Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Don't Call It A "Bailout", But It's a Massive Big Tech & China Bailout

Transcript

Don't Call It A "Bailout", But It's a Massive Big Tech & China Bailout · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome. Its verdict was Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with
0:04
Speaker 1: you and Senator the biggest news story of the week.
0:07
Speaker 1: Many Americans are concerned about their banks. They're concerned about banking.
0:12
Speaker 1: They're concerned about what's happened with a fallout of Silicon
0:16
Speaker 1: Valley Bank. This wasn't a little bank. This was a
0:19
Speaker 1: big bank. It was one of the top three failures
0:21
Speaker 1: of my lifetime. I want to get your initial reaction
0:25
Speaker 1: to this and what you've heard, at least from those
0:28
Speaker 1: in Washington that were supposed to be keeping an eye
0:30
Speaker 1: on this bank and many others every day. Well, this
0:33
Speaker 1: has been a very chaotic time in the markets. We've
0:36
Speaker 1: seen two different banks fail, including the sixteenth largest bank
0:40
Speaker 1: in the United States, Silicon Valley Bank, with two hundred
0:43
Speaker 1: and ten billion dollars in assets. That has called into
0:46
Speaker 1: question a lot of the financing for the tech industry.
0:51
Speaker 1: It's called into question a lot of the financing for
0:53
Speaker 1: venture capital, and it has potentially imperiled a significant number
0:59
Speaker 1: of midside banks. In response to this, the Biden administration
1:04
Speaker 1: rolled out a major bailout, conveniently bailing out the politically
1:09
Speaker 1: collected connected friends of the Biden White House in a
1:14
Speaker 1: way that we'll have lasting repercussions for the economy and
1:20
Speaker 1: will almost certainly incentivize future bad conduct by other banks.
1:27
Speaker 1: When you look at this from a standpoint of it
1:30
Speaker 1: being called a bailout, a lot of people have been
1:33
Speaker 1: calling it that, but this administration keeps saying, this is
1:37
Speaker 1: not a bailout. Is this a bailout? Or the taxpayers
1:40
Speaker 1: going to have to put the bill for this? Is
1:42
Speaker 1: this a delayed bill for taxpayers? How should the American
1:46
Speaker 1: people be reacting to this? This is one of bailout,
1:51
Speaker 1: and the Biden administration is spinning like crazy trying to
1:55
Speaker 1: pretend that it's not. What they are arguing is the money.
2:00
Speaker 1: There's one hundred and twenty billion dollars in a fund
2:03
Speaker 1: that is paid by banks, and they say, well, that's
2:06
Speaker 1: not taxpayer money. Well, the last time I checked banks
2:09
Speaker 1: or taxpayers, banks pay quite a bit in taxes. Not
2:12
Speaker 1: only that, but the fees that the banks are paying
2:15
Speaker 1: into this fund they get from in turn extracting revenues
2:20
Speaker 1: from consumers, and so it comes from you and me.
2:24
Speaker 1: At the end of the day. This money didn't grow
2:25
Speaker 1: on a magic money tree that the Biden administration has
2:29
Speaker 1: that they decided to spend well over one hundred billion
2:33
Speaker 1: dollars in response to this. And here's what happened. So,
2:36
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley Bank has two hundred and ten billion dollars
2:40
Speaker 1: in assets, and a big chunk of its portfolio was
2:47
Speaker 1: held in securities and in particular long term government debt.
2:53
Speaker 1: And in fact, it had the highest securities portfolio as
2:57
Speaker 1: a percentage of total assets of any bank, and it
3:04
Speaker 1: took long term government debt. But then the Fed's policies
3:09
Speaker 1: raising interest rates made that government debt made those bonds
3:14
Speaker 1: go down in value about twenty percent. And what happened
3:19
Speaker 1: is that the bank was required to mark to market
3:23
Speaker 1: those securities at their current valuations. Now, if it held
3:28
Speaker 1: those government bonds to maturity, it would get the full payout,
3:33
Speaker 1: but their worth about twenty percent less because the interest
3:37
Speaker 1: rates they were taken out at are significantly lower than
3:40
Speaker 1: where interest rates are today. That in turn caused an
3:45
Speaker 1: old fashioned run on the bank, which is depositors and
3:48
Speaker 1: in particular venture capital companies and tech companies began removing
3:53
Speaker 1: their funds in mass, and it was one after the
3:58
Speaker 1: other after the other that began pulling their their funds out. Now, look,
4:01
Speaker 1: we all know, uh from from classic movies like It's
4:04
Speaker 1: a Wonderful Life, that that a bank doesn't have all
4:09
Speaker 1: of the deposits just sitting there in cash, that it
4:12
Speaker 1: it in the case of an snlor or a mortgage bank,
4:16
Speaker 1: it is loaning them out. Uh. In in this instance,
4:21
Speaker 1: the bulk of the funds were in securities, including in
4:25
Speaker 1: particular both government debt and mortgage bonds. And so when
4:29
Speaker 1: when a ton of the depositors are saying, give me
4:32
Speaker 1: my money back, uh, they ran ran into real trouble
4:36
Speaker 1: because there was a liquidity mismatch. In other words, the
4:39
Speaker 1: the assets they had available to give the depositors back
4:43
Speaker 1: where were less than the demand for from the depositors
4:47
Speaker 1: to get it back. And so California stepped in and
4:51
Speaker 1: shut the bank down on Friday. Uh. And what happened
4:57
Speaker 1: next was a series of things. So one consequence, the FDIC,
5:03
Speaker 1: the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, insures deposits up to two
5:08
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So if you or I
5:10
Speaker 1: have our checking account or savings accounts, most of us
5:14
Speaker 1: presumably have less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
5:16
Speaker 1: in our checking or savings accounts. Those are entirely insured
5:20
Speaker 1: by the government. And that's true for anyone that has
5:22
Speaker 1: less than two hundred and fifty thousand. That's also true
5:25
Speaker 1: for smaller businesses, for mom and pop businesses, smaller businesses,
5:29
Speaker 1: but above two hundred and fifty thousand, that is not
5:32
Speaker 1: supposed to be insured by the FDIC. And in the
5:37
Speaker 1: case of Silicon Valley Bank, a massive amount ninety six
5:42
Speaker 1: percent of their deposits were uninsured. In other words, it
5:46
Speaker 1: had a bunch of big, big, big deposit accounts way
5:51
Speaker 1: above the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars insurance cap.
