Bankers, Bailouts, & Dems... Oh my!!!
US authorities are working with their Swiss counterparts as they seek to hammer out a deal for UBS Group AG to buy all or part of its struggling rival Credit Suisse Group AG, according to people familiar with the matter.
A tie-up between the two banks would be of interest to Washington regulators because both lenders have operations in the US and are considered systemically important in Switzerland. American officials may seek to weigh in on matters that could impact final terms of any deal, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the confidential conversations.
- US Authorities Engaged on Possible Credit Suisse-UBS Deal, Bloomberg
By Gregg Wall (3-18-2023)
Oh my.
Another weekend, more backroom deals w/ zero transparency, more welfare for bankers & the wealthy… zero rush to resolve banking monopolies, systemic risk, endemic corruption, moral hazard, & massive structural defects in the globalization, neoliberal economy.
Moral hazard is the primary business model of all banksters (regional and larger) and ultra-wealthy libertarians. In short, do as you please and let the public pay the consequences… something about privatized gains and socialized bailouts?
The bailouts are all handled by – unaccountable, unelected - bankers, centrals banks, crooks, lobbyists, and regulators now. To wit, bank lending facilities, QE, and more entitlements and welfare for a privileged few. The politicians are all hiding under their desks. Congress and legislative bodies have abdicated once again to central bankers & captured regulators. Except those very few politicians who assure us: yet another massive bank bailout is not a massive bank bailout.
And to think just a couple of weeks ago, Wall St was all a buzz that the US economy was headed for a ‘soft landing.’ Soft landing is code for the FED would pivot to free money, essentially juicing markets, and asset classes of the privileged and powerful. The birds would sing, and free money welfare would resume raining down like manna from the heavens, or the Federal Reserve. This most recent bailout, not unlike 2008 and 2020, will mean not a hard or soft landing for bankers, billionaires, and politicians, but instead, a socialist landing for the exceptionally wealthy… funded by taxpayers, funded by austerity, cuts to public spending, and the continued nation-state credit line looting.
The libertarians are all quiet now. Just like there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no chest-beating libertarians when another entirely predictable financial crisis hits, and the venture capitalists are all crying for more WELFARE. But who am I kidding, there’s no crying by the billionaire set, the bailouts and welfare for the kleptocracy are on auto pilot. And to think the United States and the West defeated the Soviet Union some thirty odd years ago to see American boardrooms & C-suites addicted to and clamoring for an endless river of corporate & multinational entitlements.
Talk about your communists… they’re all here in American boardrooms and executive suites.
It's also one of the great ironies of this age, that labor, mom & pop investors, and pensioners are always used as the excuse for another bailout, greater expansion of the national debt, and yet another wealth transfer scheme. But once the smoke clears and the dust settles, nobody says a word when banks, billionaires, multinational, and monopolies inevitably cut heads, cut labor, eliminate pensions, gouge consumers (aka labor), offshore the economy, tighten their grip on expense… all in the name of buybacks, dividends, and shareholder value.
It's all a lie, just like the fiscally & morally bankrupt free trade, neoliberal economy… which is often little more than a wealth transfer scheme, the banks and the stock market often playing a key role in laundering public/taxpayer money. Which is why decision making takes not even days, but hours to bailout large banks (preferably over a weekend), while months and months are spent debating BBB, student debt, and any social spending for essential citizens, essential labor. And always, seemingly, with the same result: no más, no más!
Of course, all these bank bailouts, endless wars, and socialism for libertarian billionaires wreaks havoc with the national debt… and this debt, in turn, is used as an excuse to demand austerity, as well as, cuts to public & social services.
Don’t look now but the citizens are growing angry and upset at having to bear a morally bankrupt economic model – failed libertarianism - and the weight of a bloated & corpulent billionaire, political class upon their backs.
And key catalysts for the latest banking crisis, so far… aside from deregulation, a day trading congress, failed laissez faire, massive structural defects, systemic corruption, TBTF, and a banking system that maintains moral hazard for its foundation… well, that would be the banks themselves (making billions and billions gouging consumers and sending commodities soaring). That’s right. The banks, combined with a do-nothing congress that refuses to rein in any business interest that pays them… the banks… played a key role (via greed & commodities speculation) in killing the free money gravy train from central banks and the Federal Reserve. In order to fight inflation/price gouging, and since congress is entirely incompetent & refuses to rein in monopolistic pricing power, the FED had to raise interest rates. Banks, in turn, who thought the FED would back down, or banks that no longer practiced risk management – or banks that simply set their banks alight, deliberately(?) – have collapsed or will struggle, depending on how much welfare the FED ultimately provides. The entire financial system, including private equity and shadow banking, is addicted to easy money welfare, provided by their pusher, central banks.
(A crisis is a terrible thing to waste, which is why central banks rush in and paper over banking crisis after banking crisis with trillions & trillions, to prop up the kleptocracy's house of cards. The American people are little more than collateral damage and roadkill, just like Ukrainians, to the great evil that runs this country.)
And that’s possibly the greatest crime of the 2008 financial crisis, aside from the bailouts themselves, the free money regime… an ocean of free money that spawned cartel, consolidation, endemic Washington corruption, gross wage & wealth inequality, M&A, monopoly, and the resulting price gouging we see today.
And as for bankers and billionaires deliberately sabotaging their own banks, the economy… in the name of greed, to make a fortune gambling against a specific bank or the U.S. banking system… it’s really not that hard to imagine (especially if you’re a libertarian billionaire, perhaps, with a grudge against the Federal Reserve and you have a vested interest in crypto). Or perhaps the aim of blowing up and taking down SVB was merely to create panic and push the FED to pivot? There are any number of possible motivations, including political.
No, when cruelty and lying are standard operating procedure in American boardrooms, C-suites, and government … it’s not hard to imagine at all.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023
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