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The funniest thing about this weekend was watching Jason Calacanis descend into what appears to be some sort of religious paroxysm, speaking in tongues, screami

The funniest thing about this weekend was watching Jason Calacanis descend into what appears to be some sort of religious paroxysm, speaking in tongues, screaming at the sky about the ruinous portends he read in his tea leaves, gnashing his teeth and rending his garments. Now that the blood prophecy of 100,000 americans doing a universal bank run has not come to pass, he’s positioned himself as a messiah that tweeted us all back into god’s good graces.

twblalock 4y ago
> Now that the blood prophecy of 100,000 americans doing a universal bank run has not come to pass, he’s positioned himself as a messiah that tweeted us all back into god’s good graces. Without the government's actions over the weekend, bank runs probably would have happened, and they still might.
- processeseses 4y ago
  Yes and it's in the fed's playbook to secure as much of the deposits as they can as quick as they can. This is exactly what they did and that's something that can take a few days. None of these tweets did anything to change that.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    This is not part of the normal playbook. If it was, it would not involve special announcements and a speech by the President. The normal playbook for this happens multiple times per year at small regional banks and it barely registers on the news. This is special. The government did what the VCs recommended. Maybe not because of the tweets, but it still happened because what the VCs recommended was actually the right thing for the government to be doing! The systemic risk identified by the VCs is real!
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      Why are you attributing this action to VCs grandstanding on social media, rather than, you know, government regulators and private analysts doing their job? That's just being distracted by the dog and pony show.
      - twblalock 4y ago
        > Why are you attributing this action to VCs grandstanding on social media I'm not attributing it to that. I'm merely pointing out that the government is doing what the VCs were calling for, because it was clearly the correct move. VCs ask the government to do a thing and people mock them and say it's a crazy thing to do. Then the government does that thing (whether or not they did it because VCs wanted it is entirely immaterial to my point) and you don't see the same people saying the government was doing a crazy thing.
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        Personally, I don't even know if the VCs were asking for such a crazy thing, but the way VCs like Calacanis went about asking for it were certainly unhinged and histrionic, undignified and deeply revealing, which is what TFA is all about. It was a "mask off" moment.
        twblalock 4y ago
        As far as I can tell Calacanis was just using all caps, and he was warning about a real risk that probably would have caused more banks to fail as early this morning, which is hardly insanity.
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        He was going about it in a manic way, and certainly while this observation into social behavior is in the eye of the beholder, it is hardly uncontroversial to label tweeting in full caps as off-putting alarmist behavior.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - wil421 4y ago
      The last bank that was taken over by the FDIC was Almena State Bank in 2020 that had 65 million in assets. This does not play out regularly.
      - xboxnolifes 4y ago
        Then again the year prior, and again 2 years prior, and again every year back for over a decade. 500 times over a decade is not a rare occurrence.
        wil421 4y ago
        I will fact check your baseless claim. Since 2013 there have been 71 banks fail according to the FDIC's bank failures in brief Infograph. Those 71 banks had assets totaling 23,399.20 million (or 23 billion). SVB had asses totaling 209,000 million (209 billion).[1] Where are the 500 banks again and again every year over the last decade? [1]https://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/bank/ https://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/bank/
