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The failure of SVB may be evidence that even the most well-connected, most tech-savvy bankers do not understand the monetary system. It appears that they naive
by jongjong 4y ago
The failure of SVB may be evidence that even the most well-connected, most tech-savvy bankers do not understand the monetary system.
It appears that they naively believed that if they converted $1 of today-money into $1 worth of today-bonds that those bonds would always be worth at least $1 nominally since bonds yield interest and the $1 principal is returned to the bond-holder once it reaches maturity... It seems that they couldn't imagine how a bond which costs $1 and yields $1 + interest could be worth less than $1?
It appears that they failed to understand that $1 in today-money is not necessarily worth the same as $1 in tomorrow-money (or especially 10-years-in-the-future-money). If you look at history over the past 50 years or so, tomorrow-money has always and predictably been worth less than today-money. So it's a gross oversight.
I didn't study economics, finance or business and I'm basically a dumb pleb scraping by the bottom rung of society, yet even I knew that.
That's why I often get caught up in conspiracy theories. It's hard for me to believe that these wealthy, highly educated people don't know this stuff. I tend to think that a lot of such things are malicious and intentional because I believe that the elites are intelligent. But then I think, why would these people risk going to jail over a scheme when they are already well off regardless? Are they compromised individuals being extorted for over a decade straight with the intention to basically run the company into the ground (for the benefit of third parties) and then be the fall guy? Hmmm seems very far fetched...
- MrMan 4y agoby tech savvy do you mean javascript?
- jongjong 4y agoI mean understanding of tech systems.
- fires10 4y agoI am often of the opinion many technical people can't bring abstract ideas across domains. I have seen people recognize things in context and ignore the same idea in another one. They loose sight of the details when looking to high up or looking at reports instead of building the reports themselves.
- mathattack 4y agoThese aren’t engineers running the bank. It was always Finance people. They understood the concept of bond duration (interest rate sensitivity). They just made a calculated bet on interest rates to goose their bonuses.
- grvdrm 4y agoIn Matt Levine’s words: they were reckless
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago[dead]