5:55
Speaker 1: The folks that had deposits in Silicon Valley Bank that
6:00
Speaker 1: were above the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars insurance
6:04
Speaker 1: cap include a ton of politically connected venture capital firms
6:09
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and startups. So, for example, Circle, the
6:14
Speaker 1: payment technology firm, had three point three billion dollars in
6:20
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley Bank. That's a bunch of money. Three point
6:23
Speaker 1: three billion is way way way above two hundred and
6:27
Speaker 1: fifty thousand. There were a total of one thousand and
6:31
Speaker 1: seventy four private equity and venture capital funds that were
6:35
Speaker 1: banking with Silicon Valley Bank. And if you look at
6:38
Speaker 1: some of the players. In addition to Circle, Roku, the
6:42
Speaker 1: streaming service, had four hundred and eighty seven million dollars
6:45
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley Bank. The crypto lender Block five, which
6:51
Speaker 1: is now defunct, had two hundred and twenty seven million. Roadblocks,
6:57
Speaker 1: the online gaming platform had one hundred and fifty million,
7:03
Speaker 1: and BuzzFeed, the online media platform, had about fifty six
7:09
Speaker 1: million in cash and cash equivalence at the end of
7:12
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, the majority of which was held at
7:15
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley Bank. So you have a lot of big
7:18
Speaker 1: players with huge amounts of money. Now, these players chose
7:22
Speaker 1: to deposit it knowing what the FDIC limits were. They
7:26
Speaker 1: didn't seek to ensure it, they didn't seek to find
7:29
Speaker 1: any other way to protect it. They counted on number
7:33
Speaker 1: one that they believe Silicon Valley Bank was too big
7:36
Speaker 1: to fail. But number two what happened is the White
7:40
Speaker 1: House very quickly responded to Democrat politicians and tech firms
7:45
Speaker 1: and VC firms expressing dismay, and the Biden administration said,
7:52
Speaker 1: you know what, We're going to guarantee every deposit doesn't
7:56
Speaker 1: matter how big that was. Any way, you look at
8:00
Speaker 1: it a massive bailout, and it was a bailout that
8:06
Speaker 1: was done, was done with no authorization from Congress. You know,
8:11
Speaker 1: you think back to the financial crisis that we saw
8:17
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. Two thousand and eight, there
8:19
Speaker 1: was a financial crisis and there was a massive bailout.
8:22
Speaker 1: And what happened there The George W. Bush administration went
8:24
Speaker 1: to Congress and they seek sought to pass what was
8:28
Speaker 1: called TARP, the Troubled Asset Recovery Program, and the first time,
8:33
Speaker 1: in fact, the House of Representatives voted it down and
8:36
Speaker 1: didn't give the Bush administration the bailouted asked for. Then
8:40
Speaker 1: ultimately it did, and actually the response to TARP prompted
8:46
Speaker 1: in significant part the Tea Party, the enormous wave of
8:51
Speaker 1: fed up voters that were very unhappy. Why rich connected
8:54
Speaker 1: bankers were getting billions in government money. It king here.
9:00
Speaker 1: The Biden administration didn't go to Congress, didn't think Congress
9:04
Speaker 1: had anything to say at all. They just announced it,
9:07
Speaker 1: we're giving away money. Why because these are Democrat donors
9:11
Speaker 1: and people we listen to, and you know what, mom
9:15
Speaker 1: and pop across this country are going to pay more.
