Silicone Valley Bank crashed Saturday with $212 billion in assets. It’s the second-largest bank failure in history. This prompted Cocaine Bear, I mean Donald Trump Jr, to tweet, “I don’t remember banks collapsing under Trump.”

Seaway Bank and Trust Company, Proficio Bank, First NBC Bank, Guaranty Bank, Fayette County Bank, The Farmers and Merchants State Bank of Argonia, Washington Federal Bank for Savings, The Enloe State Bank, Louisa Community Bank, Resolute Bank, City National Bank of New Jersey, Ericson State Bank, The First State Bank, First City Bank of Florida, Almena State Bank all collapsed during the Trump administration. In case you’re counting, that’s 15 banks that collapsed during the Trump administration. Just because Sniffles Jr doesn’t remember something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Ten years from now and he won’t remember dating Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, “They give money to Silicon Valley Bank. They give money to Ukraine. But no money for East Palestine.” MTG’s received a bailout of over $183,504 which she didn’t refuse. And why should taxpayers pay for a corporation’s fuck up in East Palestine? The government paying to clean up the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio would be a taxpayer-paid bailout for a corporation. Norfolk Southern is a huge campaign contributor to Republicans.

On Sunday, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC announced they were taking “decisive actions” to protect the economy and shore up confidence in the banking system. This is so there isn’t a panic and everyone in the nation pulls their money out of their banks, which is what happened to SVB. This is a bailout but it’s not a taxpayer bailout like the one we saw in 2008.

SVB is not going to be revived and lenders and shareholders won’t be getting any government money. But depositors will be paid back from a fund that banks pay into called the “Depositors Insurance Fund.”

Conservatives are blaming the bank’s collapse on…wait for it…”wokeism.” Wait, what? Seriously? Yes, seriously. It’s because the bank hired gay bank tellers and trans security guards. No, really, they blame investments that promote environmental and social goals and SVB’s commitment to diversity and equity programs. The reason conservatives hate SVB so much is that it was a bank used by the tech industry, which of course they believe discriminates against them. For them, it’s an easy target if you don’t look at the details.

And yes, Trump’s deregulation of the banking industry is a contributing factor in SVB’s collapse.

President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 which was designed to prevent another collapse like the one we saw in 2018. Dodd-Frank mandated stricter capital and liquidity standards for institutions with $50 billion in assets. Trump’s rewrite raised the minimum to $250 billion in assets.

SVB’s CEO was a huge supporter to raise that minimum and at the time, SVG had less than $50 billion in assets. When SVB crashed last week, it had $212 billion.

If Republicans want to scream and hootin’ and hollerin’ (I’m in Tennesse) about the bank’s collapse, then they need to scream at themselves.

You can’t keep deregulating banks and railroads and then wonder why they crash…or blame wokeism.

Creative note: This cartoon was drawn at a Starbucks in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. I wrote the blog back in my hotel room.

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