Postcards - What Killed SVB Capital?, May 15

Not even the CEO Seems to Know

The former CEO of the morally bankrupt banking giant SVB Financial, Greg Becker, says that the modern-record pace of Fed rate hikes and Twitter (sure, why not)… is why his bank went belly up in March.

In a statement to Congress on Tuesday, Becker says:

“The messaging from the Federal Reserve was that interest rates would remain low and that the inflation that was starting to bubble up would only be ‘transitory. Indeed, between the start of 2020 and the end of 2021, banks collectively purchased nearly $2.3 trillion of investment securities in this low-yield environment created by the Federal Reserve.”

The statement also includes sentiment around the impact of Twitter and social panic fueling runs on deposits. It’s certainly clear that this was the first major banking crisis that featured mass social media – which could spread fear and panic at a faster pace than most other media of the past.

But this bank failed. Even if the run on the bank didn’t start, the numbers showed an institution o…