9:17
Speaker 1: Local community banks in Texas and all across the country
9:21
Speaker 1: are going to end up paying more because the Biden
9:24
Speaker 1: administration decided to bail out Silicon Valley Bank and to
9:29
Speaker 1: ignore the FDIC cap and give unlimited guarantees on deposits. Senator,
9:36
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a question, and this really
9:38
Speaker 1: is a political one, about the money that was coming
9:42
Speaker 1: out of Silicon Valley Bank. We've now been told that
9:46
Speaker 1: apparently they had given more than seventy three million in
9:51
Speaker 1: donations to Black Lives Matter and related organizations. Before I
9:55
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Speaker 1: percent off. So you see, and you go back to
10:55
Speaker 1: what you're mentioning about how the FDIC works. Right, and
10:58
Speaker 1: you're supposed to have a limit to the first two
11:00
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand hours of your deposits in a bank.
11:03
Speaker 1: But what Biden basically said is, hey, this is a
11:05
Speaker 1: woke liberal bank, and we cover it all. Even though
11:09
Speaker 1: the people that were putting the money in the bank
11:11
Speaker 1: knew that they were overly leveraged here, that they didn't
11:15
Speaker 1: have as sound of a lending practice as many other banks,
11:19
Speaker 1: they didn't care. So are we now at the point
11:22
Speaker 1: where we have a government that says, Okay, you can
11:24
Speaker 1: act recklessly in the financial industry, specifically in banking, as
11:30
Speaker 1: long as you are in the right side of giving
11:33
Speaker 1: to democrats or to parties, We'll cover you no matter
11:36
Speaker 1: how reckless you are no matter how big you are,
11:39
Speaker 1: and as long as you're on our team and donating
11:41
Speaker 1: to things that we believe in, will get your back
11:44
Speaker 1: up to one hundred percent of all of your deposits. Look,
11:48
Speaker 1: they're an awful lot of folks. They're going to take
11:50
Speaker 1: exactly that message from this. This was an act of cronyism.
11:56
Speaker 1: It was also critically your right that Silicon Valley Bank
12:00
Speaker 1: was one of the most woke banks in America. It
12:02
Speaker 1: was very into ESG, it was very into climate change,
12:06
Speaker 1: was very into Black Lives matter, it was very into
12:08
Speaker 1: everything except apparently having a risk management process to protect
12:12
Speaker 1: its depositors deposits and in fact, stunningly, Silicon Valley Bank
12:18
Speaker 1: for a year prior to this didn't even have a
12:22
Speaker 1: chief risk management officer at a bank that's pretty damn important.
12:27
Speaker 1: They didn't have this hedged against interest rate risk. They
12:32
Speaker 1: were gambling that the FED would not raise rates, even
12:35
Speaker 1: though they'd been screaming from the mountaintops that they were
12:38
Speaker 1: going to raise rates. A bank that is being prudent
12:41
Speaker 1: can hedge its investments against interest rates rising by by
12:46
Speaker 1: investing also in counterbalancing investments that will go up when
12:50
Speaker 1: interest rates go up. They didn't do that. They were
12:53
Speaker 1: focused on on virtue signaling. They were focused on showing
12:58
Speaker 1: just how woke they are. And it's important understand also
13:03
Speaker 1: look back the bank here. These bank officers were bad actors.
13:08
Speaker 1: Let me let me tell you two data points that
13:10
Speaker 1: have been vastly underreported. Number one, hours before the bank
13:18
Speaker 1: was shut down, Silicon Valley Bank gave very substantial bonuses
13:25
Speaker 1: to all of its employees. They just began writing checks
13:30
Speaker 1: to everyone hours before they were shut down. Data point
13:36
Speaker 1: number two, in the two weeks prior to their being
13:39
Speaker 1: shut down, the CEO and the CFO sold large amounts
13:47
Speaker 1: of stock. The CEO ended up making over a two
13:50
Speaker 1: million dollar profit from selling stock less than two weeks
13:53
Speaker 1: before the bank was shut down. Both of those indicate
13:58
Speaker 1: corrupt intent. I'll tell you I had a conference call
14:04
Speaker 1: in the last forty eight hours with all one hundred
14:08
Speaker 1: senators were invited to participate, and Treasury in the FDIC
14:12
Speaker 1: was on there, and I asked, I said, look, is
14:14
Speaker 1: it true that they gave bonuses to their employees? Number one,
14:20
Speaker 1: If so, I think it is outrageous. And number two,
14:24
Speaker 1: has there been any investigation into clawing back those bonuses
14:29
Speaker 1: that because they're literally this. As far as I'm concerned,
14:32
Speaker 1: this is like Bonnie and Clyde. They're robbing the bank
14:36
Speaker 1: as they know their customers deposits are about to get
14:39
Speaker 1: blown up. And much of the media coverage has ignored
14:43
Speaker 1: the exceptionally bad conduct by the bank's officers. You look
14:49
Speaker 1: at Joe Biden and one of the things that I
