If You're Giving Away Bailouts, I'll Take One, Please

on Mar 18, 2023

So, let me make a modest proposal: I will accept an infusion of liquidity to the tune of $100,000 -- half the cost of one of the 300 wine events that a bank held in a year to persuade people to come borrow its money.

Now, you may balk at my proposal, thinking it's more important to allow bankers to continue to take their tech bro clients to race fancy sports cars.

Or maybe you think that, instead of helping me, the federal government should focus, despite the FDIC's "legal limit" of $250,000, on protecting the deposits of companies that kept $487 million, or a quarter of all their cash, undiversified, in one bank.

In response, I argue that it's a lot like corporate welfare to throw billions at banks that looked with benevolence upon their wealthy customers' harebrained startups, giving them chance after chance to make good, then cushioning their falls when the failure had been made clear.

I would suggest that preventing me, a regular person, from suffering a fiscal reckoning would be far less of a priority for the federal government and financial sector, the effect on me and my family be damned.

I might even go so far as to guess that if an average Joe Schmo went to his bank and said, "I've made some poor investments and can't pay my mortgage anymore," he would be treated with a coldness that would put an unheated California mountain ski lodge to shame.

In short, I'm sure there are some complex financial inner workings that I, a regular person who has never been flown to a human-made surf ranch at my banker's expense, do not understand.

But, frankly, I won't do anything dumber with the money than these banks did.

Think of it, if you like, as an investment.

========

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.