It is so easy to hate on SVB and say their depositors should be take the loss along with their shareholders and the stock market in general... but IMO you are forgetting the pain an economic shock will cause everyone.

And ignoring that stopping runs on a majority of small and medium sized banks and preventing hundreds of startups from failing all at once is pretty cheap both economically and politically versus the alternatives.

In a FAIR world, advocates of deregulation would pay the price and progressives would be rewarded. Does anyone think we live in that world.

We can debate the virtues and moral hazards all we want; the simple truth is that the companies who deposited billions in SVB were acting responsibly punishing them would only exacerbate all sorts of terrible outcomes.

SVB management made some mistakes, not huge ones, and their shareholders paid the price. That's likely the best outcome of a bad situation.

@jonahstein All true, but is this proof there are no Libertarians in foxholes?

@andanotherday There are plenty of libertarians in foxholes because who gives a shit about your religion, your politics or your sexual orientation when people are shooting at you. There are no libertarians in capitalism.

Capitalism is impossible without the rule of law and the rule of law is inconsistent with whatever the fuck individual liberty means when you operate a business that takes any non-barter payment method.