14:52
Speaker 1: think is very concerning about this Biden bail out. That's
14:55
Speaker 1: what it is, we should call it. That is the
14:58
Speaker 1: question now? Is this it's a big step towards government
15:02
Speaker 1: control of the banking system. Because if the government can
15:06
Speaker 1: choose winners and losers, and those are supposed to be
15:09
Speaker 1: giving oversight of the banks are not doing it. That's
15:13
Speaker 1: another huge problem here. And many people may not understand this,
15:17
Speaker 1: and I want you to explain it for people. The
15:19
Speaker 1: San Francisco Fed was who was supposed to be supervising
15:23
Speaker 1: this bank. They either were asleep at the wheel or
15:26
Speaker 1: didn't care that they were acting this way. And if
15:31
Speaker 1: this is what the government's going to do, is this
15:33
Speaker 1: almost a play where they say, Hey, we're just going
15:36
Speaker 1: to have a United States government now that is in
15:38
Speaker 1: total control of the banking system that would be terrible
15:42
Speaker 1: for this country. Well, the banking system right now is
15:46
Speaker 1: already heavily regulated, and bank regulators are deeply involved in
15:50
Speaker 1: examining the books, and they should be involved. That there
15:53
Speaker 1: is a very important role for bank regulators to make
15:56
Speaker 1: sure that banks are being honest in our have sufficient liquidity,
16:01
Speaker 1: and are sufficiently financed. I will note that this crisis
16:05
Speaker 1: Number one was heavily encouraged by government policy, and in particular,
16:10
Speaker 1: the FED for years pursued an easy money policy of
16:14
Speaker 1: quantitative easing of virtually zero percent interest rates that was
16:18
Speaker 1: flooding the system with cash. Number two, the federal government
16:23
Speaker 1: also treated long term government debt as essentially risk free,
16:28
Speaker 1: zero risk government debt. Dodd Frank, rammed through by the Democrats,
16:33
Speaker 1: heavily encouraged banks to invest in long term government debt. Now,
16:39
Speaker 1: one thing that does is it helps finance the massive
16:42
Speaker 1: debt that the Democrats are racking up on their spending spree.
16:45
Speaker 1: They want banks incentivized to buy that debt. But Number two,
16:49
Speaker 1: that may make sense in a non inflation inflationary environment,
16:54
Speaker 1: but when inflation exploded under Joe Biden and the Fed
16:58
Speaker 1: was forced to raise rate suddenly, that long term government debt.
17:02
Speaker 1: You you had a spread there that severely reduced the
17:07
Speaker 1: value of those bonds, and it was government policies that
17:11
Speaker 1: encouraged it on the front end, but then on the
17:13
Speaker 1: back end. You were absolutely right. The regulator of Silicon
17:17
Speaker 1: Valley Bank was the San Francisco Fed. The San Francisco
17:21
Speaker 1: Fed bears an enormous amount of responsibility for what happened,
17:25
Speaker 1: because this wasn't subtle, This was out in the open,
17:28
Speaker 1: this was it was obvious. Silicon Valley Bank was not
17:32
Speaker 1: hiding from the regulators that it had massive amounts in
17:36
Speaker 1: long term government debt. The FED obviously knew that the
17:40
Speaker 1: Fed was raising interest rates, and yet this exposure, and
17:45
Speaker 1: the Fed presumably knew that this interest rate exposure was
17:51
Speaker 1: not hedged. And so you have to ask what the
17:54
Speaker 1: hell happened at the San Francisco Fed. You don't you
17:58
Speaker 1: go look at the San Francisco Fed website. They, again,
18:02
Speaker 1: like Silicon Valley Bank, have all sorts of woke things
18:05
Speaker 1: on there about ESG and climate change, in black lives
18:09
Speaker 1: matter that was their priority, but actually doing their job.
18:14
Speaker 1: It is striking that the San Francisco Fed did nothing
18:18
Speaker 1: until it was too late. Will there be any accountability
18:22
Speaker 1: for the government regulators, specifically in San Francisco on this,
18:26
Speaker 1: and is there anything that Washington can actually do to
18:30
Speaker 1: hold them accountable, Because if you basically simplify this, you
18:34
Speaker 1: pretty much had a group of wealthy speculators that got
18:36
Speaker 1: really upset that their money ended up being locked into
18:40
Speaker 1: a ten year obligation at less than a two percent return.
18:43
Speaker 1: That's how one person put it. So then they basically said,
18:45
Speaker 1: all right, we'll convince the government it was in everyone's
18:48
Speaker 1: best interest to help them out of their jam at
18:50
Speaker 1: the expense of everyone else. And the Fed, who's supposed
18:54
Speaker 1: to be looking at this, watching this bank, they just
18:57
Speaker 1: didn't do a darn thing. Well, there needs to be accountability,
19:01
Speaker 1: and I do have a high level of confidence that
19:03
Speaker 1: at a minimum, there'll be accountability in the House, that
19:05
Speaker 1: the House is going to hold the regulators to account.