        xboxnolifes 4y ago
        I didn't say this decade. 2009-2019. No need to add the innocent "where are these 500 banks", they are literally in your source.
- kneebonian 4y ago
  Why shouldn't they. The fact that there were no serious or lasting consequences after 2008 and bailouts made the message clear. "Act poorly and if you are big enough/connected enough, we'll make sure you don't face consequences." The effects may have hurt some people, even some innocent people, but the long term effects of not holding people responsible is far worse society in the long run. If a child is never allowed to face the consequences of their actions they will never learn.
  - cm2012 4y ago
    The equity holders in SVB were wiped out, they faced consequences. No reason for deposit holders to.
    - kneebonian 4y ago
      Why? If you have more than the insured $250k in there you knew that was a possibility. Sure it sucks, but life is unfair, and now other people have to make up the cost.
      - initplus 4y ago
        The government wants it to not be a possibility. Bank accounts are meant to look safe. If government didn’t make it clear they were stepping in here, what do you think would have happened first thing Monday morning? Every small/medium business would have seen the writing on the wall and moved their funds out of small/medium banks and into the handful of “too big to fail” megabanks. Stepping in and making up the cost prevents contagion. The 250k limit is somewhat of a red herring. If every depositor split their funds up to stay under the 250k limit, it doesn’t actually change the overall risk profile for the FDIC.
        orwin 4y ago
        But only few banks offer the same rates as SVB did. So you can get that risk-free extra 2% on your deposit up to 250k, or up to hundreds of millions, and the government will just pay in fine. That opens up new area of business imho.
- braingenious 4y ago
  In case anybody missed it, I’m talking about how the dude went full Zarathustra in the agora. https://twitter.com/jason/status/1634771851514900480 https://twitter.com/jason/status/1634771851514900480 It did lead me to a really interesting article about audience capture and how it twists “influencers” into saying and doing outlandish things though! https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capt...
  - huevosabio 4y ago
    Oh man thank you for that substack! I have been noticing this for a while without putting it in clear writing, and I'm glad someone did!
elevenoh 4y ago
[dead]
misssocrates 4y ago
It would have been worse than that by Y Combinator's estimation. 100,000 only gets into the number of small business and startup jobs that would have been affected. > In the Y Combinator community, one-third of startups with exposure to SVB used SVB as their sole bank account. As a result, they will fail to have the cash to run payroll in the next 30 days. By that measure, we can estimate that payroll-related furlough or shutdown will impact more than 10,000 small businesses and startups. If the average small business or startup employs 10 workers, this will have an immediate effect of furlough, layoff, or shutdown, affecting over 100,000 jobs in the most vibrant sector of innovation in our economy. https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/urgent-sign-the-petition-now-thousands-of-startups-and-hundreds-of-thousands-of-startup-jobs-are-at-risk https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/urgent-sign-the-petition-no...
- majormajor 4y ago
  I wonder if that extrapolation (going from 1/3 of YC startups that used SVB only used SVB to the 37,000 total small businesses/startups that use SVB) is anything close to accurate.
- LiquidSky 4y ago
  I do like that the same people who in the last few months have cut 10s of 1000s of jobs with nary a word, or responded to criticism of such with essentially "it's business, cry more", are now suddenly deeply, deeply concerned about the welfare of their employees and golly gee whiz just want to be able to make payroll to help them!

