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It's all the other banks with MBS or bonds which they hold for deposits - that have devalued due to interest rate increases. Big banks > 250 billion are requir
by oraphalous 4y ago
It's all the other banks with MBS or bonds which they hold for deposits - that have devalued due to interest rate increases. Big banks > 250 billion are required to buy swaps to protect themselves against interest rate risk. But apparently smaller banks are not? Or the regulators just don't bother to check? Either way - this means a tonne of banks like SVB which don't have enough liquid assets to match their deposits 1-1 would likely have folded over the next week as depositors commenced the mother of all runs. Now they can borrow the shortfall for a year. Thus creditors of these banks have been spared. Thus it's a bailout. Commenters here claiming the contrary are straight up wrong.
Furthermore - folks are saying not to worry about the big banks because they do have interest rate swap protection on their hold-to-maturity assets. Cept - cast your mind back to 2008. Who was providing swap protection back then? And what exactly happened to them? How do you spell AIG?
- junofan 4y agoCentral bank providing liquidity is not a bailout. It’s a central bank function.
- oraphalous 4y agoAgain - wrong. This is not a liquidity crisis. It's a solvency crisis. These banks have debts (i.e. deposits) that exceed their assets (the mbs and bonds that are now worth less than their hold to maturity value).
- basch 4y agoWhy is it a solvency crisis? The 10 year bonds, if held to maturity, cover the assets, no? It’s that they can’t offload the bonds in the current environment because there are more attractive bonds of the same duration. All of these assets and accounts have to look extremely attractive to the largest institutions that can absorb them without increasing the risk to their own books.
- oraphalous 4y agoA ten year wait till maturity is not a short term funding shortfal... lol