down Parliament while unemployment hits recession levels

We are in a recession, and the dark clouds of depression creep over the horizon.

Canada loses 70600 jobs in a month, most since '82
Ontario's crumbling manufacturing sector is a major reason why the 66000 of the 71000 jobs that disappeared in Canada in November did so in this province. ...

Yep the oil crash of '82 was when we had one of our worst recessions.

Good News — Conditions Resemble 1973-74!
The recession of 1974-75 was the worst since the 1930’s Great Depression. The 1973-74 bear market in anticipation of that recession was the worst bear market since that of the 1929-32 bear market (which led to the Great Depression). The mid-1970’s were indeed a miserable period.

And that was just last months unemployment figures the news continues to be bad across Canada.

GM to lay off 700 more workers in Oshawa

AbitibiBowater to shut mills, axe 1100 jobs

Closed mines, broken dreams in the town that nickel built

However we are not alone in this sudden realization that the economy is crashing, like Harper the other recession denier sits in the White House south of here.

US Loses 533000 Jobs in Biggest Drop Since 1974

The U.S. Labor Department reported Friday that last month, companies around the nation shed jobs at the fastest rate since the early 1970s, pushing the unemployment rate to its highest level in 15 years.
The figures suggest the year-old recession will approach or even exceed the 1981-1982 downturn in severity and support expectations that Federal Reserve officials will soon lower interest rates to levels not seen in a half century.

That was just the monthly unemployment rate it gets worse in the U.S. which does not have our style of EI as the unumber of unemployed or underemployed workers not on unemployment payments ballons.

Broader Unemployment Rate Hits 12.5%

One in Ten Americans Now Uses Food Stamps as Unemployment Continues to Rise

But still there are those economists who claim that the glass is half full, same guys that said there was no recession....

Unemployment hurts, but it's not a crisis yet

And some are down right optimistic......

Recession over by June?

And they are just plain wrong like they have been for the past year.

If recent downturns are any guide, it may be well into 2010 or perhaps even 2011 before unemployment peaks, which means the global economy should not count substantial U.S. consumer spending rebound any time soon. "The economy is now locked in a vicious downward spiral in which employment, incomes and spending are collapsing together," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.

Along with the credit melt down unemployment is also a global problem.

OFF THE CHARTS A domino effect in the global work force
THE world recession is spreading, and the employment outlook is turning down almost everywhere.
Even in countries like China, the latest surveys of companies show they are reducing their work forces, providing more evidence that China cannot be the engine of the world economy when the traditional industrial powers suffer.

China fears a reverse migration
China's roaring industrial economy has been abruptly quieted by the effects of the global financial crisis. Rural provinces that supplied much of China's factory manpower are watching the beginnings of a wave of reverse migration that has the potential to shake the stability of the world's most populous nation.
Fast-rising unemployment has led to an unusual series of strikes and protests. Normally cautious government officials have offered quick concessions and talk openly of their worries about social unrest. Laid-off factory workers in Dongguan overturned patrol cars and clashed with police last Tuesday, and hundreds of taxis parked in front of a government office in nearby Chaozhou over the weekend, one of a series of driver protests.

Amid the global financial crisis, China's small and medium-sized enterprises, largely labor-intensive and vulnerable to fluctuations in domestic and external demand, are affected most. In the first half of 2008, 67,000 such companies, each with a business volume exceeding 5 million yuan, closed and laid off more than 20 million employees, said the National Development and Reform Commission. That figure doesn't include service industry firms or small companies with sales of less than 5 million yuan, as there are no authoritative figures available on those categories.

A HUNDRED per cent of the global economic growth next year will come from developing countries. This, according to Stuart E. Eizenstat, former US deputy treasury secretary, is the first time in history that developing countries will shoulder the full responsibility of pulling the global economy.
The European and US economic engines are not firing and therefore will not be able to pull the world economy along as has been done previously. Some economists, including David Carbon, chief economist at DBS Bank, believe that Asia is now more capable of standing on its own.Why then should the worker in a factory in China or Malaysia be concerned when the region, by most accounts, is in a much better economic situation than in the US and other more advanced nations? Why should economies in Asia and indeed other developing countries be concerned with rising unemployment in the US and Europe?The fact is that even though Asia is not as badly off as the US, Asia's growth is also slowing. In today's highly interconnected and globalised world, what happens in one part of the world is rapidly transmitted to the other side. Contagions spread faster. Thus, with the economic meltdown in the US and massive job losses, the demand for goods and services also falls. Offshore centres in India and in other parts of the world are also feeling the heat from the US financial and economic meltdown. The production and assembly line that snakes around the world, and in some cases making its way into remote villages, has also been affected.The unemployment numbers in Europe and other developed countries are also on the uptrend, with more joining the jobless ranks every day. This, according to some, could be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s

Ok folks lets do the math. Recession + Unemployment = Depression

US "Great Depression" has begun: Best of the Boards/Blogs

There's no mystery about what the government is trying to do. After the Black October crash, the government and the Bank of England got out their history books and started looking at what happened in the Great Depression. In September 1931, as unemployment reached three million, the national government slashed interest rates and abandoned the gold standard. The value of the pound fell by 25%, just as it has today. Interest rates fell from 6% to 2% - deja vu - and this led to a modest, export-led recovery. Unemployment fell marginally in 1935 as a recovery in the housing market, mainly in the south of England, boosted economic activity. The government is clearly trying to do the same today.
However, this isn't the 1930s. For one thing, there was a lot of spare capacity then in the economy, which is not the case today. We also had the Empire. Britain erected tariff walls against imports and used the colonies - yes, we still had them - to provide cheap food imports. The 1930s depression wasn't caused by consumer spending and debt, it was a classic crisis of ineffective demand.
Also: it didn't really work. Unemployment remained stubbornly high throughout the 1930s outside the south-east of England, and it was only rearmament, as the Second World War approached, that ended mass joblessness. We are in a very different situation today. We cannot seek salvation in another unsustainable boom and we certainly cannot afford to go to war.

And depressions lead to workers revolt.

Workers at Republic Windows continue sit-in after company closes

Sit Ins and plant occupations were popular in the 1930;s as well, and are far more effective than strikes, they can lead to the only obvious solution to the capitalist crisis; workers control of the means of production and the socializtion of capital.

SEE
Neo-Con Industrial Strategy.
Common Sense
Neo-Cons Have No New Ideas
Back To The Fifties
Here Come the Seventies
Wall Street Mantra


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