twblalock 4y ago

> Now that the blood prophecy of 100,000 americans doing a universal bank run has not come to pass, he’s positioned himself as a messiah that tweeted us all back into god’s good graces. Without the government's actions over the weekend, bank runs probably would have happened, and they still might.

processeseses 4y ago
Yes and it's in the fed's playbook to secure as much of the deposits as they can as quick as they can. This is exactly what they did and that's something that can take a few days. None of these tweets did anything to change that.
- twblalock 4y ago
  This is not part of the normal playbook. If it was, it would not involve special announcements and a speech by the President. The normal playbook for this happens multiple times per year at small regional banks and it barely registers on the news. This is special. The government did what the VCs recommended. Maybe not because of the tweets, but it still happened because what the VCs recommended was actually the right thing for the government to be doing! The systemic risk identified by the VCs is real!
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Why are you attributing this action to VCs grandstanding on social media, rather than, you know, government regulators and private analysts doing their job? That's just being distracted by the dog and pony show.
    - twblalock 4y ago
      > Why are you attributing this action to VCs grandstanding on social media I'm not attributing it to that. I'm merely pointing out that the government is doing what the VCs were calling for, because it was clearly the correct move. VCs ask the government to do a thing and people mock them and say it's a crazy thing to do. Then the government does that thing (whether or not they did it because VCs wanted it is entirely immaterial to my point) and you don't see the same people saying the government was doing a crazy thing.
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        Personally, I don't even know if the VCs were asking for such a crazy thing, but the way VCs like Calacanis went about asking for it were certainly unhinged and histrionic, undignified and deeply revealing, which is what TFA is all about. It was a "mask off" moment.
        twblalock 4y ago
        As far as I can tell Calacanis was just using all caps, and he was warning about a real risk that probably would have caused more banks to fail as early this morning, which is hardly insanity.
        Apocryphon 4y ago
        He was going about it in a manic way, and certainly while this observation into social behavior is in the eye of the beholder, it is hardly uncontroversial to label tweeting in full caps as off-putting alarmist behavior.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - wil421 4y ago
    The last bank that was taken over by the FDIC was Almena State Bank in 2020 that had 65 million in assets. This does not play out regularly.
    - xboxnolifes 4y ago
      Then again the year prior, and again 2 years prior, and again every year back for over a decade. 500 times over a decade is not a rare occurrence.
      - wil421 4y ago
        I will fact check your baseless claim. Since 2013 there have been 71 banks fail according to the FDIC's bank failures in brief Infograph. Those 71 banks had assets totaling 23,399.20 million (or 23 billion). SVB had asses totaling 209,000 million (209 billion).[1] Where are the 500 banks again and again every year over the last decade? [1]https://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/bank/ https://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/bank/
        xboxnolifes 4y ago
        I didn't say this decade. 2009-2019. No need to add the innocent "where are these 500 banks", they are literally in your source.
kneebonian 4y ago
Why shouldn't they. The fact that there were no serious or lasting consequences after 2008 and bailouts made the message clear. "Act poorly and if you are big enough/connected enough, we'll make sure you don't face consequences." The effects may have hurt some people, even some innocent people, but the long term effects of not holding people responsible is far worse society in the long run. If a child is never allowed to face the consequences of their actions they will never learn.
- cm2012 4y ago
  The equity holders in SVB were wiped out, they faced consequences. No reason for deposit holders to.
  - kneebonian 4y ago
    Why? If you have more than the insured $250k in there you knew that was a possibility. Sure it sucks, but life is unfair, and now other people have to make up the cost.
    - initplus 4y ago
      The government wants it to not be a possibility. Bank accounts are meant to look safe. If government didn’t make it clear they were stepping in here, what do you think would have happened first thing Monday morning? Every small/medium business would have seen the writing on the wall and moved their funds out of small/medium banks and into the handful of “too big to fail” megabanks. Stepping in and making up the cost prevents contagion. The 250k limit is somewhat of a red herring. If every depositor split their funds up to stay under the 250k limit, it doesn’t actually change the overall risk profile for the FDIC.
      - orwin 4y ago
        But only few banks offer the same rates as SVB did. So you can get that risk-free extra 2% on your deposit up to 250k, or up to hundreds of millions, and the government will just pay in fine. That opens up new area of business imho.
braingenious 4y ago
In case anybody missed it, I’m talking about how the dude went full Zarathustra in the agora. https://twitter.com/jason/status/1634771851514900480 https://twitter.com/jason/status/1634771851514900480 It did lead me to a really interesting article about audience capture and how it twists “influencers” into saying and doing outlandish things though! https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capt...
- huevosabio 4y ago
  Oh man thank you for that substack! I have been noticing this for a while without putting it in clear writing, and I'm glad someone did!

elevenoh 4y ago

[dead]

misssocrates 4y ago

It would have been worse than that by Y Combinator's estimation. 100,000 only gets into the number of small business and startup jobs that would have been affected. > In the Y Combinator community, one-third of startups with exposure to SVB used SVB as their sole bank account. As a result, they will fail to have the cash to run payroll in the next 30 days. By that measure, we can estimate that payroll-related furlough or shutdown will impact more than 10,000 small businesses and startups. If the average small business or startup employs 10 workers, this will have an immediate effect of furlough, layoff, or shutdown, affecting over 100,000 jobs in the most vibrant sector of innovation in our economy. https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/urgent-sign-the-petition-now-thousands-of-startups-and-hundreds-of-thousands-of-startup-jobs-are-at-risk https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/urgent-sign-the-petition-no...

majormajor 4y ago
I wonder if that extrapolation (going from 1/3 of YC startups that used SVB only used SVB to the 37,000 total small businesses/startups that use SVB) is anything close to accurate.
LiquidSky 4y ago
I do like that the same people who in the last few months have cut 10s of 1000s of jobs with nary a word, or responded to criticism of such with essentially "it's business, cry more", are now suddenly deeply, deeply concerned about the welfare of their employees and golly gee whiz just want to be able to make payroll to help them!