The collapses of Silvergate and Silicon Valley Bank are like icebergs calving off from the Antarctic glacier. The financial analogy to the global warming causing this collapse is the rising temperature of interest rates, which spiked last Thursday and Friday to close at 4.60 percent for the U.S. Treasury’s two-year bonds. Bank depositors meanwhile were still being paid only 0.2 percent on their deposits. That has led to a steady withdrawal of funds from banks – and a corresponding decline in commercial bank balances with the Federal Reserve.

Most media reports reflect a prayer that the bank runs will be localized, as if there is no context or environmental cause. There is general embarrassment to explain how the breakup of banks that is now gaining momentum is the result of the way that the Obama Administration bailed out the banks in 2009. Fifteen years of Quantitative Easing has re-inflated prices for packaged bank mortgages – and with them, housing prices, stock and bond prices.

The Fed’s $9 trillion of QE (not counted as part of the budget deficit) fueled an asset-price inflation that made trillions of dollars for holders of financial assets, with a generous spillover effect for the remaining members of the top Ten Percent. The cost of home ownership soared by capitalizing mortgages at falling interest rates into more highly debt-leveraged property. The U.S. economy experienced the largest bond-market boom in history as interest rates fell below 1 percent. The economy polarized between the creditor positive-net-worth class and the rest of the economy – whose analogy to environmental pollution and global warming was debt pollution.

“We’ve got strong financial institutions…Our markets are the envy of the world. They’re resilient, they’re…innovative, they’re flexible. I think we move very quickly to address situations in this country, and, as I said, our financial institutions are strong.” – Henry Paulson – 3/16/08

“I have full confidence in banking regulators to take appropriate actions in response and noted that the banking system remains resilient and regulators have effective tools to address this type of event. Let me be clear that during the financial crisis, there were investors and owners of systemic large banks that were bailed out . . . and the reforms that have been put in place means we are not going to do that again.” – Janet Yellen – 3/12/23

With the recent implosion of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the largest bank failures since 2008, I had an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. I wrote the article Is the U.S. Banking System Safe on August 3, 2008 for the Seeking Alpha website, one month before the collapse of the global financial system. It was this article, among others, that caught the attention of documentary filmmaker Steve Bannon and convinced him he needed my perspective on the financial crisis for his film Generation Zero. Of course he was pretty unknown in 2009 (not so much anymore) , and I continue to be unknown in 2023.

The quotes above by the lying deceitful Wall Street controlled Treasury Secretaries are exactly 15 years apart, but are exactly the same. Their sole job is to keep the confidence game going and to protect their real constituents – the Wall Street bankers. And just as they did fifteen years ago, the powers that be once again used taxpayer funds to bailout reckless bankers. Two hours before the only solution the Feds know – print money and shovel it to the bankers – Michael Burry explained exactly what was about to happen.

The markets for the world’s safest and most liquid assets, the government bonds issued by the U.S. and other rich countries, are coming under immense stress on Wednesday following a week of worries about the health of global banks. 

Liquidity, the capacity to trade quickly at quoted prices, has fallen sharply in two of the keystone markets, those for U.S. Treasurys and German bunds, traders said. Difficulties in trading are now spreading to many other markets, including those for derivatives that firms and traders use to lock in prices and hedge risks weeks and months ahead of time, such as options, futures and swaps. 

Signature Bank chairman Scott Shay co-hosted a “Know Your Pronouns” company seminar last October, where employees were lectured on how to properly use pronouns such as “Ze” and “Hir.”

Video of the seminar, uploaded to Signature Bank’s YouTube page in December, made the rounds on social media over the weekend after regulators took control of the bank on Sunday.

Shay delivered the seminar alongside Finn Brigham, a Manhattan-based corporate consulate on gender issues who was described as a “genderqueer trans masculine person” during the symposium, according to the New York Post.

As the failure of Silicon Valley Bank continues to send ripples through the financial sector, many are taking a deeper look into the people that were running the bank, as well as their policies.

It is difficult to determine the exact implications that SVB’s left-leaning policies and political affiliations have had on its failure, as there are likely a variety of factors that contributed to the bank’s financial troubles. However, some have criticized SVB for prioritizing political alignment over financial stability, and for potentially lending money to companies based on their political ideologies rather than their business prospects.