19:08
Speaker 1: What what Joe Biden and the Democrats and what the
19:12
Speaker 1: corporate media are trying to do is, of course, blame
19:15
Speaker 1: it all on Trump because that's the that's their answer
19:17
Speaker 1: for everything. But if you look at who the bank
19:19
Speaker 1: regulators were that were in charge of it, it wasn't Trump.
19:22
Speaker 1: Trump's been out of office for over two years. It
19:25
Speaker 1: was the Biden administration asleep at at the wheel. And
19:30
Speaker 1: when you look at it, also look the moral hazard
19:34
Speaker 1: this will create is dangerous and it's a basic principle.
19:39
Speaker 1: When you socialize the risk and you individualize the benefits,
19:46
Speaker 1: you always get bad behavior. Silicon Valley Bank, but was
19:51
Speaker 1: behaving according to the incentives that they were getting from
19:56
Speaker 1: the Biden administration. They believe they'd be bailed out. And
19:59
Speaker 1: in particular, look at it's worth noting the bailout it
20:03
Speaker 1: is not even directed at Silicon Valley Bank, at its stockholders,
20:07
Speaker 1: that they have not been bailed out, at least not yet.
20:11
Speaker 1: The people who were bailed out were all of the
20:13
Speaker 1: depositors that had tens of millions or hundreds of millions
20:18
Speaker 1: or even billions of dollars in Silicon Valley Bank. By
20:21
Speaker 1: the way, among many of those depositors billions of dollars
20:26
Speaker 1: worth were Chinese companies. Silicon Valley Bank one of the
20:30
Speaker 1: things that specialized in was was doing banking for foreign companies,
20:35
Speaker 1: foreign investors, and so this was also a bailout of
20:38
Speaker 1: China by the Biden administration. But you know what ordinarily
20:44
Speaker 1: happens when a bank fails, and listen, we've seen banks fail.
20:46
Speaker 1: That's part of how the system operates. When the bank
20:50
Speaker 1: managers take on too much risk, the bank should fail
20:55
Speaker 1: because you don't want to incentivize. You don't want to
20:57
Speaker 1: have everyone taking on too much risk. K. But what
21:01
Speaker 1: ordinarily happens when a bank fails is number one, they
21:05
Speaker 1: try to find a private buyer, and they did try
21:08
Speaker 1: to do that over the weekend, and apparently they were
21:11
Speaker 1: unable to do so. There were several bids submitted, but
21:16
Speaker 1: the Biden FDIC refused to take any of the bids.
21:18
Speaker 1: They found the terms unacceptable. Now we don't know what
21:20
Speaker 1: those terms were. I can tell you in the call
21:23
Speaker 1: with the senators. We asked them and they didn't tell us.
21:26
Speaker 1: They didn't want people to know what the terms were.
21:28
Speaker 1: But the Biden administration turned down a private buyer that
21:32
Speaker 1: could come in and take over the bank, which is
21:34
Speaker 1: ordinarily what happens. Also, ordinarily what happens when a bank
21:39
Speaker 1: fails is that everyone's deposits up to two hundred and
21:42
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars get held completely harmless, and those are
21:47
Speaker 1: guaranteed by the FDIC and the larger deposit holders. Typically
21:51
Speaker 1: they're not blown out there. They're larger. Deposits are not
21:54
Speaker 1: typically worthless, but they usually take a haircut somewhere in
21:58
Speaker 1: the fifteen to twenty percent range. And that's what ordinarily
22:01
Speaker 1: happens when you put a whole bunch of money in
22:04
Speaker 1: one place at risk without it being insured. All of
22:08
Speaker 1: the depositors knew that, but they also knew that with
22:12
Speaker 1: their friends and the Biden administration that they could count
22:16
Speaker 1: on higher returns from Silicon Valley Bank playing fast and loose,
22:20
Speaker 1: and if things went south, I think they were confident
22:24
Speaker 1: that Democrats in Washington would have their back. Last question
22:28
Speaker 1: on this for you, Senator. They're obviously having two banks
22:31
Speaker 1: back to back collapse is going to make people uneasy.
22:35
Speaker 1: When you guys were on these calls, did anyone talk
22:38
Speaker 1: about other banks or there's still concerns that other banks
22:41
Speaker 1: may have been following and doing the same exact thing
22:44
Speaker 1: that Silicon Valley Bank was doing. Before I get that,
22:46
Speaker 1: I want to tell you real quick about our friends
22:48
Speaker 1: that gusts of precious medals. You know what's been happening
22:51
Speaker 1: in the headlines in the economy, you know what's been
22:53
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24:12
Speaker 1: banks do, in fact have hard times over the next
24:15
Speaker 1: week or two. Is the policy now officially of the
24:19
Speaker 1: Biden administration to bail out those banks ensure one hundred
24:22
Speaker 1: percent of deposits no matter what, because of the president
24:25
Speaker 1: that they just created out of thin air. So possibly,
24:30
Speaker 1: but when you look at other banks, look, there's always
24:33
Speaker 1: a risk of contagion, and that is a serious concern.
