Merit issue: Just one guy on the failed Silicon Valley Bank's board knew anything about investment banking

American Thinker ^ | 03/15/2023 | Monica Showalter

[SeekAndFind]

Before its collapse Friday, wokesterism surrounded Silicon Valley Bank like a miasma.

The wokesterly attentiveness didn't per se destroy that mid-sized bank, given that most banks play these games and the big ones are very loud about it.

As I noted earlier, Johns Hopkins University professor of economics, Steve Hanke, put his finger on the problem more precisely in an email:

[T]he real SVB issue was terrible banking and risk management that resulted in a massive duration mismatch between SVB's liabilities (read: deposits) and its assets (read: long-dated bonds). The mismatch was stupidly not hedged. SVB was a poorly run bank, a disaster waiting to happen. Any regulator worth his salt should have seen this coming long ago.

Apparently, they didn't know how to run a bank. They failed to understand their unique risk profile, they failed to plan for it through hedging their risk, which could have been done, and they failed to even hire a risk manager for most of 2022. They just did woke stuff, virtue-signaling for the political crowd, and donated to Democrats.

 

Now it comes to light from the Daily Mail that they really didn't know much about banking at all:

 

Just one member of Silicon Valley Bank's board of directors had a career in investment banking, while the others were major Democratic donors, it has been revealed.

Tom King, 63, was appointed to the board in September after previously serving as the CEO of investment banking at Barclay's. He has had 35 years of experience in investment banking.

[Billthedrill]

Just one member of Silicon Valley Bank's board of directors had a career in investment banking, while the others were... a former Obama administration employee, a prolific contributor to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and even a Hillary Clinton mega-donor

The ever-prescient Ayn Rand called this the Aristocracy Of Pull. Its members are far more skilled in plundering the system than in running it, and here's why:

They do it, of course, on the disturbing premise that they can always get Joe Biden to sign off on a bailout for them.

Sweet, risk-free deal if you can get it.

[bobbo666]

Take a look at BeijingBiden’s cabinet. You do not need to know which one holds which office. You can readily tell that none of them is qualified for anything, except chair warming. All, at best, tokens.

[unlearner]

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are really distraction, excuses, and incompetence.

This is what you get with wokism.

Wokism, like its sister Communism, is a religion. Today, we have a government-established religion being forced upon us.

A minimalistic federal government does not need to get involved in spreading religion or doing religious functions such as charity. When people are not burdened with massive taxes (whether hidden or not) they are better equipped to support charitable causes while scrutinizing how the money is being handled.

[rollin]

There is a vast difference between investment banking and banking. If you don’t know the difference between them, you probably voted Democratic.