According to OpenSecrets.com, a nonpartisan, independent, and nonprofit research group that specializes in tracking the influence of money in American politics, seven of the top eight donors were members of the Democrat Party, including none other than Chuck Schumer.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom cheered on the Biden administration as they announced a massive bailout for the seized Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), while failing to mention that he and three of his private companies are customers there.

"The Biden Administration has acted swiftly and decisively to protect the American economy and strengthen public confidence in our banking system," Newsom said in a Sunday statement after the White House announced that day that SVB "depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13."

Netanyahu is said to have instructed several government ministers they were not allowed to take meetings in the White House until he had received a formal invitation there himself, amid a months-long snub by President Joe Biden.

Netanyahu issued the directive after receiving requests from ministers who were planning to travel to Washington, DC, Israel’s Channel 12 News reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, government members who were already on a visit to D.C. have been barred from meeting with Biden administration officials, with the exception of Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, who still maintains strong ties with the U.S. from his former role as Israel’s ambassador to the U.S.

Right-wing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was rebuffed by U.S. officials on a recent trip over remarks calling to “wipe out” the Palestinian village of Huwara, the site of a terror attack in which two Israeli brothers were killed.

Joe Biden has a long record of supporting gun control measures, including restrictions on assault weapons. On Tuesday, he again called for the banning of assault weapons.

Biden said, “I’m determined, once again, to ban assault weapons in high-capacity magazines. I led that fight to ban them in 1994. The ten years that law was in place, mass shootings went down.”

The Biden gun law of 1994 he’s referring to was controversial at the time, with advocates of gun rights arguing that it infringed on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.

Webmaster addition: Things are coming apart. The government is afraid of an awakened American people are are rushing to disarm us all!

The Justice Department is not disclosing to the public or Congress links between President Biden’s son Hunter and brother James and a corrupt Chinese government agent who doled out millions of dollars in bribes. It has scrubbed the connections from court documents and is suggesting it doesn’t have evidence clearly in its possession. 
 
In addition, the department appears to be trying to silence another disreputable partner from coming forward to tell what he knows about the Bidens' Chinese connection. 
 
In 2016, FBI counterespionage agents began collecting voluminous evidence against Chinese national Chi Ping “Patrick” Ho, who was suspected of paying off officials and their families around the world in exchange for oil rights for a China-based energy conglomerate he represented which has ties to Chinese military intelligence.   

Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan says the now-disbanded Democrat-led House Committee investigating the incident at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was a “political operation” aimed at stopping Donald Trump from running for president in 2024.

“There’s been subpoenas issued to 11 individuals, 11 American citizens who asked the government permission on an application to hold the Trump rally. The government granted it and the January 6 committee petitioned them to ask them questions about exercising their First Amendment right to assemble. And why would they subpoena me? I didn’t do anything wrong — I talked to the president. I talk to the president all the time. I just think that’s — you know where I’m at on this commission — this is all about going after President Trump. That seems obvious,” Jordan said.

“Everyone in the country sees this as a political operation. This is designed to get after President Trump. Because they don’t want him to run again,” he added.

Part of the roof at a shopping mall in Duluth, Minnesota, collapsed early Tuesday as workers were removing several inches of snow that had fallen over the weekend, authorities said.

No one was injured when the roof fell in at Miller Hill Mall about 9 a.m. Tuesday, when most of the mall’s stores were still not open. Everyone in the building at the time has been accounted for, Duluth city spokeswoman Kelli Latuska said.

The building was evacuated and is closed.

Webmaster addition: Gosh darn that human-caused global warming!

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' comments about U.S. support for Ukraine during its war with Russia have rattled the cages of establishment Republicans.

DeSantis' remarks, which came amid increasing speculation that he will enter the 2024 race for the White House, came in response to a series of questions from Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson to 2024 GOP candidates or hopefuls about their stance on the ongoing war between the two countries.

"While the U.S. has many vital national interests… becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them," DeSantis told Carlson.

A trans activist who boasted of an illegal drug scheme to distribute prescription hormone medications to children is also accused of rape by multiple victims.