24:36
Speaker 1: It's a concern that regulators need to take seriously. It's
24:38
Speaker 1: a concerned that Congress needs to take seriously. We need
24:41
Speaker 1: our banking system to be safe and secure. There are
24:45
Speaker 1: very few off atty banks though, that are similarly situated
24:50
Speaker 1: to Silicon Valley Bank. Number one. It was almost exclusively
24:56
Speaker 1: big tech and venture capital companies that were deposits in
25:02
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley Bank. And the way Silicon Valley Bank would
25:05
Speaker 1: work is they'd they'd bank a big venture capital firm,
25:10
Speaker 1: and the VC firm would require that all their portfolio companies.
25:14
Speaker 1: So a venture capital firm is a firm that takes
25:16
Speaker 1: investments from individuals and institutions and then invest typically in
25:23
Speaker 1: the tech space early stage and startup companies, and so
25:28
Speaker 1: a VC firm could have dozens or even hundreds of
25:33
Speaker 1: tech startups that it's invested in, and many of the
25:37
Speaker 1: vcs would require every one of the tech startups that
25:40
Speaker 1: had they had to bank at Silicon Valley Bank, and
25:43
Speaker 1: so you ended up having a very high concentration. That
25:48
Speaker 1: degree of sector exposure makes a bank quite vulnerable, that
25:52
Speaker 1: it was so intertwined with tech that tech has been
25:57
Speaker 1: hard hit lately, and in particular the high interest rates.
26:01
Speaker 1: Much when you look at startups, they are often heavily
26:04
Speaker 1: funded by debt, and a startup it could often be
26:08
Speaker 1: a pretty long ramp up before they have significant revenue.
26:10
Speaker 1: And so Silicon Valley Bank had greater exposure because they
26:15
Speaker 1: were so sector concentrated in one area. Number One. Number
26:20
Speaker 1: two the fact that ninety six percent of their deposits
26:24
Speaker 1: were uninsured. That is an unusually high number that they
26:29
Speaker 1: were not their business was not having lots and lots
26:32
Speaker 1: of depositors under the FDIC insurance camp. It wasn't a
26:35
Speaker 1: lot of mom and pops. It was big firms with
26:39
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions or billions of dollars and number three.
26:43
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, they had the highest securities portfolio as
26:46
Speaker 1: a percentage of total assets of any bank, and so
26:49
Speaker 1: that they ended up with their investment strategy, they were
26:54
Speaker 1: particularly vulnerable to this interest rate risk. As I mentioned,
26:58
Speaker 1: for a year they didn't even have a risk officer.
27:01
Speaker 1: They didn't hedge significantly against this risk, and so their
27:04
Speaker 1: behavior invited this. Now there is a risk of other,
27:09
Speaker 1: particularly midsize banks, facing a run on the bank, and
27:13
Speaker 1: so we don't want that any any bank is potentially
27:16
Speaker 1: vulnerable to a run on the bank. We want people
27:19
Speaker 1: to have confidence in our banking system. But you asked
27:23
Speaker 1: about the moral hazard. Will others behave recklessly because of this?
27:27
Speaker 1: And I think the odds are are quite high now.
27:32
Speaker 1: A second element that was created is what's called a
27:36
Speaker 1: FED Emergency Lending Facility. It's also known as a thirteen
27:40
Speaker 1: three facility because that's where the authority appears in the
27:43
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve Act, in which case the Feds said they
27:48
Speaker 1: will loan money for a year to back up long
27:54
Speaker 1: term government debt, and they will value that money not
28:00
Speaker 1: its current market value, but at its original purchase price.
28:04
Speaker 1: That's yet another bailout. I mean, let's let's be clear
28:07
Speaker 1: that that is billions and billions of cash that is
28:12
Speaker 1: on the hook to go out from the FED, and
28:15
Speaker 1: it really is striking. Look, we could have a reasonable
28:19
Speaker 1: public policy debate listening to economist examining what needs to
28:23
Speaker 1: be done to ensure stability in the banking system. But
28:28
Speaker 1: the Biden administration didn't want that that that reasonable debate.
28:31
Speaker 1: It didn't want the input of Congress, it didn't want
28:33
Speaker 1: the public to have any say in it. It just
28:36
Speaker 1: wanted political cronies to make that decision. And I think
28:40
Speaker 1: that is a very dangerous dynamic. Yeah, it is concerning,
28:46
Speaker 1: and it seems like the new policy of the Biden
28:48
Speaker 1: administration is be a woke bank and support an advocat
28:51
Speaker 1: and give donations to woke ideology and we'll back you
28:55
Speaker 1: up no matter what. And if that's what they're going
28:57
Speaker 1: to do for the next two years, that's going to
28:58
Speaker 1: be very concerning. Should be an issue moving into the
29:01
Speaker 1: next presidential election, no doubt about that. I want to
29:04
Speaker 1: talk also about China and really what's happening with climate
29:09
Speaker 1: change and with regulations. There are a couple of different
29:15
Speaker 1: Biden administration clips that have emerged recently highlighting just how
29:20
Speaker 1: much the Democrats are in bed and idolizing the Chinese
29:26
Speaker 1: Communist Party. These were moments that when you hear them,
29:30
Speaker 1: you're kind of in shock because you've got the Biden
29:34
Speaker 1: administration officials who are actually saying that they think China
29:39
Speaker 1: is amazing. You have Jennifer Granholm, you also have another
29:43
Speaker 1: individual with a Biden administration and here's a montage of
29:46
Speaker 1: what they've been saying. We're hopeful that, you know, we
29:50
Speaker 1: can all learn from what China is doing. But the
29:52
Speaker 1: amount of money that they're investing in clean energy is
29:56
Speaker 1: actually you know, encouraging. This isn't about decoupling. Now, that's
30:09
Speaker 1: not the only Democrats that seem to be idolizing the
30:13
Speaker 1: Biden at ministration or excuse me, China from the Biden team,
30:17
Speaker 1: you have former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who
30:20
Speaker 1: also came out saying this about China. But here's the thing.
30:25
Speaker 1: You can't just go after China with a cudgel. You
30:28
Speaker 1: have to say, we have to live on this planet together.
30:32
Speaker 1: How can we work together to save the planet from
30:36
Speaker 1: climate change? They're essential in that discussion. How can we
30:40
Speaker 1: try to work together with them on issues where we
30:44
Speaker 1: can find common ground center China. Just so people understand this,
30:49
Speaker 1: they're one of the biggest, if not one of the biggest,
30:51
Speaker 1: polluting industrialization in the world. They don't ever play by
30:55
Speaker 1: the rules that we are that these Democrats are trying
30:57
Speaker 1: to force us to play by. And not only are
31:00
Speaker 1: the Chinese laughing at us on all of our global
31:04
Speaker 1: warming issues that are just stifling our economy and manufacturing,
31:09
Speaker 1: but they're making money off of these bad policies and
31:13
Speaker 1: polluting at record levels that we've never seen before, and
31:17
Speaker 1: now you've got Democrats praising them. You know, it really
31:21
Speaker 1: is striking that in the same week that the Biden
31:24
Speaker 1: administration does a bailout for their politically connected friends in tech,
31:31
Speaker 1: including billions of dollars of a bailout for Chinese tech
31:35
Speaker 1: companies and Chinese investors, that you have a coordinated pivot
31:41
Speaker 1: from the Democrats to embrace China. Those three clips you played,
31:45
Speaker 1: the first one was from Jennifer Granham, the Energy Secretary,
31:49
Speaker 1: the second one was from Gina Raimondo, the Commerce Secretary,
31:53
Speaker 1: and the third one was from Nancy Pelosi, the former
31:55
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House. All of them are saying almost
31:59
Speaker 1: exactly the same thing. They're all saying we've got to
32:01
Speaker 1: work with China as our partner in fighting climate change. Now,
32:07
Speaker 1: those are the talking points, and I will give Democrats credit.
32:10
Speaker 1: Democrats have incredible message discipline. The fact that you see
32:14
Speaker 1: all three of them saying almost word for word the
32:16
Speaker 1: same thing is clear. They got a message. They're sticking
32:19
Speaker 1: to it. It just so happens the message is laughably absurd.
32:24
Speaker 1: So never mind all the human rights abuses, the torture,
32:27
Speaker 1: the murder, the genocide, the concentration camps. Never mind the
32:31
Speaker 1: culpability for COVID and millions of lives lost and trillions
32:36
Speaker 1: in damage done to the global economy. Never mind the
32:41
Speaker 1: intellectual property theft that China pursues as a business as
32:46
Speaker 1: a state policy. Set all that aside, just focus on
32:50
Speaker 1: the environment. Communist China is the single biggest polluter on
32:55
Speaker 1: the face of the planet, year after year after year.
32:59
Speaker 1: It's the biggest pollution pollutor on the face of the planet.
33:01
Speaker 1: But wait, pen, you might say, Nancy Pelosi just says
33:05
Speaker 1: they're doing great things on the environment. Let me read
33:09
Speaker 1: you an amazing statistic. China right now is in the
33:14
Speaker 1: process of building more new coal capacity than all of
33:21
Speaker 1: the existing US coal plants combined. I want you to
33:27
Speaker 1: pause and think about that for a second. So US
33:30
Speaker 1: capacity right now, we have one hundred and ninety eight
33:35
Speaker 1: gigawatts of coal fired electricity generation capacity. That's of the
33:41
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty two, one hundred and ninety eight gigawatts.