Popular social media account Libs of Tiktok uncovered an instagram post from May by Eli Erlick, a trans-identified biological male, that publicly detailed the scheme to send prescription hormones to "trans youth" through a distribution network.

"There are over 20 states trying to criminalize hormone therapy, particularly for trans youth. So, my friends and I had an idea: sending out our extra prescriptions around the country. If you need hormones, I’m working with a distribution network to get you access. Everything is free, no questions asked. We have hundreds of doses of testosterone, estradiol, and spironolactone available right now. All are prescribed by doctors and unused. Each package comes with information on dosage, obtaining bloodwork, etc," Erlick wrote.

A race between the U.S. and Russia is underway to recover the debris of the drone that crashed into the Black Sea.

Russian officials announced Wednesday that operations were underway to collect the debris of the downed U.S. drone — the country has denied responsibility for the incident.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, say a Russian fighter jet clipped the U.S. drone's propeller while traveling in international airspace, causing the crash.

Tucker Carlson’s primetime show on Fox News has smashed another key barrier. A new report notes that Carlson dominated the cable news ratings on Friday night and it was not even close.

According to Mediaite, Carlson’s show was the highest-rated program in all of cable news after it brought it a whopping 3.09 million total viewers and 365,000 in the 25-54 demo.

“That audience was enough to beat out the usual top show in cable news, Fox News’s The Five, as well as beat the competition on MSNBC and CNN by miles. In total viewers, Carlson tripled the 8 p.m. competition on MSNBC and sextupled his CNN rival. In the demo, Carlson more than tripled both MSNBC and CNN,” Mediaite reported.

Last Tuesday, Carlson dominated the cable news ratings and blew away MSNBC and CNN.

In the 8 p.m. ET time slot, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” brought in a whopping 4.1 million total viewers. Fox News prime time soared to over 3 million average viewers last Tuesday night.

The disinformation service, Bloomberg, takes the lead. Bloomberg points its finger at Donald Trump and “Trump era deregulation.” In Bloomberg’s rewriting of history,  Trump is responsible because he signed a bill passed by Democrats and Republicans that allowed mid-sized banks to “skirt some of the strictest post-financial crisis regulations.” So, where was the federal reserve? Where were the bank regulators? Bloomberg doesn’t say.

Presidents don’t write financial legislation. Financial legislation that the Federal Reserve and the SEC don’t approve doesn’t get passed. A third world immigrant-invader, Ro Khanna, who somehow represents in Congress Silicon Valley says: “Congress must come together to reverse the deregulation policies that were put in place under Trump.”

What utter total bullshit.

Silicon Valley Bank failed because in 1999 the Clinton regime signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act and because the Dodd-Frank Act allows failing banks to seize the deposits of depositors in order to have a bail-in instead of a bail-out. The foolish legislation causes depositors to withdraw their deposits on any sign of bank trouble.

Yesterday evening, Seymour Hersh addressed the National Press Club in New York. The event was organized by the Committee for the Republic which kindly invited me to attend via Zoom. As expected, much of what Mr. Hersh covered was related to his latest story about the Nord Stream 2 attack including much minutia about the actual physical challenges in setting up the explosive charges to the pipelines. What Hersh laid out made the recent New York Times story about six pro-Ukrainian individuals with boxcutters a sailing yacht beyond ridiculous.

Hersch also spoke about an important CIA intelligence unit in Norway that works with Norwegian intelligence and "monitors everything" in the region. This unit would certainly have extensive information about the operations in the Baltic sea, whether they were conducted by state actors or pro-Ukrainians on a sailing boat. He pointed out that for people who understand how the executive branch operates, the most suspicious aspect of the Biden Administration's conduct is that not only did they not call for any investigation of the Nord Stream attacks, they never even asked their Norwegian intelligence assets about it. At a very minimum, the administration would have been expected to request a confidential report. According to Hersh, they never even called to ask.

The scandalous Twitter Files Lawsuit by the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government unveiled the domestic “information curation” structure of which Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi classified the “censorship-industrial complex” and “digital McCarthyism.”

Currently, several problems are being raised by House GOP members concerning an alike dishonest institute that is being operated by the United States Department of State. 

According to a report by Just The News, The Department of State is under accusations of financing nonprofits that support the suppression of disinformation.