33:45
Speaker 1: How much do you think China is building, has planned,
33:48
Speaker 1: and is building right now, No clue. So it has
33:52
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifteen gigawatts under construction, and it has
33:57
Speaker 1: another two hundred and fifty gigawatts plant and so all told,
34:02
Speaker 1: that is three hundred and sixty five It is nearly
34:05
Speaker 1: double the current US capacity. That's what they are building
34:11
Speaker 1: and planning right now. And these plants are designed to
34:15
Speaker 1: last forty years or longer. And so to watch the
34:19
Speaker 1: Democrats pivot in, Look, this has nothing to do with
34:22
Speaker 1: the environment. We've talked before about how today's Democrat party
34:26
Speaker 1: is structurally pro China. Why because they're major stakeholders, big tech,
34:32
Speaker 1: big business, big university's, big Hollywood, all of them are
34:36
Speaker 1: in bed with China. And so when you have Pelosi
34:40
Speaker 1: in the Democrats reading the CCP's talking points about how
34:44
Speaker 1: great they are on the environment, it is both deeply
34:49
Speaker 1: dishonest and laughably absurd. One other thing on China. You
34:53
Speaker 1: look at this moment and in history, I think this
34:57
Speaker 1: is going to go down as an extremely pivotal moment
34:59
Speaker 1: because it's not just this administration basically fan boing over
35:04
Speaker 1: China and rewriting history of what China's doing on climate change,
35:09
Speaker 1: but they're also allowing for China to really take advantage
35:14
Speaker 1: of what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. You can bine
35:18
Speaker 1: these two things together on top of what they're doing
35:20
Speaker 1: with TikTok and spying, and what they've been able to
35:24
Speaker 1: do with just stealing anything they can get their hands
35:27
Speaker 1: on through hacking in this country and stealing trade secrets.
35:30
Speaker 1: The list goes on and on. Before we go through that,
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Speaker 1: Patriotmobile dot com slash verdict now center. This administration so
36:42
Speaker 1: far and correct me if I'm wrong, has still to
36:45
Speaker 1: date not one time stood up to China on any
36:49
Speaker 1: significant issue. I would even say probably any basic issue.
36:55
Speaker 1: What is the reasoning behind them being so obsessed with
36:58
Speaker 1: allowing China to just continue to grow, do whatever they
37:01
Speaker 1: want to do and putting American second to China in
37:05
Speaker 1: this policy? Well, Number one that's been Joe Biden's policy
37:08
Speaker 1: his entire life. He has been an advocate on behalf
37:13
Speaker 1: of China for decades. If you remember the video of
37:16
Speaker 1: him saying, come on man, China's our friend, Come on man.
37:21
Speaker 1: He has been arguing that for a long time. Number two,
37:24
Speaker 1: by the way, he's also been perfectly happy to be
37:28
Speaker 1: personally enriched and for his family to be personally enriched, because,
37:32
Speaker 1: as we've talked about at length on this podcast, Hunter
37:34
Speaker 1: Biden made millions of dollars monetizing his father's political connections,
37:40
Speaker 1: and that included, as we know from the Hunter Biden laptop,
37:43
Speaker 1: ten percent for the big guy, for Joe Biden himself.
37:46
Speaker 1: So he's had a personal financial stake in doing business
37:49
Speaker 1: with China for a long time. But number three is
37:53
Speaker 1: the structural reality of the Democrat Party today. They're not
37:57
Speaker 1: willing to stand up to China because the people who
38:01
Speaker 1: fund them depend upon China. The people who form the
38:06
Speaker 1: core of the Democrat Party today are deeply intertwined with China,
38:10
Speaker 1: and actually the Silicon Valley Bank situation illustrates that perfectly.
38:16
Speaker 1: Biden was all too eager to bail out his buddies
38:20
Speaker 1: in tech, but in doing so, he's providing billions and
38:24
Speaker 1: bailouts for China as well, and that's because the two
38:29
Speaker 1: are deeply intertwined. I'll point out on top of that,
38:34
Speaker 1: if you say, well, we'll wait a second. You know,
38:37
Speaker 1: isn't that an exaggeration. In the last Congress, I forced
38:43
Speaker 1: to vote on the Senate floor on my amendment that
38:49
Speaker 1: said the federal government should be prohibited from buying electric
38:52
Speaker 1: vehicles or batteries manufactured using slave labor in concentration camps
38:59
Speaker 1: and China. You would think this would be an easy vote.
39:02
Speaker 1: You would think this would be one hundred and nothing.
39:05
Speaker 1: Every single Democrat except one, Every Democrat except Joe Mansion
39:09
Speaker 1: voted no. And that is a structural dynamic of how
39:15
Speaker 1: today's Democrat Party is organized. Yeah, it's certainly not looking
39:19
Speaker 1: out for the American people first and foremost, and we're
39:21
Speaker 1: seeing that. Whether it's the bank, whether it's China, whether
39:23
Speaker 1: it's climate change. The list goes on and on. Senator,
39:26
Speaker 1: Always a pleasure. Don't forget if you're listening. We do
39:28
Speaker 1: this show three days a week, so make sure you
39:30
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39:33
Speaker 1: you get each and every episode. When we're dealing with
39:36
Speaker 1: what's really happening in Washington, with what's happening with the
39:39
Speaker 1: banks right now. You won't get this anywhere else, so
39:41
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39:57
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